Should work or not

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That's a good question and bearing in mind that Aspergersyndrome people have only limited amount of job ideas and there is a thing about bullying and harassment of AS people and certain jobs are pout of the question due to the social factors and the dyspraxia that accompanies AS. This would be essentially manual work which needs a decent cerebellum for good hand eye co ordination as well as the social and emotional intelligence to deal with workplace banter (from the point of view of allistics). There are jobs like this which are unsuitable for Asperger syndrome people such as warehouse work such as using a forklift truck or stacking pallets or working on a building site. Some jobs sucn as ones involving interaction with people are in which a person may actually be doing two jobs for the price of one and having the usual workplace demands that come with it that exceed those put on allistic people and disabled people. Often a good job for an Asperger syndrome person is one that he or she can use his or her specialist interest but often there is a rigorous interview process and it is easy for AS people to be stuck in the interview stage.

I have applied for hundreds of job and out of those I has about 50 interviews and only one of these were successful and that was a job which was advertised as a lab assistant's job which only turned out to be filling bottles with lubrication for ultrasound scans the boss was a total w*ker as well. That only lasted three months I could not contunue my college work. I had another round of interviews of which all were unsuccessful and only gained active temporal lobe epileptic seizures as a result. I done agency work whicch was loading lorries (trucks) with sweets (candy) and during lunch the people were just sitting round drinking coffee and the only reading material was porno magazines. Also this is where bullying and harassment was carried out and I in the end just walked out of that and caught the train home.

A year later I was put onto sickness benefit after six months transferred to incapacity benefit and that was in 1987 while the piece of agency work was in August or September 1986. a year later I was working in a work placement at an organisation known by the acronym RITO which provided work for people with physical disabilities non allistic and people with mental health problems. There I was emotionally abused by the allistic members of staff there and taken for granted for 6 years which escallated by post traumatic stress disorder. By 1991 I had developed anhedonia due to years of being taken for granted.

So the answer is while one should have low expectations one should try. You need be aware that the line between realism and being so pessimistic that you defeat yourself is a hard one to determine. Autistics do get positions that range from tolerable but pays the bills to rewarding and lucrative. It is partly a matter of location and circumstance. Getting SSDI is also a crapshoot.

This ^ I agree with. Though I don't think there is a job an aspie CANNOT have. Some may have harder times than others. I've worked in factories and warehouses. I have driven a forklift (Just like videogames ) I have worked in fast food, theme parks, IT phone support and Convenience. You will always have the bullies, and the bad bosses, and the stresses. But you have to just go home, rest and rewind. Get rid of those stresses before you come into work and do your best!

Failure does not look so bad, if you already expected to fail. Every day you don't fail is a small victory!

I choose to work on a number of public domain coding projects, it's quite likely you used one of them to post this; not only do I sense a lot of pressure to remain outside of any corporate structure in my programming, I think I actually dislike money being involved in science and technology in any sense. I choose to do things for free, for the entire planet or for those who might freely distribute my knowledge, because technology isn't even required for nuclear reactors to function!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nu ... on_reactor

In the current US political climate, Tawaki, I'd suspect that a lot of Social Security Administrators see it as their job to deny as many claims as they can.

What you suspect is true. My case would've been taken by a lawyer since I have co-morbids, one of which is anxiety, for some reason that's more serious than the functional limitations of autism.... In my case it is a vicious unrelenting stress cycle to work in competitive, low-wage, service industry jobs. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however.

I feel you. I have had the good fortune to be able to go back to college while working for my family. It looks like I'll help them get their business in order by the time I finish my undergrad degrees, and then I can leave this depressing little town and go someplace nicer to get a Masters.

My main motivation for continuing to work hard at college comes from my desire to work with smart, highly motivated people. Maybe that way, I won't attract as much scorn from my coworkers as I used to in those service jobs.

Indeed, the service industry is no place for us geniuses. It's a shame to have to hide one's intelligence to be accepted by those not worthy of our acceptance of them! (sorry, it's a major cause of grief for me)

I agree with the notion that it's primarily a case-by-case basis, however I do believe that every aspie should TRY working. I was diagnosed at at the age of 6 and my parents were on board with my condition. Even though at the time, I was furious with my parents, they forced me into a job at age 14. Looking back, if they had not made that decision I would not be who I am today.

Of all places to start out, my first job was at an amusement park. In the open. With the public. No escaping it. Within a few years I adapted and improved across the board. I was basically non-verbal when I started, I've learned to communicate efficiently, handle the public. I look people in the eye when speaking to them. I've worked through my depression. Worked out of laziness. I have a car, a house, bills, responsibilities. NONE of this would have been possible without that experience. I genuinely feel that each aspie should try working for 10 years. If you cannot find and hold a job in that time, and REALLY stick with it, then perhaps you shouldn't be working. Aspergers is a disorder, but not one that cannot be overcome. Get out there and do it!

P.S. I too misunderstood the poll.

Adopt, Adapt and Improve... Motto at the round table. -John Cleese

FWIW...

My husband functions more or less socially at a 12 year old level per his therapist. He was denied SSDI (with an attorney) all the way up to the appeals level.

The judge said Autism was not a big enough reason to be too disabled to work. Especially since he has a university degree, and wasn't diagnosed until age 48.

May people with Autism have better luck IF you are diagnosed before 18, and have that huge paper trail from your school years.

At least in my area, I've know 4 people with HF/Aspergers who were denied SSDI. All were 30+ years old.

I hate to be blunt about it, but YES you can "Simply overcome Aspergers" It's a condition like anything else. You overcome diabetes by diet and exercise. You overcome Aspergers through learning coping mechanisms and studying your behavior to better yourself. 10 years of trying to work is not a long time, considering the common 80 year lifespan. And college isn't going to help you, if you can't cope at work to apply your learned skills. I'll admit that everyone is different, but keeping this dark cloud called aspergers hanging over your head, and saying it's always going to disable you, isn't helping matters.

Just get out there! If you fail, try, try again.