Thinking about Voc Rehab but not sure its right for me

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A quick background. I have a somewhat spotty work history, meaning that I will sometimes go over a year without a job. When I do get one (I have always done IT) I do well for the most part except if I have to perform tasks related to the job that involve social ques.

My best jobs have been when I was on projects that require little or no interaction with people. When I do those I do fantastic. The problem is that right now I live in a state where the biggest city is about 66,000 people and not much IT need. Adding to that I am 56 and like most Aspies have not done the same job for years, that is taking whatever I can get just to get a check.

I would hate to waste time going to one of these places because they either don't understand MY challenges or try to push me into a job I wouldn't like. Another factor is that if I went on a lower paying job they sent me on and it fell through I would get less UI than I do now.

Side note: my last job I made 108,000 a year, now that I am unemployed I get 372.00 a week and they think tnhats enough to pay bills for 2 people.

I just feel overwhelmed and don't know where to turn.

If you made that much money at your last job, you might want to go to an executive search firm (a so-called "headhunter") before considering vocational rehab.

I did voc rehab, and had negative and positive experiences from it. The negative: my assigned case worker did not understand ASD and did not know what she was talking about in that regard, so I was accepted to the program due to depression and anxiety, they needed quite a bit of action on my part and did not follow up with me when I was too scared to move forward without assistance, so it took a really long time.

The positive is that, even though it took a long time, when I was able to take actions myself, it did eventually get me into a part time job which then, without their assistance, turned into a full time job. My job is not at the level of what my degree is in, however, it is much closer to my abilities and what I can actually handle.

In your case, I would ask you do you have the professional diagnosis and proof from your dr for your diagnosis, who could identify your issues to your case worker? Because likely your case worker has no idea what autism really means, especially for an adult. If you don't have proof, they won't be obligated to acknowledge that part of your disability.

Also, it is their job to try to fit a job to your strengths and preferences. They had ideas of what I might like, and I had ideas of what I might like, and they let me try, through volunteering, to test out and see if I really ended up liking it before committing to a job. But again it depends on your case worker and the individual you end up assigned to, some of them are more understanding than others.

There is that quote about "don't let the time it will take to reach your dreams stop you from starting, because the time will pass anyway". good luck in your search.

I don't know what the cost of living is in your area, but where I am, $372 a week would keep two people relatively comfortably, if modestly.

I also worked primarily in a single industry my entire adult life, but only once in my life ever cracked the 20K yr poverty ceiling. Standard Aspergian problem, spent half the time unemployed, as I couldn't make it farther than about 15 months before my lack of social skills and ever-increasing anxiety caused me to crash and burn.

My experience with a State Vocation Rehab organization: I told them exactly what career I wanted to be licensed for (I already held the same license in another state, but my home state requires you retrain from scratch).

Enrolled in the training (apprenticeship) program, did everything I was supposed to do, passed all the requirements as documented by my instructor, then when it came time for my final test before a State Inspector, the course instructor (who clearly had his own neurological issues) refused to sign off on me because I was not an aggressive enough salesman for his business (I was not required nor did I intend to work for him once I was licensed and he knew that).

Salesmanship has nothing to do with the licensing requirements and I had worked at the same job successfully in another state already. Which is to say, he openly discriminated against me specifically because of my disability. He stupidly ignored repeated explanations of my Autism and insisted I was just "shy," which was irrelevant in any case, since I intended to work for myself once licensed and my social skills would have no effect on him.

Neither the State Bureaucracy, the Vocational Rehab Organization, the State Disability Rights Commission, nor even my Congressman would get up off their hands long enough to so much as make a phone call on my behalf. For over Four Years I continued to pursue the matter, contacting any and every agency and individual whose position in any way could bring justice or closure to the case and simply allow me to sit for my final test. Apparently because I can communicate articulately, no one took my disability seriously and every individual I contacted, merely passed the buck to another agency, insisting it wasn't within their department's purvey to assist me.

I'm not saying this will be your experience, but I am warning you that if you encounter discrimination against your Autism on any level, don't expect anyone to help you, or even acknowledge that you have a problem. If you need a wheelchair ramp built, there's an agency for that - if you are bullied or abused for having an invisible handicap, well, invisible handicaps aren't real, so bugger off.