Fitting in to the mainstream? experiences with employment?

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I have never really been " respectably and respectfully" employed...(whatever that actually means.) AS and an overriding tendency to pursue my own internal logic, special interests and routines have made 9-5 employment an impossibility. where i have been employed for brief periods -issues such as whistle-blowing, meltdowns, feeling pressured with the stricures of externally imposed routines etc., has meant i have not lasted long.

i do work, but my special interest is now my work and i do so from home and in relative isolation.

what are others' experiences with employment?

Somebody in another thread kind of suggested that I might be a good janitor.
Sometimes our peers are our worst enimies. It doesn't seem to make any difference whether you're an NT or an Aspie as both groups have bigots.
I have a resume that's about 40 pages long and it ranges from janitor to business owner and pretty much everything in between and I think that is the key.
I don't think we need to have any specific one-time gig to work at. We need a variety of jobs to keep us occupied and so we can chose which ones we want to excell in.

In the beginning, my experiences were much the same as yours. A stint as a homeless person is what inspired me to make whatever I had going on work for me. A hitch in the military gave me the mental and emotional discipline that enabled me to make it happen. Education and determination made it all happen.

But that's just me. Judging by what I've read here on WP, I am an exception to the general rule that Aspies and Auties suffer in the "normal" workplace.

having bad workplace experiences has more to do with finding the right environment. I chose to work in retail though I have the choice just to do school till I graduate. It helped me develop weaknesses into strengths. Alot of workplaces for me are just problems with the personalities but in the end I'm always asked to move up (which I don't do because I want to have less stress when I go to school) even recently I transferred to my job like 2 weeks ago and I was asked to lead the shift's inventory control team. I declined due to school in the end you sometimes have to make things work. My initial experiences included being more socialable then I like to be.

Well, after failing to come up with a career I might like, I decided to figure out my ideal working enviroment instead. I think that's the more improtant part anyway. So I figured it out, then found something that fits.

I've been thinking for a few minutes, which is always a bad thing to be doing and I've come to the conclusion that I'm a 'professional person'. That's my ultimate career title. I enjoy life and anything that it can toss my way that is interesting be it a janitors job or a management position with some big company.
Life is a very short term deal, far to short to worry about job descriptions. I'd scrub toilets if I found it interesting enough.

well, i work now. but i have found a way of doing it completely in accordance with who i am and without much compromise of that. it means if i want to stop my work in the day i can, and then i can go and do something else, like read whatever i am desperate to research at that point.

as gary says, everything i do has to be about interest. INTENSITY and interest. if the interest is not there, i simply feel as if i cannot do it and feel as if i am dying inside.

glad to hear fnord, that you rose above your intitial difficulties. always very significant when i hear that. wonderful stuff.

Do't even get me started on 'mainstream' haha, that topic gets my mouth going like a b***h on Exctasy haha.

Work is definitely my biggest problem.

I tend to misunderstand things during training, burn out and suffer extreme stress from jobs dealing with the public, feel like I'm failing socially, and have trouble concentrating on work and then forgetting it once I get home.

My usual pattern is to force myself to do a job for as long as possible, and when I have made a few mistakes or missed a couple of days, stress about it until I make even more mistakes and can't stand to show up anymore. And I usually get way too angry at violations of various employment laws for my own good.

Does anyone posting actually have a 'real' job beside Millie and myself?

But it's a somewhat lonely existance. While my co-workers are schmoozing the customers and vendors, I'm stuck in the lab developing our next systems and testing their new products.

("Hey guys! How about sending some of that pizza back here for old Fnordie to enjoy?")

I'm their resident "Space Alien" and "Brainiac." Rarely do they think of me as a person with feelings. Just once, I'd like to get something more of a response than a vacuous stare and a limp handshake from a client or vendor.

I might imagine that your coworkers rarely think of you at all.

Sure they do!

Whenever they need a favor, or a deadline is approaching, or one of the sod-heads trying to trouble-shoot a system can't seems to tell his elbow from a hole in the ground - that's when they think of me.

Meh ... it's a regular paycheck ... beats the heck out of unemployment and homelessness.

I can understand how insignifcant you must feel about it all but remember there is always another day right around the corner.

ah fnord. that is no good. but the schmoozing is so vacuous.
i am opposite. i make a mark wherever i go - cannot fail to. ugh. i make public mistakes all over the place. refreshingly cataclysmic, shall we say.

and gary.....yeah--- the REAL jobs are the best....it's a work day right now actually!

dunno if this helps but I know personally I just transferred to my new job and basically I really didn't talk to many people. As a joke for someones birthday I showed my humorous side now I can't get people to not talk to me (some of them I don't like especially this one guy from NY that keeps seeking my approval that hes a nyer).

For those who are curious (damn I wish I had something called self respect but anyway)
it was an associates birthday so I joked with the guy I work with that he (because of jokes around the workplace) should do the mc hammer dance while I rap (because of the stereotype of all nyers thinking they can rap) so anyway the other dude backed out. So I was sitting there thinking what I could do and the coworkers friend had us sing happy birthday to her and mentioned dancing. So my manager jokingly said Brandon will dance for you so I did the mc hammer dance in the middle of the lunch room for a laugh.

I think after seeing that I'm not all serious and stuck up alot of people felt free to approach me and the coworker has been hitting on me (I'm not doing anything bout that she has alot of kids). Another girl started flirting with me over when I was going to do an encore. I jokingly responded " well whens your birthday" shes like "it passed" so I said "well we will figure something out." Since then alot of the people who never talked to me just started talking to me and recently people think alot of girls are attracted to me and ask me dating advice (they are so asking the wrong person).