does anyone else have a really spotty job history?

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i will say up front i have not been officially diagnosed with AS but i have taken several tests and they all point to it. I have always had trouble in school with peers and in the work world as well. here is my post college job history.

I graduated college in 2003 (between 2 schools and 3 majors and 5 years i got an AAS in computer networking)

may 03-october 03 (with about a month gap in the middle) worked as a pc tech in a business supply store, was laid off due to lack of work and then rehired later part time. i quit to take a job down in florida

oct 03-feb 04, worked at a call center and about went crazy. I hated it. it was very high stress and very fast paced. quit to take differnet job

feb 04-march 04 worked as a helpdesk person at a settlement funding company. it didn't pan out and i was fired in 6 weeks

april 04-april 05. worked at a mortgage co. this job was ok but the pay wasn't really very good for what i was doing. i was an it director in a high COL area doing a lot of suppert and networking stuff making less than $30k/year on hourly. i got the hint i wasn't putting in enough hours (but they wouldn't pay overtime so do the math on that one) and quit to take a different job.

april 05-may 05 worked for a lawyers office doing IT stuff. this and the settlement place were the 2 jobs i had closest to a normal corporate america job. they were also my 2 shortest. i was terminated after 7 weeks.

oct 05-mar 06. i worked for a pc repair place in AZ and it was ok for a while but then it started turning into more corporate BS because of some of the clients i had to go to. after an interview at a hospital where the company i worked for wanted to put me at as a liason IT person went kind of bad because i was too honest (tried to make sure they weren't gonna have me doing a lot of lifting and what not which is kind of how i lost the 2 other jobs because i suck at the grunt it type stuff) after the client said they didn't want me working there i was put on probation and then the next week there was a problem at another client where i said a few choice words after hitting my head on a desk. the next morning i gave my 2 weeks notice right before they were going to fire me.

may 06-sept 06. another call center, yay. This one wasn't as high stress as the first but it still wore me out after awhile and i quit to take a job that paid almost 2x as much but was a contract.

sept 06-oct 06. $28+ an hr as an IT person at honeywell. no direct supervision and as it turned out, no work. I, along with a few other people, was laid off after only 6 weeks.

moved back to indiana to help my parents

july 07-june 08, the last job i had. I worked as a field tech for the same company that put me at honeywell. It worked out for a while but the driving around was getting to me since they kept sending me up into illinois instead of NW indiana where i am from. so i was doing 200+ mi a day usually. I was laid off along with about 100 other people when HP decided to take their warrenty field work back in house.

so i've been unemployed since 6/28/08

Sounds like my job history, minus the schooling. I never was able to settle in any one place with the exception of my last job, and it closed down.

I also bounced around for a while before I got into my groove. I've been straight up fired three times. I was laid off once. I've had other jobs end, like a contract job.

I've learned something from each job. The biggest, I've learned I can't work for or closely with women. (The worst for me is being part of a team of women.) They use a lot of non-verbal communication that I don't understand. They also have a set of complicated group dynamics that I also just get lost in. I do well working with scientists, engineers, and other technical-type people. They operated in fact-based universes and don't mind being blunt. They also don't seem to take as much offense when I'm a bit blunt or terse. Your own needs and preferences may be very different, but I'm pretty sure everyone has a set of things they need and want in a work environment.

It sounds like you've had some jobs that were a bad fit for you and others that ended for economy reasons. As you work on finding a job now, try to figure out what it was about the bad fits that made them particularly awful. You've already got some of the reasons in your post. Also try to figure out what you did like. Then I would work on finding a job that seems to have the best match for you. You may interview somewhere that you realize quickly is not going to be good for you - there is no harm in saying that straight out. Save everyone the time. You may also interview somewhere that seems like the perfect environment. If they turn out not to want you, you can keep chasing them (within reason) until you do get a job there. A job counselor could be of assistance in helping you to both figure out what you need/want and in giving you an employer-friendly way to describe your history.

Good luck!

me me...

um...

firstly I have very spotty education after high school...I couldn't cut it in community college not because I was dumb, but because I had no financial support and I was too disorganized and frankly there was nothing about it save my free freelance tutoring of foreign students who couldn't speak English so they were able to make a grade close to my own in my Comp1 class...
I used to want to be a teacher...pretty much since I was little...when I used to teach my sister and sometimes other kids how to read and write for fun....I would also do stuff like try to give my friends singing lessons and so on...that was my idea of playing...
ok...straying from the point.

I spent most of my adolescence and early 20's singing in a band...which took up a lot of time but probably does not count as employment ever though we were a "working" band and played lots of gigs for the money...

I got my first job right after high school, working in the Deli at Whole Foods. I was given special treatment there and was a bit of a laughing stock...it was acknowledged by my bosses that I was "special" and I got away with stuff even though it was wrong because I sincerely was emotionally young for my age and didn't know any better...
I left after being stalked by my ASish boss.(He was the newest of a string of bosses I had while working there..extremely awkward and obsessive and he would not leave me alone and I didn't get him fired, but I did get him in trouble...but I was made into the scapegoat and coincidentally could never get another job at a Whole Foods again after that..not for lack of trying.

My next job was switchboard operator for 2 years at a music company. Both my dad and my boyfriend/bandmate worked there..at a different location, and it was explained to me that that is why I was hired...Again, I stood out like a sore thumb and was a laughing stock among the office ladies. There was one South American lady who was very sweet and we got along...and my boss would tease us for talking to each other...and she was picked on by everyone too, and eventually quit by storming out in a fury on a day when I happened not to be there. People liked having me as a switchboard operator because I had a very interesting voice for it and receive compliments all the time..also I was a very formal sounding switchboard operator because it was during a period of my life when I was probably the most structured ...I also did a lot of filing and was eventually moved to the credit department, which i hated because it was our job to lie to the customers in order to get more money out of them...I had a very regimented lifestyle back then where I religiously walked every day during my lunch break and kept a meticulous food journal (i was an impulsive journal-keeper back then anyway).... but i saw everyone in there gain lots of weight and 2 people died of diabetes related illnesses while the office was constantly plied with pound cakes and big trays of danishes and such....

I left there when I was 22..
After that my work history became very spotty....
I was a telemarketer for almost a year...I was a bicycle courier for a few very memorable months..I worked at a few veterinarians offices as a kennel attendant and assistant....
I worked at a fancy hip ice cream parlor for years off and on...I was door girl at a few venues...I also was a cocktail waitress very briefly at a rock club that tried to go fancy and cater to a yuppie crowd...(another job gained by my having played there in the past and knowing people who worked there)....I worked at a fancy movie theater for about a year and a half...and then I was briefly a Montessori assistant...I loved working with the kids, but totally went against the grain with the adults...and ended up walking out after being yelled at for sitting cross legged and not looking my boss in the eye when talking to her.

While I was living in my rooming house, I worked part-time for my uncle...I was a horrible employee...I was rather unstable at the time, and there was something about working at the family property that made it impossible for me to rub two brain cells together....no matter how hard I tried....It is a very strange place...a wooded plot of land with a pond and a horse and antiquities everywhere..right in the middle of the city...My dad's family settled there from Czechoslovakia in the 1920's...something about being there totally scrambled all my circuits...

um...then I was a bar back at a venue where I used to play...and I did not work for the venue...I worked for the bartender who was a fan of my old band and who at the time was one of my only friends and was really good at understanding me and he looked out for me when I was a total mess.
After he was fired I no longer worked there. Later I found out that there were all kinds of nasty rumors about me and him which were completely untrue...he was this very overweight guy in his mid-40's married with kids....He had a hernia that would not heal despite numerous operations so he couldn't lift things. I was his heavy lifter...I would carry up ice buckets and carry down empty kegs and bus tables and wash dishes....and so on....He was also on Methadone...but so what?
He had been at the venue since it opened and the people who had him fired were total jerks.

Lets see.....after that....more ice cream....and I was supported by my parents quite a bit...

Then I ran in with my current partner...and um....that is a whole other story...but I own a business and help run a venue to make a long story short....

YES YES YES
(to answer your question)

First of all, BLK..., welcome to WP! You don't need an official diagnosis to be part of this awesome community! I hope you enjoy it.

I have worked at too many places to count. I have a master's degree, which I got in part to get better jobs where I could be the boss and I thought I'd get more respect at work. HAH. The joke's on me.

Along with Annie, I've figured out that working with women will drive me crazy, and that I need a male boss. Every job I've had that's lasted (happily) more than 6 months was because my boss was male.

So now I'm working in a department that has about 20 women and 1 man. Seriously. And having problems.

I was in a meeting with 3 women (lordy but shouldn't there be a law that aspies can be exempt from all meetings?) when this one woman was avoiding me, acting as if I wasn't there, and I was starting to have a meltdown. Started doodling to calm down, that didn't work, so I shifted my chair so I couldn't see her. Well nobody noticed her being weird to me, but they sure did notice me moving my chair, which believe it or not they all noticed and now it has become WW3.

It has stressed me out so much that I spent all day yesterday looking for a new job.

To call my job history "spotty" would be being charitable.

There were lots of reasons for my failures. Many of them had to do with poor self-regulation skills. And poor people skills. And ... well, you know.

I've now had the same job for five years. This is amazing to me. I worked for my employer as a temp before I was hired "for real." This was really good, as it enabled me to show them what I could do, in spite of my poor work record. I work my ass off for them every day.

I can think a lot of jobs I can do online, it has to be online because I amin a wheelchair and can't afford wheelchiar transport and it helps being nonsocial anyway.

But my ADHD and epilepsy continue untreated and doctors laugh at me. I have an advocate and nurse working hard to get me help but they aren't heard either because my oddness takes precedence. It is possible that I am slipping into epleticus status--when the entire brain is having seizures and it can be fatal. But with nobody with power running tests I can't know for sure.

My dream since I was six-years-old has been to work and no matter even if I'm near the end of my life, I would like some small piece of my dream to come true. I have little attention span and freedom from seeking medical help to work. But I am now at the point where I am ready to say to hell with getting medical care because I am not going to get it anyway.

Question: How do I over ride my lack of attention span and money issues to work anyway?

Gingersnaps, I admire your spunk and idealism. You keep trying. And don’t blame yourself that the corporate world is often badly organized (and how’s that for British understatement!).

Even if a doctor laughs out of nervousness, embarrassment, sleep deprivation, or whatever, he or she ought to be able to recover. ‘I’m sorry, it’s been a crazy day. So, your issue is . . . ‘ Really ought to be able to say that, but apparently a lot of adults have not developed these skills of brief, simply recovery.

As I understand it, a lot of medicine is trial and error, and I mean that in a and good way. You try one medicine for epilepsy, and if it doesn’t work, you try another.

Perhaps if you write down your most important issues on a piece of paper and hand it to the doctor? I think you could only write down a maximum of three issues (because doctors are that impatient, often, not always, but often, and so much in the habit of going fast).


Lack of attention span? How about doing what I do, Writing! Keep coming back to it. It’s like a news article anyway. People will read it fast. Just accept that. People will fly through it. So perhaps roughly aim in the neighborhood of a five-page piece, see how it goes, and take it from there. Or two-pages. Get good stuff out there, fiction, essays, nonfiction, memoir, etc.

Gingersnaps, I admire your spunk and idealism. You keep trying.

New to chat let alone cut and paste. Just wanted to thank you for your encouragement. It made may day much happier. I'm getting a little over the wall with trying to get medicl care but tradition never did work for me and after two years I am tired of not getting heard on that need but even more on sixty years of not getting heard at all. If it weren't for places like these...

Gingersnaps, you're very welcome! I'm glad I was able to brighten you day.

And you know, on the subject of doctors, I think the baseline is that most doctors are not particularly good listeners, and a person has to be kind of lucky to find one who is.

And I'm also very glad we have places like we have right here.

I am 20 and worked as a bagger for six months. (just had a permenant smile on my 8 hour shift)

Then got kicked out of the navy.

Without checking, I think I had over 40 jobs in 20 years. Of course, that includes times I worked for multiple places during the same period, and it counts things I did for free and stuff I got paid for. For several years jobs only tended to last a few months.

Not too much.


I was in school from Aug03-Jun09 for BA and then masters, but had the fall of 2004 and fall of 2007 off for medical reason, a little spotty there.

May 05-Sep: 07: AMC Theaters. Did all the basic stuff. cleaned, sold food, sold tickets, later on got trained in projection and did that all the time, kind of isolating myself from other people and getting weirder. I sort of flamed out that summer and had to quit for medical reason in September. They said it was on good terms, but I still fear it's not.

Nov -Dec 07: Michael's Arts and Crafts. They hired me as a stock person, but when they realized I sucked at stocking merchandise, they had me do generic tasks like sweeping and moving shopping carts. Was always a temp job, but it ended 2 weeks early because of the recession.

Jun08-Sep08, and again feb10-whenever I quit/season ends/get a real job: Great America/CGA, decent job, selling food at first, but the second time around will be "park services" a nice way to say janitor.

The record itself is not so spotty, but I haven't had a good job that I was proud of.

In Construction we tend to move from job to job a lot. So some times it can feel a bit spotty. Particularly when the economy isn't so hot. I'm not too happy that about 50% of the time I'm the guy who gets laid off first but, I think that that might have more to do with the fact that I'm single then anything else.

Im 32,

Graduated college about 6 years ago.

Mom was in wreck 5 years ago. Spent 2 years helping to take care of her until she passed away.

Spent about 1-2 more years as some kind of autistic vegetable, playing WoW and eating microwave dinners (That autistic kid playing Donkey Pong on Bones was quite literally paralleled me)

Last Aug it seems like something woke a part of me up that had been dieing all my life and non-existant for atleast the last year of my life. Oct started work finally pushing carts and cashiering to help pay some bills and actually have something to show for myself. (who wants to hire someone with nothing to show but a 5 year old Ass Networking degree anyways?).

Now Im waiting for Tax place to actually put me on a schedule too.

My work history sucks. I'm not at all ashamed, just constantly enraged that work is what everyone seems to think life is for/about.
I have authority problems, people skill problems, depression, and a useless but very strong feeling of superiority over most coworkers and bosses on an intellectual level, which I know is counterproductive but I can't shake it. I don't like being told what to do. I don't even like suggestions.
I have walked off most of my jobs after a short stay. Just freaked out and left. It's like I'm in hell, but there's an exit door and I can just leave. So I do. Who would stay? I understand most people work to survive. But for me working some s**t job is not a life worth living. So essentially I'm prepared to die rather than work.