Is Fear of Getting Fired Greater Among Aspies?

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I learned something last night that I found fairly interesting. I am seeing a therapist who is the only one in my area with experience with adult Aspies. I told her about my job, and how I worry every day I am going to get fired. My therapist told me that's a fear many of her Aspie clients share, whether or not it has any basis in reality.

Getting fired would suck, but I probably worry too much about it. I feel my employer would have a difficult time replacing me, and there is amazingly little competition in my office. The work is not a challenge for me, and I often have long periods where I don't do much. Nevertheless, at least some factors protect me. And yet I worry.

Do many working Aspies fear getting fired, or, if they work for themselves, that no one will patronize their businesses? Is it rational?

Your employer will have a hard time replacing you? Not so fast, Pablo. The job market is such that, for every employed soul, there are 10 just champing at the bit to replace you. They could have your seat filled so fast your jaw would drop. I was sure no one wanted my job because I worked at night, always worked short, never had time to take a break, and was never respected by the bosses anyway. After I gave my two weeks, all these potential employees just came crawling out of the woodwork. Fooled me.

Change sucks. When you get fired it is usually unannounced. If you plan to get fired or feel it coming it can disengage you and get you fired even if you maybe werent going to be. But unprepared you will probably get that major stress that comes with sudden change. Double edged sword. Dont know if there is anything that really can be done.

I have had from 15-20 jobs since I started working at 14 and only 2-3 where I wasn't afraid of being fired.
I would say I have always felt discriminated against in all but those 2-3.
The jobs where I did well were fairly slow paced with compassionate bosses and/or
had a good union.

I'm always convinced I'm going to be fired, even though it's never happened and I've always been a good employee. I've never even got a bad reference, but still I worry. I know that the jobs I do are very easy to fill and that I am completely replaceable. I try my best to make myself irreplaceable by working extra hard, making an effort to get along well with everyone and volunteer to do any jobs that other people at work do not wish to do. That has always worked well for me.

True.

Nearly any employee can be replaced.

But, if you do your job well, you shouldn't be so nervous about losing your job.

I always had that irrational fear even though I was a model worker to say the least. Not to brag, but for a teenager I poured my heart and soul into my first job that few people could match. Still, my heart would sink when the boss wanted to talk for any reason. It wasn't until 6 years later that I learned to relax and ironically enough, starting getting into trouble suddenly because I made the wrong person upset and left shortly after.

My last supervisor always loved to say how easily replaceable I was, but they quickly realized not many people were willing to go the extra mile in a minimum wage job like I did. Ironically enough I'm doing much better than her!

I think it's common for Aspie people to have problems at a lot of their jobs, so they may have a tendency to always be expecting it to happen, unless they find the right job for them.

In my experience I've always been able to see a firing coming, at the the accounting firm where I used to work it was obviously for months before it happened that they were not going to keep me, but they had a habit of keeping people for at least a year so I literally had around 3-4 months where I had no work to do and could not find anything despite asking the people I knew.

The main reason I worry about that is because it has happened...except for when I had a workstudy job my first year of college, but that didn't exactly have typical job expectations.

I remember this was a common theme in the book "Look Me In The Eye"

Never quite feeling your work was good enough.

It has happened to me on 4 occasions. When working I squirrel away enough money to cover find/start a new job (hopefully as I move to a better job) but as long as you do your best and work hard there's nothing else you can do to change things so if it happens it happens but you usually do see it coming, they have to make up some reason to do it (usually completely different to the real reason).

Three times it's been related to AS traits but I never realised till I've typed this post.

Honesty (refusal to lie) and taking instructions literally.
Sense of smell, tendency to say what I think and a stress meltdown .
The first was because I got replaced by 2 Indian PhD level microbiologists and as I was so trusting they even got me to train them.
Lack of popularity and uncoordination (couldn't physically do the job (never been good at wrapping presents).

In each case I've been very highly thought of as a scientist but told i need to improve on the social aspects.

Yes, because finding the job for us is that much harder. It seems that people who are con artists are the ones who get new jobs right away.

I think it is related to lack of confidence. Yes, my Aspie hudband used to be worried about getting fired, but he one day he decided he could not live like that because the stress was too much to handle. Since he decided he wouldnt care about that anymore, he works better and feels so much better. But yes, he also wants to have is own company so he does not need to take his boss' sh#t.

That's probably as clear and concise explanation as you can get. Boy, was it ever hard landing a job and that was when the economy was in good shape. I pretty much have little hope of getting a better job because try as I might, I don't have those smooth talking skills. I know people who have been fired repeatedly (sometimes for stealing) yet are never out of work yet with my impeccable credentials I couldn't get anywhere. I'm not the only one: I know someone from High School who has been unemployed for quite some time and I would hire him on the spot if I could he's that good.

I always laugh how there are supposed 10 people for every job (my job had 400 legitimate applications!) yet in 50% of the cases they hire someone who is completely useless.

In my case I don't think it's unreasonable. I have been fired many times, often just when I thought I was doing a particularly good job. Obviously I have no way of knowing what to expect and no reason to ever feel secure.

But..but I love diversity. who would want to work in a same job for more then few months anyway?

but I don't think this has anything to do with autism