Autism and The Job Market

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If I got to make one change in the system, to help people like me get work, I'd encourage the formation of Aspie-NT partnerships. All my boyhood heroes recommended getting a reliable business partner. Edison started five companies, and lost them all through inattention. He preferred the lab to the board room. We would never have heard of Seymour Cray and the ingenious Cray computers if not for his partner John Rollwagen.

There might also be aspie employment agencies. We'd have to share the pay with them, but they would smooth over all the difficulties on each side that can't be avoided. It is normal for musicians and actors to use business agents, and we should too.

Working is good not just for income, but for feeling alive. However, we now live in a world where most of the work can be done by machines, and most of what is done is both unnecessary and a theft from future well-being. If you are difficult to employ, there should be no shame in living off the surplus from machines, and staying out of the way of the productive system. The trick becomes to stay motivated to create art.

I have applied for thousands of various types of jobs. So much time wasted and so frustrating.
No responses ever and no job interviews ever, employers do not want to give me a chance.
I should make videos on Youtube and ask what the hell is going with employers discriminating against people with disabilities.

You only have a case for discrimination if you can show equal performance on the job in all particulars. A business is not a sanctuary. It costs money to create a place to work, and that investment may not even pay off without a worker of average speed. Often, someone needs to be part of a team, and the wrong hire can slow down the whole chain of production.

Up until about 50 years ago there were still some capitalists who saw themselves as community builders, but now greed has triumphed. Even the Salvation Army has a heart of stone now.

Lack of competitively marketable skills is not a disability.

Employers are not required to hire people based on their disabilities alone, either.

I am not up to speed to work any job in any field. I am a slow paced worker and I am unemployable. I barely passed my college degree and college was the biggest mistake of my life. Fast food or retail job full time may have been better than wasting years on a worthless college education leading to 10 years on welfare. I have applied for 10,000 jobs in total since finishing college and not a single response or a job interview. It is a requirement that I apply for jobs to stay on welfare.

^^ So, you are already self-employed. On your own time, you push the buttons of bureaucracy. Can you branch out, and hire yourself other ways? Usually, the first earnings are not deducted from a benefit. I always had to cheat and build up some more momentum on my self employment before I could go off welfare, but staying on was worse. I was only technically cheating, since the early income was going into building up a stock of material, better tools, business cards, etc.

So you have actually applied for jobs such as cleaner or shelf stacking, and no one replied; did you tell all of them on your application that you are an Asperger?

You are not unemployable. You have managed to jump through the benefits hoops for ten years, that's difficult, particularly with social anxiety. And you finished your degree.

There are very few full time jobs in shops and fast food and the hours go to those who cover the most hours

when needed, so you would only get full time after years of doing extra hours whenever asked and often

without warning. Flexibility is really important to most employers in these industries in part because they never

cover all shifts properly in case business is slow. They don't want to pay people to do nothing. If they are busy

they then call in those who are off to do extra hours or ask people to stay longer. To do a good job in retail you

have to be able to talk to people,not in detail, it's a very surface interaction, a sort of patter, but with social

anxiety it would be very difficult. I don't know the main skill necessary for fast food because whenever I tried

to apply for McDonald's I failed the pre application test and was told I had the wrong personality. I think it was

because I refused to say that I enjoy surprises at work. I have had to cope with surprises at work on many

occasions and I coped well but did I enjoy it when a drunk threw a glass ashtray at my head (I was a barmaid

and she missed)? Did I enjoy it when someone died of a heart attack? And what about the surprise of being

made redundant with no notice? No! because surprises at work are NEVER good, I just couldn't bring myself to lie

on the test and ended up in a much nicer job where I don't get asked trick questions.

I guy I knew had moved to the city with only farm skills. He looked at the want ads, and saw more demand for printing press operators than anything else. So, he applied at one company after another. Soon, he saw a printing press, and saw where the ink and paper went in before he was turned down. Every time, it got harder to call his bluff, until he wound up in a room with several other operators who were tired of working short-handed, and were able to cover for him while they taught him what to do.

I was in a somewhat similar situation, but I thought my home handyman skills might transfer, so I just looked for the biggest clump of apartments visible from my place, and went there. I asked the gardeners, who only wanted Portugese speakers, but they took me to meet the electricians, who had been short one man for a long time. I'd even seen the ad, and never thought I'd qualify. However, the crew took me up to the office and got me hired, assuring me that appliance repair was easy. That was the easiest job I ever had- I quit to learn more elsewhere.

I always assumed that you needed years of training to work as a masseur in a spa, but one day I traded massages with a masseuse who worked in one, and she got me hired on. I liked it because it didn't interfere with my design work like a handyman job would, using the same synapses, and the pay was quite good.

Basically have to claim you have 2 or 3 years experience doing whatever the job be it gardening, cleaning toilets, factory, call centre, retail, fast food, etc. You have to claim that job is your dream job and you live to do that job. Having Aspergers I do not come across as genuinely interested in doing the low skilled job. I regard those jobs as way beneath me. How can I possibly act genuinely interested in a job that is dead end and low skilled with no career advancement?

Arrive hungry, and ask how soon you can draw some cash.

I live in a country that has a high minimum wage, Unions and red tape bureaucracy that makes it hard to find employment. What must be done is abolish minimum wage, reduce red tape and ban Unions and only then I would stand a chance to gain employment.

Places like that don't pay a living wage. Where individual US states have raised their minimum wage, employment has increased because more people can afford prepared food, etc. Don't fall for the propaganda pushed by the rich.

Do you really want to make other people as poor and unprotected as you just to give yourself a better chance at a low-wage job?

Civil Service jobs are really good for autistic people.

I've been on my job 39 years (though not promoted). I don't deal with the public; I only have to deal with my coworkers.

I'm getting a pension in 3 years, 1 month.

Wow, seven years is the longest I've stayed in one job (one day the shortest). None had pensions. There are even gaps in my state pension but I still have time to make that up as long as I am either in a job paying NI or on benefits but I don't think the state pension will be much by then.