what kind of problems did you have in the workplace?

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did you ever lose a job because of your aspie traits? what happened?
i have a problem comprehending words in a loud environment, which was a problem since i typed listening to headphones. i was bullied on many jobs. i cant multi task so was fired the same day from a job in which i had to take written orders on notes in a fast food business, and a waitressing job. it was also very difficult for me to greet customers at mcdonalds at first, due to social phobia, but i got used to it.
share your experiences.

Noise is a problem for me also. I've tried food service a time or two and its too frantic for me; that and they want you to follow the rules and know when not to follow them, which I had a problem with.

I don't handle stress well and have literally worked myself sick trying to keep up with my job and life. I don't do time management very well; balancing work/home/health is a constant struggle. If and when I have time to myself, I usually do very little. Recently I was very ill and in bed for 2 months; it was kind of nice to have a break.

I also have difficulties with my social skills, as part of my job requires that. I help out at the receptionist's desk for an hour a day for two of the four days of my work week. Most times, I would make phone calls and answer some questions without difficulty, but other times, there are some questions that I don't always know the answer to. It can also be very stressful when a lot of people come in for meetings and I don't always know where to direct them.

At least I only have to work there for an hour at a time.

As a nurse I am expected to supervise my underlings - aides. I never could because I'm far from the bossy type. I figure, well, they're adults so I'll respect them like that and leave them to their work. The result? They used every possible moment to slack off. I often got in trouble with my superiors because I failed to cracked the whip. This has been an ongoing problem for years. I'm also avoidant so that adds to it.

I've never lost a job because of it but have come very close to being fired on two occasions for things I would categorize as autism related.

1. Social interaction. If it's a customer service oriented job that is a problem. Even if it's an office job, it is also a problem. Understanding and following sometimes vague and inarticulate verbal instructions.

2. If there is multi-tasking involved in the job, it is likely my performance will be, at best, somewhat below adequate.

3. Sensory sensitivity. I cannot work in an office building because of the fluorescent lighting and recirculated air. I cannot work in especially bright or loud environments.

4. In the past I have had problems with keeping a consistent sleeping schedule. This has gotten better over time.

Did you ever think about having a job coach? I had one, and have a different one now. My first one helped my find and keep two jobs (waitress and peer councilor). The second coach is helping me with my volunteer job and helping me get back into society. The downside of all the jobs I had were that the jobs are for people with disabilities, and they knew I had a few disabilities. I also worked in a store along time ago, but lost it due to school getting in the way.

I haven't lost a job as such but I asked to change jobs because I was described by my managers as 'weird'. They denied saying this but they did. I soon after took early retirement. I had had a successful career to that point but only started working properly when I was nearly 40. However, I did not know about the AS so obviously my employers didn't or else they would have had to make adjustments for me and in the job I was doing they really would have been in trouble if they hadn't as it was disability related. When I changed jobs I was asked to work in a large admin office where people had the radio on at a low level so there was no way I could concentrate and I just walked out. They found somewhere suitable for me to work but I had had enough really and hated the new job. I now work when I can and enjoy the freedom but miss a steady income.

Coworkers disliking me because I wasn't friendly enough, didn't talk enough, and had a blank expression (I was told this was the reason by someone else); being oblivious to office politics; having trouble keeping track of time and not knowing supposedly "common sense" things that weren't part of my job description.

I think I've adapted fairly well over the past 10 years and a lot of my problems have been excused due to being a teen early on. It is becoming more of a problem though, as I've failed two college classes paid for by work that are required to continue working there (I do well on tests, but there are no tests, the assignments are gigantic walls of text, and I just can't keep up between deciphering and restructuring the assignments and they usually end up being a week late or I miss something that causes the grade to fall altogether). If I fail this time I will be demoted to part-time and put on academic probation for all colleges. I can't live on part-time wages with my wife and I'd like to take college classes of my choice again if funds permit in the future.

It is very much an area of concern for me because this means that I will have to find another job (I'm not sure if I could get a job for very long elsewhere in my town) and might not be able to go back to college for some time again (dropped out of college in 2006).

I can pass well on body language and short social interactions, as well as short phone conversations, and excel at my primary focus (computers and tech). I fail on long-term conversations/phone usage and tend to get incident reports from people I consider "difficult". Sensory problems haven't changed much, and are still a problem. My therapist has helped me somewhat on finding a way to negate specific problems, such as filing out reports on the work I do and using my breaks for when I get overstimulated.

I'm considered immature by my coworkers because I cannot drive or seem to not be able to handle my money as well as others despite them remarking on my intricate budgets. They also believe I am lazy when it comes to my classes and often do not believe in my problems with phones, social interactions, sensory, etc. I haven't been diagnosed, but if I am I hope it will either help with my current job and college or I can move onto another job that suits my strengths and weaknesses better.

I have a very hard time keeping jobs because of my aspie traits. I've had 24 different jobs since graduating high school. Thirteen different ones in just the last 5 years alone. Most of them were lost because of my poor social skills and my obsessive special interests.

Sensory overload has been a big problem. It's affected my performance at some point in every job I've ever had because my brain doesn't work right when I can't handle the sensory input from the environment...I can't think, can't make my body work properly, and start losing the ability to make sense of what I see and hear...everything starts shutting down. At more than one job, I ended up yelling at a superior over them wanting me to do or understand something when I wasn't capable of doing or understanding anything (thankfully nothing too major – I didn't curse at anybody or anything, and I was able to apologize and sort of patch things up each time...but it's not good to lose control like that at work, and I think maybe I was just lucky to be working for people who were more understanding or forgiving than most). One time I spent something like 30min-1hr at work locked in a single person bathroom, stimming and biting myself trying to keep myself from having a full-blown meltdown, hoping nobody would knock on the door or come looking for me because I was in a state where I would have just panicked and screamed at them (and because I couldn't have explained what was wrong -- not even after the fact when I was calm and my brain was working, not even in writing...at that time I didn't have words like "sensory overload", and I had no script for how such a conversation was supposed to go)... I was hiding because I wanted to get to the end of my shift without losing my job.


I've had a lot of jobs that I failed at utterly because I couldn't do multiple things at once, couldn't do things fast enough, or couldn't understand the instructions properly (following multi-part verbal instructions is not something I can do -- I have to write things down and/or have people actually demonstrate what I'm supposed to do). I quit a number of those jobs after being told that if I didn't start doing better I'd be fired. Doing better meant working faster, "listening" better or "trying harder"...and since it was never about listening or effort but about not understanding, not remembering, and not being able to work/think any faster than I was already, there never seemed to be any point in staying... each time I reasoned I could be looking for other jobs I might not fail at instead, and my employer could be hiring somebody who could work faster or understand them better.

Once, I was fired for forgetting a bunch of my shifts -- I completely forgot to go to work a number of times (I can't remember how many shifts I missed). I was trying to work part-time while going to school part-time (3 courses), and there were literally not enough hours in the day for me to keep up with schoolwork and daily-life stuff while also working. I started skipping lectures and sacrificed sleep so that I would have more time do my homework and other things I needed to do, and I still couldn't come close to catching up...with the loss of sleep on top of the stress, I couldn't keep track of the days of the week, let alone all the things I was supposed to be doing on those days, and everything fell apart.

I desire and need a set routine---which my job should be. But often times, I am asked to do things when other employees have been sick. Changing my routine to do someone else's job at the expense of my job responsibilities not being fulfilled is not acceptable in my opinion. If I am sick, no one fills in for me, but yet my job is very important. I have since begun saying "no" when I am asked to do these things. But still, the feeling that at anytime I may be asked to do something else keeps me on edge every day. As a result, my blood pressure is high, and I have since have had to go on blood pressure medicine.

I've lost many jobs because of a mixture of aspie traits and NVLD traits.

1)One job was working in a clothing store. I didn't make any sales at all and the costumers declined help from me. The customers would then accept help from the other sales girl working. The reasons for this..... my guesses are that my strange body language put them off and my appearance . I wasn't as sleek and stylish, as put together as the other girls working there. I was fired after a month.

2)Another job was working in a coffee shop. I could not multi-task. I made mistakes on cash all the time especially when people tried to talk to me at the same time as I was doing cash. I was clumsy and dropped large quantities of things. I was too slow. I was fired after 2 months.

3)A third job was in a daycare centre. The sensory overload was a problem and because of it I would say I had to go to the wash room a lot and go stand somewhere quiet out of the room. I was clumsy, I couldn't multitask, I got in trouble for focusing too much on one child or group of children and ignoring/not seeing what was happening with others. I didn't recognize faces and got people mixed up. The ladies that I worked with were bullies. They teased me for the way I dressed and for mixing people up. They would say "come on, you can do it. Which one is Paula and which is Denise.?" They asked me what kind of grades I got in school and when I said I got mostly A's they acted really surprised and said "seriously?" ect. I got in a fight with a supervisor because SHE wasn't following one of the rules that the administration set. I wasn't fired but as I worked as a supply and got called in when they needed me, they simply stopped calling me. I lasted there for about a year.

4) I worked in a vet clinic as an animal care assistant and cleaner. I didn't get my work done on time. I'd clean one area meticulously and not get others done at all. When I was reprimanded and tried to go faster I made silly mistakes and didn't get things clean enough. I had problems controlling the aggressive , loud dogs so that I could walk them. The smells from the surgery (antiseptic) mixed with cleaning products and bodily fluids from the animals was overwhelming and again I would hide in the wash room or outside a lot. I was nauseated and because of the smells. The noise was awful too. It was a sensory hell. I was constantly reprimanded by co-workers and the boss (every day). I quit after 2 weeks.

5) I worked in as an office clerk. I had problems with multi-tasking and prioritizing. I'd get one task done well and ignore others. I 'd either not get things done on time or make silly mistakes. I quit after three weeks. They were close to firing me here too...I got a lot of talking-tos.

At-least I can GET jobs. Now I've just got to work out how to hold on to them.

I was once put on probation after an incident where i was given an ambiguous command and i misintrepreted it making the manager angrier at my every misintrepretation without him even trying to make what he wanted clearer and let his emotion get in the way. Written up for "not being a team player"

Then they felt the need to interrupt me at will while i was concentrating on a task. I would always get startled when that happened and took a good while to get my bearings straight again, and was written up for that also.

But my technical skills held my employment until a reorganization brought a new regional manager who didn't know me and then he interviewed the employees for their own jobs under the guise of "getting to know you better", which i later found out when i got "laid off".

My problems are so bad I haven't even got there yet.

Interruptions, and never being left alone to focus on the current task. When people will insist on trying to explain the next task when I'm currently in the middle of something, I find it hard to switch gears in my head fast enough to absorb those instructions. I either have to write down what they've said, or do the task they've just given me straight away so that I won't forget what I was supposed to do. Either way, it interrupts my focus and that's when mistakes get made. The constant necessity to change gears in my head to chop and change between tasks is particularly tiring, never mind irritating.

Appraisals - OMG, what "reasonable accommodations" is it possible to ask for on appraisals when three quarters of the form consist of requirements like "client service", "initiative", "adaptability and flexibility", and "teamwork"? Barely a quarter of it asks about things like job knowledge and technical skills, which are, of course, my strengths. During a lengthy discussion with the manager who performed the appraisal it came to light that while I do take initiative, this has gone generally unobserved by the people I work for since I don't go around trumpeting about it, leading to my performance score being marked down. The issue was not one of performance or lack of initiative, but visibility.

Talking of visibility, I think this has been a recurrent theme, where my skills and knowledge get overlooked or considered in an unfairly poor light compared to co-workers with more social currency.

In one job where I taught religious ed. classes, I couldn't leave my course room unattended, so unless colleagues came into the course room, I only ever got to see them and talk to them during the breaks. I was very isolated from my colleagues yet I was the one who was accused of not being part of the team. The public students were the people I was interacting with all day, and I got accused of fraternizing with the students because naturally I ended up making friends with them instead of my distant/avoidant colleagues. Some very senior colleagues interfered with my course, making a lot of students leave or not re-sign for the next class, and then I was accused of having undisclosed sins because of my personality and the way I came across in their view, causing me to leave.