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

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rapidroy
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15 Jun 2013, 11:46 pm

I have never played the aspie card and don't really beleave in or feel comfortable doing it however if aspie traits will make you a better employee and give you a natural edge then why not sell yourself on it as there your personal skills and skills that most people don't have. I think most of us have lost out enough becouse of AS as it is so I suppose getting a break here or there is really not a bad thing or unfair to human kind.

As for using disabillity money for entertainment if you can pay your bills with your less then poverty line monthly income and have money left over then good for you, why punish good budgeting skills.



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16 Jun 2013, 12:21 am

Verdandi wrote:
ImmenseLoad wrote:
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.


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?


Plus anyway, how many video games, CDs, and how much weed, alcohol and cigarettes can somebody buy on a few hundred dollars a month of disability benefits? :roll:



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16 Jun 2013, 12:24 am

For Aspergers/ADHD I get 10 extra minutes per hour in exams and I sit in a quiet controlled space when doing then, but everything else in the exam is the same. The extra time is an issue of contention as I only ever wanted it specifically on essay style exams (due to the difficulty i have with structuring, and needing to go over instructions very carefully) but not for other types of exams (such as multiple choice), however at school and now at uni they said it was extra time on all exams or none.

I am on the disability support pension however this is because of bipolar issues and not aspergers. I was originally on a student pension but I got really sick with bipolar for a year & dropped out of uni so I lost the student pension. I couldn't get the student pension back when I started uni again because I was only well enough to study part time and you have to be studying full time. Very frustrating. So I had to apply for the disability support pension. Actually getting the pension was easy for me as I have 3 diagnosed disorders, but I consider it a temporary solution until I finish my studies and then can work enough to support myself. I do currently work one day a week so my pension is reduced from the full pension to account for that. It's not much of a reduction, but its something, and its nice to feel I am contributing at least something back in a small way.


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Venger
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16 Jun 2013, 2:11 am

Max000 wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
ImmenseLoad wrote:
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.


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?


Plus anyway, how many video games, CDs, and how much weed, alcohol and cigarettes can somebody buy on a few hundred dollars a month of disability benefits? :roll:


Maybe his/her rent is pretty cheap. Video games and weed are the only things not completely stupid out of that anyways. And for video games that person should use Gamefly rentals or something since they're very expensive at full-price.



vanhalenkurtz
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16 Jun 2013, 3:26 am

The honesty was probably disarming. And the interviewer probably had a positive view of Asperger's. Score.


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16 Jun 2013, 4:39 am

Bubbles137 wrote:
ImmenseLoad wrote:

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!


Bet you would be great at factual historical novels or true crime novels or anything fact based instead of fantasy or fiction. By novels I meant novelized more so than completely made up.

Good non fiction books are difficult to find.



azaam
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16 Jun 2013, 9:55 am

Employers like it when workers get work done and talk less. In your case, your a catch for him.


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Max000
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16 Jun 2013, 10:25 am

azaam wrote:
Employers like it when workers get work done and talk less. In your case, your a catch for him.


LOL. That assumes that the autistic employee talks less. In reality, he might not even know when to shut up. :)



Verdandi
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16 Jun 2013, 5:41 pm

Max000 wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
ImmenseLoad wrote:
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.


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?


Plus anyway, how many video games, CDs, and how much weed, alcohol and cigarettes can somebody buy on a few hundred dollars a month of disability benefits? :roll:


Not much. Especially not after rent, food, bills, etc.



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16 Jun 2013, 5:44 pm

Venger wrote:
Maybe his/her rent is pretty cheap. Video games and weed are the only things not completely stupid out of that anyways. And for video games that person should use Gamefly rentals or something since they're very expensive at full-price.


I'm on disability (not SSI, not yet anyway) and I find Gamefly is actually too costly for the benefit. I prefer to purchase games from online stores such as Steam. I also make most of my purchases during sales - buying games for 50-75% off. Also, many indie games are fairly inexpensive at full price - both Torchlight installments and both Orcs Must Die installments, for example.

When I purchase new games at full price, I have to plan ahead for it and the purchase has a significant impact on my budget (as in, I cut out pretty much every other optional thing).

Also, I'd say buying music isn't stupid - although it's probably better to get it via online services than it is to buy overpriced CDs. :)



rapidroy
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16 Jun 2013, 11:49 pm

Verdandi wrote:
Venger wrote:
Maybe his/her rent is pretty cheap. Video games and weed are the only things not completely stupid out of that anyways. And for video games that person should use Gamefly rentals or something since they're very expensive at full-price.


I'm on disability (not SSI, not yet anyway) and I find Gamefly is actually too costly for the benefit. I prefer to purchase games from online stores such as Steam. I also make most of my purchases during sales - buying games for 50-75% off. Also, many indie games are fairly inexpensive at full price - both Torchlight installments and both Orcs Must Die installments, for example.

When I purchase new games at full price, I have to plan ahead for it and the purchase has a significant impact on my budget (as in, I cut out pretty much every other optional thing).

Also, I'd say buying music isn't stupid - although it's probably better to get it via online services than it is to buy overpriced CDs. :)


I buy my CDs at used CD stores, even the regular price used ones are 60-75% less then regular priced new ones, yard sales can be good aswell as they mostly charge .50-$1 each. My local used CD store chain has an online listing of all their invintory so I know if they have what I want without even going to the store, saves on uneeded and unwanted social outings.

I think the downloads are a bit of a ripoff to be honest as the sound quality is a little lower then CDs and you don't get the physical copy and liner notes, as for prices they actually end up fairly close last time I looked at it, even more so if you buy one song at a time and compare that to the per song cost on a CD.

And honestly I think music can make for pretty cheap therapy and a good source of sanity for meny people, whats wrong with that?



Verdandi
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17 Jun 2013, 3:05 am

The truth is I really dislike keeping track of disks.



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17 Jun 2013, 9:26 am

Quote:
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 don't think that's an AS issue. From what I've seen, the vast majority of people have that issue. You don't sound atypical at all. Being able to write deep characters and complex plots is a talent, just like being able to play jazz or draw portraits of people.



Bubbles137
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18 Jun 2013, 2:51 am

Ettina wrote:
Quote:
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 don't think that's an AS issue. From what I've seen, the vast majority of people have that issue. You don't sound atypical at all. Being able to write deep characters and complex plots is a talent, just like being able to play jazz or draw portraits of people.


Maybe, although most people on my course seem to be able to develop a character enough that people want to read the story and have more than one character in it! But yes, it is a skill that (hopefully) can be learned... Until than, I'm getting round it by writing 'metafictional', structure-based 'stories' that don't actually have a plot or character but look at philosophical research instead. And adding poetry as well as short stories has really helped. It's working OK but, as my tutor pointed out yesterday, "who would want to read it?" if they can't relate to a character. I didn't tell her anything about AS etc though, got too nervous and just wanted the meeting over!



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18 Jun 2013, 6:34 am

ImmenseLoad wrote:
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."


That's a good example of how and when to play the card, if ever, in an interview. If things are going poorly, it's a last-ditch attempt to salvage the interview by explaining why you aren't doing that well so that they may look at your behavior in a more favorable light. Playing the card too early can look bad, not playing it at all might depend on how well the interview seems to be going.



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20 Jun 2013, 7:21 am

Good on you...I would imagine the 'aspie card' probably wasn't the only factor in getting the job - you are clearly articulate and have a good sense of humour - congrats and all the best :)


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