Is it typical to have a bad employment history?

Post Reply New Topic

I have a sporadic work history. Fired here, resigned there. Longest I lasted at one place was 2 and half years, but that was washing dishes. I'm starting to get worried because of the gaps in my employment. I'm scared, because I'm 30, and without a good resume, who could hope to get a job? Yes, I posted this in Work forum, but I'm sick of leaving things in that ghost town only to get one response.

My real question- is it common to have a horrible work history when on the spectrum? How bad is it usually? Can anyone relate? What can I do about it?

I'm in the same boat as you, Captain Trips. I have a spotty work history myself. I either got fired or quit without notice for over half the jobs I've done. I haven't worked a job in over two years now and the longest job I've done is a year and a half. I've started going through Vocational Rehabilitation right now to help me out. You may want to seek out the same thing, though I remember seeing a post about Vocational Rehabilitation in that Work forum (I think it was there) and I saw mixed responses there.

I haven't had a job for over 10 years and only had two jobs ever in my life which lasts less than 2 months total between the two.

Very spotty record here. Failed out of college (twice!), had several jobs that only lasted a couple months. Longest I've held is about a year, oddly enough at a restaurant. Tried to work a phone job once...collecting on bad checks people had written. Lasted about a month, surprised I lasted that long calling people to collect on six checks, all written to KFC.

I got fired twice in highschool, lasted about 8 months each time. Then in undergrad I had six co-op jobs 4 months long, which was long enough, some of my jobs were tense by the end. Since then I have been in grad school doing research based work (ten years). I am only still employed at this because (a) I can work on my own schedule, i.e. from midnight to 8 am to avoid people if I am stressed out to prevent meltdowns, (b) as a grad student they pay me in peanuts and chicken necks, and (c) my status as a disabled student gives me leaway and makes my department look good.
I am terrified of going into industry next year because I know that I am not going to be able to work anywhere for more than a few years tops. I onl hope I can start working for myself before too long because that is probably all I can ever hope to do for any appreciable amount of time.

I too had spotty gaps in my employment history. I would explain these gaps as times when I was self-employed or when I was helping a friend in construction or something similar.

Yes I've noticed that especially in my male spectrum friends. I'm doing OK right now but I'm young and I still haven't gone to college. Who knows what kind of problems my future will hold.

Age 33

Qualifications - zero
Work history - very bad, big gaps
Days of paid work in the last 3 & 1/2 years - zero
working for free that doesn't turn into a paid job - lots
Benefits - zero


Ability to afford heating this winter - zero

Longest job I had was for about a year, it was the workstudy job I had for my first year of college.....though even at that job the person in charge commented about how I was not very enthusiastic about the projects(sorry, I tend not to be very enthusiastic even about things I like, and it was a hispanic cultural center and nothing against that but I am not part of that culture so I don't have the same understanding of it most of the other people at that work study job did). oh and also they said I was kinda slow at completeing tasks, kinda bad at following verbal instructions......yeah it works better if I have stuff written down because if you verbally tell me to do multiple steps or activities I am bound to forget parts of it and have to come back and ask again.

Before that I had a waitressing job when I was 16 or 17 for a few months, but I don't do too well under pressure and I feel some of the other employees where pushing more than my share of work on me so they could get more breaks. So I ended up getting fired......that was great for my self esteem. I mean I was trying my hardest to do well and boom, couldn't handle serving 8 tables on an especially busy day when I had not even eaten all day do to the fact I could not seem to get a break...started getting confused, unfocused and slow because of the hunger, level of stress, noise level ect. At least the wife of the guy who actually owned the place and had most of the contact with employees was nice about it though...he was kind of an ass though.


Then after the work-study job...a couple years later, I got hooked up with a temporary job when I was out staying with family in Minnesota.....and I even managed to get fired from that before the job actually ended. It was at this wood working shop and I was staining wood, putting together shelves and mirrors and drilling holes in the little pegs for the coat racks. The complaints........which the freaking boss or whatever was too much of an ass to talk to me about as to not hurt my feelings because apparently I came of as that mental. But anyways the complaints as usual where too slow, messing up when given verbal instructions, just coming off as generally weird........I guess a couple times I walked away while they where still giving me instructions it was a rather loud place so I don't recall that and am pretty sure if I did it was by mistake. But yeah I thought they had just run out of work for me.........then I found out from my family that they actually fired me, during a pretty horrible anti-depressant reaction none the less which made it about 10x worse because I was already paranoid that everyone was talking about me behind my back.

So it's safe to say I have a pretty bad job history, and am kind of lacking a lot of job skills.

Over the past 21 years, I have had four jobs. I was fired from three of them for various reasons. None of them lasted as long as six months.

I think various forms of this is actually pretty typical. I think something like 80-90% of people on the spectrum are unemployed.

it sucks, I swear it feels like almost every job opening i hear about is in customer service

i'm glad i'm not the only one who struggles.

Same with me. I did finally finish university, but never got a job in the subject I graduated with. Did a bunch of substitute work before I realized that was just about the worst stress possible. (I never figure these things out in advance)
And then to top it off family member tells me that it's not a real job anyway. Always so nice to hear what the family thinks.