The real reason why Aspies are often unemployable.

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SO this.^^^

Less than 1% of people needed the kind of people skills we're all expected to have/acquire today, back in the Agrarian/Industrial ages. People take it for granted that everybody they meet today will be a born merchant and good at relating to strangers.

I have written a blog post about this. The link is below:

https://alitanicholas.wordpress.com/201 ... il-in-him/

People assume if they can learn a skill everyone should be able to learn that skill. Once half the population is practicing the same skill, they'll demand that skill out of the rest of the population-- it's now the status quo, and EVERYONE is expected to do it or be scrutinized. The sad fact is we're moving ever more social, at an ever quicker pace. Toss in that over half the population has no specialized skills, only social skills, and you can see where this is heading...

It's not just Aspies or people with Autism.

Many countries, especially the U.S. are very very hostile to hiring anyone they perceive as having something wrong.
Management will always hire the people that best reflect them.

People don't like to hire, work, or be around people that are different from them.

Here's my employment story:
No longer surprisingly, my college education did not prepare me for a career. One big reason is because I was overwhelmed trying to pick one. I have very few interests. With a keen interest in music theory, I settled on a non-performing, non-teaching job in the music field.
I attended a 2-year community college that advertised it could help you get music-related employment. But it specialized in performing jazz musicianship. So I got little out of it. I then finished up, transferring my 2-year credits to a local 4-year college. I settled on the most basic degree. Not a bachelor of fine arts in music or music education, just a bachelor of arts.
Then I wandered out into the working world. I could only get menial jobs. One coworker said "You graduated college? What are you doing here?".
Two years after leaving college, I got very lucky. Twice, during those two years, I visited a local mom-and-pop operation that printed sheet music. I'll call them MT. They had an opening in January of 1981. It also just so happened that the boss' daughter was in my high school graduating class. I easily got the "music typist" job.
I continued to be appreciated when MT was sold to the music publishing company BM but MT was still an entity.
Then MT was sold to CPP and moved from NY to Florida. MT was no more. I relocated. Under CPP I was not recognized. I was just a cog in a wheel. This corporate fish-eat-fish process continued for two decades. We were sold and re-sold and re-sold. There was a golden age for me in this corporate world from 1989 thru 1997. My manager and the CEO appreciated me and I got some achievement awards. But then my manager and CEO moved on, and once again I felt like a nobody.
In 2000, my job morphed from inputting music notation to cleaning up pre-input notation, and only occasionally inputting. So my job was mainly cleaning up a lot of minutiae that few, if any, musicians care about. Very few people outside the music engraving (typesetting) department had a clue what my job was.
Though initially, I was very excited to do exactly what I endeavored, once I was in the mega-corporate world, I was in a dead-end. I remained a worker-ant. I never got a promotion. Still, I felt trapped in my job. I had nowhere else to go.
In 2012, the bubble deflated. Our products weren't selling. I lost my job. I felt like I was shipwrecked, on a raft in the middle of the Pacific, with no help in sight. I despaired at the thought of having to pick another career at 55. I shot about aimlessly, applying for jobs I neither wanted nor qualified for. Resumé and interview workshops did not help.
I finally sought and got some help from Vocational Rehabilitation. They agreed with my intuition that it would not make sense for me to go back to school and train for some other occupation I wasn't interested in. They referred me to a local, well-known psychologist who made a very strong case for my getting SS disability. My case was soon accepted, and I retired on disability.
Are there any questions out there?
Stephen

The only jobs I have ever had -- other than working in food service as a teenager and in the campus library in college -- came from knowing people. That has always seemed so strange to me. These neurotypical weirdos are much more interested in hiring someone they already know or someone a friend or family member of them knows than hiring someone they might not know who would make them more money or get better results. Blows my mind.

I have missed out on a lot of opportunities because the interviewer or interviewing team seemed more interested in whether I'd be someone fun to have a beer with rather than what skills I had and results I could produce. I am much better at what I do that probably 99% of people out there, but because I don't do small talk well, I miss out on a lot of good jobs.

I made an account to talk about work-related frustrations and see if I could get some advice. Looks like socializing is all that matters. I'm an unemployed electrical engineer; got frustrated from not getting a job (plus student loans) and joined the Army. BIG MISTAKE. It's like high school, except people have more power over you and constantly remind you how you're different and why that's wrong. Honestly starting to wonder why I even bother living anymore.

But yeah, OP mirrors my experience.

Just a thought, but anyone ever thought about driving trucks? Or is that social too?

I struggle with the social aspects of a job and the whole process of finding a job. I'm very hit-and-miss with recruiters as well.

Once I get my foot in the door, I manage to stay because my boss can see everything I'm capable of.

And then the boss leaves either because they found a better job or there's "restructuring".

And then I eventually end up leaving because the new boss takes me for granted and I get burnt out and can't take it anymore and don't have the skills to "fit in" with the new regime or negotiate a solution (I'm easily discouraged).

And then the department I used to work in undergoes even more restructuring after I've left.

This has happened to me THREE times already. I held the last job for eight years. (I've been unemployed for the last 10 months.) As I've been looking at job listings lately for the word I used to do (or had hoped to do), I'm finding myself mightily discouraged because so many of them require being social and up-to-date on social media (which I find rather intrusive). It's like it isn't enough to just show up at work and do the work; I have to market my personality as well. I'm at the point that I don't know what I want to do or even can do because my confidence is entirely shot at this point.

I don't have the energy today to read this whole thread, but I'd like to make two suggestions in case they have not already been made here.

1) For people who don't want a "physical" job: I recommend volunteering. Best, volunteer for something you like, and make contacts with whom you might share interests. Worst, volunteer for political campaigns. They'll accept nearly anyone with nearly any kind of office skill. Eventually, you'll make contacts for paying jobs.

2) For people who are more physical: what about medium or long-range truck driving? You spend by far most of your time alone. Also, this job is available for people in rural areas, where IMO the living conditions are better for the Aspie psyche.

I have been employed for the majority of my working life. I avoid "white collar" jobs due to the necessity of having good social skills. I am intelligent and work hard, and perseverance has served me well. (I usually need it, as the first impressions of me aren't always positive)

A formal compliant was filed against me on Friday for not shaking someone's hand.

I missed the social cue because the "gesture of handshake" was mixed with the wrong kinds of phrases. I know certain phrases are associated with shaking hands and have learned to do it only when those phrases are present. This person did not use a typical phrase associated with the gesture, so i missed the cue.

Now the sh***y part is that if i go to Human Resources and try to justify what was considered "rude" by disclosing that I am Autistic, it will be used against me. I have witnessed other (now former) colleagues try to justify behaviours by disclosing certain disabilities and they have all gotten fired.

I am in a hostile ableist environment. I love my work, I am set up in the basement of the office away from the humans and work independently on research. I have brought millions of $ in research money to this organization.

But they only want my mind and will only tolerate me if i either hide away from social encounters so as not to embarrass them or if i can manage to "pass" with normal social behaviours.

what they don't understand is that it is the fact that i am Autistic that has actually enabled me to do this kind of work. My propensity for patterns and ability to synthesize a vast amount of complex information into coherent data-sets is because that is the only thing I am tuned in to. I have to limit my social encounters in order to avoid experiencing sensory overload so that i can actually do this.

But i am punished for displaying anything that upsets the social environment. like not noticing the hand-shake gesture. or not 'socializing' with peers. or being extremely blunt because I am in the middle of processing data.

I just developed an incredible qualitative data analysis method, using institutional ethnography for legislative reviews by not-for profit advocacy organizations. This could be a critical social change making tool, but oh..i did not shake her hand and am now getting written up.

guess which achievement stays in my personnel file? my supposed rudeness or my multi-million dollar research grant?

Rudeness.

that is what it now says in my file.

All that hard work and dedication and this is my reward.

I feel like all the exhausting work i do in oder to arrive at work and 'function' daily is absolutely pointless.

Every single job I have had ends up being a disaster because i can't do the social interactions, no matter how successful or productive I am in the actual work.

Bellerophonian:

That definitely s**ks.

I don't know about Canadian law, but in the U.S., once you have a job, you can make yourself relatively bullet-proof to this sort of problem by disclosing an ASD diagnosis and requesting "reasonable accommodation."

If this approach is not available in Canada, then I suggest finding the NT superior who gets most credit for your work and explaining to him/her your difficulty concentrating on both work and people. Tell him/her that you cannot do your job and interact with people on the same day. The NT who gets the credit for your work has a vested interest in helping you find a solution that works in your firm, and probably can figure something out to protect his/her resource (you).

Finally, what was the complainer's justification for interrupting your work, anyway? Maybe you can turn the tables by complaining that the complainer misunderstood the context, has no sensitivity to your needs, and threatens your productivity.

Thanks yourkiddingme3. I actually had the conversation with the NT who gets credit, and they are fine with me making up creative ways to work from home most of the week (work from home is not allowed at this firm). So i make up "off-site meetings" to make it seem like i have a legitimate reason for not being there. The problem is that this particular firm has been able to get rid of "problem employees" by having this clause in their policies--totally legal in not-for-profits in Canada--of firing without cause. "In Ontario, not a single worker is protected from wrongful dismissal under the Employment Standards Act." . So like you suggested, I have a way to mitigate the worst of the hostile environment, ultimately I am breaking the rules in order to do so and still at-risk of complaints when I am there.

But you are right, finding the NT was the best strategy in this situation.

I still think, ethically, this is the wrong place for me to work and I will be making the horribly painful transition to finding new employment.

thanks for the response!

When I gradated college or left a place of employment no matter how well I liked the job or the people, in my mind I was completly finished with that aspect of my life so I never kept contacts. It hit home what a mistake that was when unemployed and attending a how to find a job when you are over 40 clinic and the presenter was discussing networking and said at your age you have so many contacts. I had none.

tell this to my parents
they tell me to try harder

You know what needs to happen? A law needs to be passed that government contractors have to hire x% of aspies into their work force. The simplicity of it means that a company has a very hard time getting around it.