Playing the aspie card at my interview landed me the job!

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To make this short I had an interview for a new job. The interview wasn't going so well because I took too long to answer questions and it was going awkward and stuff like that so at the end I said to my now current boss "I just want to let you know I have aspergers syndrome do you know what that is?" and he did in fact know what it was. I told him that "I'm not mister personality or anything like that" and we both chuckled and then I told him that "I was a very efficient worker and I stay on task all the time and that I'm not good at social chit chat but I have no problem at all with following instructions or basic communication and that it's just facial expressions and body language."

Next week later i got the job!

Has anyone else ever played the aspie card to get what they want?

I got 25% extra time and the use of a computer instead of writing my exams at university because of AS, which was pretty awesome (and made my friends very jealous ). Out of interest, what job did you get? I haven't told the summer camp I work at that I have AS since they might assume that I would be bad at the social elements of that job, when in fact I'm fine as long as the kids are fairly young.

That's awesome I get extra time at school as well even though I don't really need it I still take it just in case. I'm not very inclined to say what job I got but it's a pretty good job if I say so myself.

My friend who has aspergers get's disability benefits and uses it to buy video games, music albums, weed, alcohol and cigs LOL! Talk about abusing the system.

Congratulations on your new job!!

Some employers are generous like that. I know mine is too. Hopefully both of our employers can prove to others that people with AS and other disorders CAN work effectively at a job. I've been doing my cleaning job for over 7 months now and they are still all pleased with me and know I get on with it and get the job done. My AS doesn't stop me from doing that.

It's probably similar to how it's often easier for black-people to get jobs cause the employer sometimes feels like he's being racist by not hiring the person. Whereas in this situation he felt like he was discriminating against you because of your mental disorder by not hiring you which is likely part of the reason he did.

Ummm...

"Mental disorder"?

Ummm... and/or autism spectrum disorder

I sometimes wonder if being honest about AS would have helped people understand what I was finding hard with teacher training before I failed it. i'm also considering being open about it at uni- this year has been really hard (mostly socially but it impacted on my work) and I've got an end of year review meeting on Monday with a tutor I trust and get on well with, not sure if I should mention it to her or not...

What were you finding hard if you don't mind me asking? Why couldn't you have asked for help with specific things you were having trouble with?

I'm doing creative writing and found writing characters with emotional depth and complex plots hard to impossible. I've got round it by rewriting traditional stories and making identity, or lack of, part of my research. I'm also finding the imaginative, 'something out of nothing' part of writing difficult. I'm doing a PhD, and the lack of structure (which I know it part of doing a PhD) is really hard to deal with, and I've compensated by working in a school to keep the routine to the day, but that means the only time I have to write is late at night or early morning. Writing makes me panicky because of the uncertainty side of it, and that makes me feel 'yucky' (nauseous, shaky and guilty) which triggers a binge then I feel worse (I also have an eating disorder). The social side of uni has been difficult this year too- PhDs are quite isolating and I don't live near my uni so I felt a bit disconnected, and I had some friendship problems at home (a friend stopped talking to me for no specific reason and I only have one friend near where I live) which made me feel more 'yucky' and really didn't help. Uni don't know about any of this, and I didn't want to mention it in case they said I shouldn't be doing a PhD or I wasn't ready for it. I really want to do it- in a 'structure', I love the process of writing and I really like the research side of it, and I also really want to learn to be more creative and spontaneous but this year has been really difficult. There's also a lot of people politics that I wasn't expecting, and that's made it really hard too. Not sure if I should mention any of it to my tutor or not!

congratulations!

Awesome! Congratulations on your new job...and your great self-advocacy skills.
You gotta love employers who are understanding and open to AS. There needs to be more of these!

How is that abusing the system? Does being on disability mean that one is not allowed to have any entertainment at all? That one is supposed to simply sit at home bored with nothing to do?

Congratulations!

Now the hard part begins.

You lucked out.