Exploited when it's your turn

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Hi:
I was wondering how many of you in here ever held a position where you notice that when other co-workers have a special life event
1. Wedding
2. Housewarming
3. New baby
4. Engagement
5. Going away
6. Major surgey
7. Mile stone birthday

The boss, the other co-workers including yourself make an effort to reach out by
1. Passing around cards to sign and give them a best wishes comment.
2. Attending their parties/ wedding etc
3. Getting gifts while the boss purchases a special gift for them.

When it comes to you:
1. They refuse to come your things with excuses and no not RSVP
2. You don't get cards or gifts from other co-workers
3. The boss also doesn't take any slight interest in you or bother to give a gift or a card either.

Is this common for people with Autism and other ASDs? If so how did some of you handle things? What are some good tactics?

How many people are in your office? Do you socialize with your colleagues outside the office? Do your colleagues socialize with each other outside of the office? Are you sure ALL your colleagues go to ALL of each other's social gatherings? Were you initially invited to any of these gatherings? If so, did you decline multiple invites in a row? Have you ever been disciplined at work? Do you make your boss and/or colleagues aware of your special events?

It does sound like you are being excluded but without additional information it is impossible to pinpoint why.

Examples:
- if you were initially invited but declined several invitations in a row, they probably assumed you weren't interested and stopped inviting you.
- if you don't socialize with your colleagues outside work already, you won't be invited to their weddings, parties, whatevers and that's normal.
- if there are 5,000 people working in your office, being excluded from some gatherings is inevitable and isn't personal.
- in my office, you have to agree to tell the secretary your birthdate if you want to get a birthday card. She's got a list and asks only once, so if you forget, you don't get a birthday card.
- if you've been disciplined at work, it might spillover into your social life. (A person disciplined for sexually harassing a colleague probably won't be invited to that person's parties not parties that individual is expected to attend).

I agree. I'm NT, but I often get (thankfully) excluded from things because I make it clear that I'm not interested in joining their things. Frankly, I don't like it when people try to throw things for me or make me go to things. I kind of make that obvious.

You make an effort with the people you like and they make an effort with you back. That's usually how it goes.

when i got married and when i retired, my boss threw a party and many of my co-workers contributed. i worked for a very supportive company, though. don't know how it would be elsewhere.

Well, this year I was forgotten when it came to birthday recognitions by the company. About a month later there was an announcement that the owners were going to be walking around for the next week or two passing out thank you envelopes to commemorate peoples' years of service. Yeah, I was somehow forgotten despite this summer marking ten years with the company & not only directly impacting increased profits and reputation with our partners, but being liked and appreciated well enough by at least a small core group with whom I have direct contact.

But it turns out it's not because I'm on the spectrum. Nor because I'm an introvert. Not because I'm a techie and they are all sales. When I compared notes with a close coworker who was also overlooked we figured out that the only people who *were* recognized were the 78% of the workforce that belong to the owners' Southern Baptist congregation.

Sometimes, the answer is not what you expected, or assumed but something else altogether. In this case, I'll keep on being me and let it slide. Because given the reason...it just wouldn't be worth fighting *or* joining them. I go into the office (or vpn in) each day because we have a business agreement, not because my life revolves around my job.

my husband's company forgot his 20-yr, service award. i reminded them and they gave him a free dinner the next year. could you make a suggestion about having been overlooked, kinda sorta apologetically? something along the lines that time flies and no one noticed (you, yourself almost forgot) how long you worked there.

The reason I asked is because I wanted to know how many of you in here are on the spectrum that get ignored or go unrecognized at work when it's your turn.

I worked in an environment which was work supported by the department of labor. It was a very small company consisting of 10 people. They were about 40 minutes away from where I live and most resided in the area.

1. I was invited to weddings, going away parties etc.
2. I made every effort to attend most of their things
3. They recognized my birthday by getting me a cake and posting my name on the door.

The owner of this company also made an effort to attend most their special events and get them nice gifts or have everyone sign a card. (Going away, weddings, birthdays etc)

I ended up getting my own condo and set a date for a housewarming party. I asked that no one getting me any gifts since I had gotten so many hand me downs and items from a family member. I reached out to all my co-workers by sending an invitation. I even posted a copy of the invite to one of the doors.

I either got "No" or a zero response. None of them had the courtesy to show up even though two said they were coming. Both of them had excuses for me afterwards.
1. They were planning on attending but had been side tracked with other things and had something else come up.
2. The other person said they forgot about it because they ended up doing some renovations to their parents house.

I got no cards or any type of gift from anyone and not even the boss. It's sad because they had a child with severe autism so you think they would be happy but they were not. They were also not very understanding.

On the other hand
1. A lot of people there didn't get me and often talked behind my back.
2. I did things that they didn't like which they did not handle very well and dropped hints of nasty sarcasm.
3. They did several things that were unethical as well
4. The job coach negative

I had called them out on several of those affairs but we always appeared to work it out. I thought we would be okay by the time I had the party. It was obviously not.

It does indeed sound like you're now being intentionally excluded from work-related social gatherings and have a pretty good idea why that's the case. It's less that you're autistic, more that relationships with your colleagues are presently chilly. It's not right, it's not wrong, it isn't fun but it just is. Sigh.

While it's rude not to RSVP or no-show, an invitation isn't a subpoena. It's nice to get a birthday card or little present from colleagues but isn't mandatory. I think all you can do is accept that this is the way it is, decline to contribute to gifts for others if you so choose and make an effort to expand your non-work social life.

Note: This was 5 years ago and I don't work there anymore but it had been on my mind. I do a series of blogs on you tube and I wanted to give tips to other people on the spectrum who are or will be employed.

I wasn't really excluded from other affairs. I again made every effort to attend their things and attempt to be involved.

A good example:
I ended up going the extra mile to help at the wedding by helping out with their guest book for the first person who was a no show. I had asked them to help me set up and they said they would be there. They also never called to let me know that they decided to spend the day with their spouse. Their story was "We were in an area where there was a bad signal."

Gift part
1. I was more hurt that no one showed
2. Not having your own boss who always went out of her way to spend money in buying nice gifts, cards, or money to everyone else but me I am sorry but that was a burn.
3. No one appeared to think about or care about my feelings at all. This was the most evident when they found out that I had talked about them behind their backs outside of work to others. They looked at it as a threat to fire me. I never got an apology or anything.

I'm not sure what advice there is to be given to others, besides be cordial to your colleagues, keep your social expectations in check (invitations aren't subpoenas), you shouldn't feel obligated to contribute financially to "office gifts" (but you can certainly do so if you want to) and don't b***h about your colleagues behind their backs (even outside work, as it'll get back to them and reflect badly on you).

It was unkind of the guest book guy to no-show, particularly after you'd previously gone out of your way to help him. The take-away is that you valued his friendship more than he did yours (and you presumably remained cordial but stopped socializing with him outside work). I am not great at picking up social signals, so I'd likely end up learning this lesson in a similarly painful way.

Regarding gifts:
1. You were hurt. That's unfortunate but does not make an invitation a subpoena.
2. It's a burn. Your boss isn't obligated to buy you presents.
3. Your colleagues aren't obligated to care about your feelings or socialize with you outside work. They're only required to be civil to you at work.

I am also unclear as to why you feel your colleagues should apologize to you for complaining about them outside of work.

I wasn't very clear on that. Why would I expect an apology based on the information getting back to them? Of course they would have been upset. They felt insulted.

What I would expect an apology about is that they learned that I was hurt about them not respecting me as a person by refusing to come or get me presents.

I wasn't very clear on that. Why would I expect an apology based on the information getting back to them? Of course they would have been upset. They felt insulted. However it seemed to be okay for a lot of those people to talk about me behind my back by either making fun of me or spreading lies. Maybe they got a dose of their own medicine.

What I would expect an apology about is that they learned that I was hurt about them not respecting me as a person by refusing to come or get me presents.

Well, you incurred their wrath by complaining about them behind their backs and then had the gall to expect them to apologize to you for not buying you presents?

That'd be what your YouTube advice video should be about. You failed to see this self-induced debacle from your colleagues perspective!

Actually I was thinking about explaining after reading a lot of the previous posts that it sounds like I may have taken things so personally.