Can people with Asperger's hold a job?

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Certainly! My best friend, with Aspergers has a very good job as a software developer he has been at now for almost 2 years! He does struggle with some aspects of communication with the manager, but all apart of learning and finding better ways to do so. Infact he's now been moved to coding + customer support he's so good at it! People LOVE his detailed answers!

Hi, I'm new here and your thread was the first one I read. I am utterly disguisted that the social worker based your non-entitlment to a test based on the fact that you could look her in the eyes!!
OMFG
The cheek
Does she not know that the symptoms of women are different to men?
That females will quite often have much better social skills that males for example being able to do small talk and look people in eye because as females we are much more trained that way growing up.
This woman need new, more up to date training.
The looking people in the eye thing is not the same for women at all.
I have absolutely no problem looking people in the eye.
I was just diagnosed on Monday with ADD and AS at the age of 35.

How could she think that you responding to your crying child meant you didnt have AS.

By the way I have always had problems holding down a job and I used to blame myself for being lazy and useless.
I have left so many jobs over the years that I have lost count. I cant handle the stress, the fact that I dont mix well with my co-workers, I go off and do my own thing so much that I dont have a bond with others and next thing I know everyone has eachothers facebook pages swapped and they are all going on nights out and I knew nothing about it. Its hard to take. I usually get to the stage where I hate the job, I'm bored out of my mind, one particular person is driving me crazy, I have cried at almost every job I've had in the last few years for various reasons and embarrassed myself.

If I was you I would google female aspergers symptoms, google the differences between the two, look for the exact things she said were impossible for you to have AS, print them out and give them to her and ask her to read it and come back to you, refuse to discuss it there and then so she can have time to properly absorb it.

Times have changed and she need to wake up.

Sorry for the long post.
Best of luck.

I held a job in retail for 25months & quit due to management problems when my department was being phased out by a contract crew that wasn't doing it's job rite. The reason I have problems with employment is due to my physical disabilities instead of my Aspergers.

I think if an Aspie has enough fair understanding from the boss and/or the supervisors, they tend to feel rather secure, and security is the key to coping in Aspies. When we feel secure, we feel happier and more relaxed, and then can perform tasks much more effectively. When we feel misunderstood, we then feel insecure about our surroundings, which triggers off anxiety and affects the mood and cognitive behaviour, which then affects task performance. This then generates more issues with us and the supervisors.

That is my theory, although it may not describe everyone on the spectrum.

I am well aware of differences between aspie men and women, aspie children and adults etc which is why I was so sure I was aspie and I am shocked that she disqualified me from being evaluated because of the things I can do. I had never heard that people who worked in customer service can't be aspie, hence my original question 'do you have a job'. I was able to keep the job in good standing but my boss did adjust for me challenges. I was permitted to take lunch after everyone else so I would not have to eat in a crowded, loud lunchroom. I put up scripts by the phone and by the counter because my anxiety with people would make me forget what to say. But it customer service the script is always the same so I just wrote it and read it. I often stayed late to work alone and always got the job done so my boss never complained. I'm not a kid. I've spent decades finding ways to 'function' and I don't understand why being able to function means I don't have challenges. One person said it might be because I am in Canada and due to budget cuts it is easier to save the money on the psych evaluation since I am too old to help and I can function so I am not a financial burden on the country. It is cheaper to just let me keep doing what I am doing. I hope that is not the reason. I really wanted an official diagnosis to help give me direction on how to improve myself. Now I feel so lost, confused and alone.

I guess they can, I was diagnosed in 2010 and currently in year 26 of my chosen career... Its tough, long hours, stressful & dangerous as well as being shift work so I have to contend with depression, which has no pattern, but I love what I do and I'm well respected within my company...

I've been employed for about 40 years, mostly in Information Technology. I am happiest doing research, analysis, and prototyping (things I can do alone), but right now I'm in a management position, which is stressful. I think over the years that people have overlooked my social difficulties because of my technical skills. I am looking forward to retiring in a few years because this is exhausting. I am blessed that I was able to turn one of my circumscribed special interests into a career. One perk in my current job is that I can telework from home several days per week. That helps a lot as my sensory issues have been getting worse for the last eight years. I have an official ASD diagnosis. There seems to be a lot of people with ASD traits at the computing center where I work.

I have never been diagnosed. I had jobs in the passed, I either had to work on my own and or with someone who is very understanding.Group work is out of the question as I usually end up on an island with myself.doing it my way. I find making phone calls difficult and when I was younger I also used scripts. I still do this on occassion. I have not many friends.I do best in a one to one situation. Yes this acting, this cost me an enormous amount of energy, so much that my batteries were empty regularly. It is a bit better, now I have so much experience.

For the OP, I suggest making a written list of impairments caused by autism and potential support for those impairments such as from employers if you get a job in future. Make the list up to 5 items. These provide more concrete reasons for autism assessment and potential that an autism diagnosis might improve your functioning and life. Then, you can try to get another screening followed by assessment.

I held down my first job for nearly 16 years before I couldn't stand the anxiety any more, then I worked in a worker co-operative for a year or two, which was much easier on my nerves (no bosses!) but it wasn't an economically viable venture and it became rather disfunctional. I got another "ordinary" job and then quit the co-op. I held that job down for about 24 years.

So yes I've proved that it's possible to hold a job, in the sense that it's possible to live in a cesspit. It was often so stressful and depressing that I was always trying to think of a way of escaping it, and I retired as soon as I'd saved enough to support myself until my pension kicks in. Naturally a lot of the reasons for it being so harmful were autism-related. I also believe that the world of work is usually a cruel, unequal bargain which even NTs have a lot of trouble with, so to have autism on top of that does rather threaten the ability to endure it. Even if the autism is recognised, it's a rare employer who will take much responsibility for proper, detailed adjustments, though they're likely to be scared of bullying an employee with a registered disability. If it's not recognised, it's likely to be harder of course.

I'm afraid there are many examples out there of diagnosticians citing glib, feeble reasons for why clients don't have ASD. I've heard the eye-contact excuse before. In one recent case, a client was told she just had a bit of anxiety that she'd grow out of. Mysteriously, the diagnostic report has no data for ASD, though the other tests are all explained quite fully and the time sheet for the procedures done has a missing hour. A second diagnostician said it was ASD, which is what everybody else had figured all along. She's just been firmly refused further evaluation sessions from a third diagnostician because they're "unnecessary" as she has the ASD one. So it's bye bye to the evaluation of comorbids.

These diagnoses seem to be very much a lottery. I think there are two reasons for this. One is that many diagnosticians are little more than semi-competent posers who will take any opportunity to get out of doing their jobs properly, and many of them don't really listen to the client or take their concerns seriously. The other is political. Somehow, government reluctance to spend money on the disabled appears to trickle down to the health professionals, i.e. there's some kind of pressure on them to declare people fit for work rather than benefits and services. Not long ago the UK gov told doctors to stop talking in terms of what the disabled cannot do and to instead talk about what they can do. Sounds lovely, but to my mind it's just a sneaky way of saying "stop authorising benefit claims."

It's really difficult for ASDers because the first thing they get when trying to access help is resistance. It needs self-avocacy skills to break through the glass wall, and ASDers aren't famous for such skills. I've seen it over and over: universities, employers and health professionals dragging their feet in practice, while on paper their credentials are as politically-correct and noble as it gets.

I'm sorry to be so depressing about all this, as if there is no hope. There is indeed hope, but it may need a surprising amount of hard work and staying power to get a fair deal out of the system.

I should put in mind that just because someone can hold a job doesn't mean there are not any impairments or any struggles at work and people around you can be bending over backwards for you and picking up after your slack and accommodating you even though they don't have to because you hadn't disclosed anything but they can tell something is off about you. I used to have meltdowns at work and would hold everything in until I reach a breaking point and have a meltdown and everyday I had troubles because of lack of understanding but when I lived in Montana, my boss was more understanding so I didn't have as much trouble and there were many times where she could have fired me but didn't, same as for at my other job here. I was always a hard worker and wanted to get stuff done and was always on time. I limited my communication with guests to avoid saying anything wrong.

One of the things I really have to avoid at work is to attempt to confront anyone (or defend myself) when I'm angry. There have been a number of times that I'd really have gotten myself in a boat load of trouble if I'd said what I was thinking (usually justified, but still) but since in those instances I was so angry I couldn't speak, I actually saved myself a lot of grief.

I can usually get away with holding off discussing issues or problems until after I've had an opportunity to think them through.

There have been a couple of times when other people have instigated things with me and I tried to defend myself and it turned out badly. I've learned to simply walk away and stay out of trouble, though sometimes it's easier said than done.

Probably the worst incident I ever had at work when was I was working as a service advisor in a dealership and some cokehead was torqued that the tech was taking too long on his car. No one can reason with a cokehead when they're high. Reason didn't get through to this scumbag at all. He grabbed me by the throat and pinned me against the wall. Thankfully my boss heard the commotion and threatened to call the cops on the guy. He gave him his keys, told him to get the "f" out and never come back. This was over 20 years ago- today I'd have insisted someone like this be arrested for assault. At the time I was just thankful he let go of my neck.

I did dislocate both shoulders by throwing an engine block off the back of a truck when the techs wouldn't help me unload it. It didn't hurt the engine block, but from that point forward, I got a lot of "Yes ma'am's" out of the techs after I popped my shoulders back in the sockets against the wall in front of them. I think I shocked them that I could get angry enough to pull off something like that.

I also had to drive a tech and his dismembered finger to the hospital one time (he cut it off in a fan blade) because the other guys were too wussy to do it. I put his finger in a baggie with ice, got him a towel, made him get in the truck and took him to the ER. What are you supposed to do? Stand and stare? Barf? Run? That's what the rest of them did.

Nope, there is no possible way on Earth or in the entire universe that someone with autism can hold a job. We're all just a bunch of special people livin in our momas basement all day just flapping our hands.

Nope no possible way...

I would have trouble holding a 9 to 5 do the exact same thing every day job, but would do that if I had to. Good thing I don't have to-been a college professor for 19 years now. Tenured, promoted to full professor last year. Can't imagine having a better job-independently wealthy doesn't count as a job. I could handle that, though.