Published on 12, July, 2020
The first place I was in (full time contract) held a meeting between management and HR and said I could leave the job there and then and be paid for the three months notice I would have worked. I hated the environment in that place so I was glad to go. I was told in the past while in this job that I wasn't productive enough. I worked here just under a year,
The second place did not renew my 3 month temporary contract citing performance and quality issues. This does not make sense as I focus a lot on detail so the quality should at least have been good. Four other temporary staff were kept on after their contracts ended. Out of the 5 temporary people, I was the only one not kept on.
Is this a pattern that's going to keep repeating itself? Saddening if so. Do they see the aspergers and make excuses to get rid of me? I thought my work quality was far better than others who were more pally with management (in other words the *** lickers).
I have always found I need to keep starting again in life. I'm in my 30s and it's back to the drawing board.
I think a lot of ASD people accidentally end up working in the wrong environment. I've been in science and tech my whole life where technical ability is valued far higher than fitting in socially.
I've worked with lots of odd people - probably undiagnosed ASD - so I don't stick out too much in comparison.
The worst places are where there's loads of politics and people playing power games, normally in office environments.
I've had to endure working in a couple of horrible places where I was surrounded by incompetent people with terrible management - but I was realistic enough to get myself out before too much mental damage was done.
The worst wa a small tech company where at the interview I was told how it was "all one big family and we all help each other."
The reality was I was expected to work late and assist everone else but they found excuses not to help me. I smiled and carried on but got myself a better job and left. They couldn't understand why I would leave such a happy place. And that's the problem, I thought to myself.
That's the thing I'd really wish I would crack! The skill of being a lazy slacker and somehow getting away with it. I probably wouldn't want to be a lazy slacker, it's not really my thing, as I think it's not yours, but it would be nice to be able to kick back and slack when I needed to and for it to be socially acceptable. Does that make sense?
I think it's almost another symptom of the curse of competence that we can't seem to be able to do that for some reason.
It's not so bad in my current job, because a lot of the other people in my global team are so shockingly bad that the quality bar is set very low ;-) but I'd still like to be able to crack that skill...
I have a couple of decades in IT. Social awkwardness has worked for me. It is an environment where geekiness imbues you with an aura of competence. Even works in sales situations - and I really don't have the social skills to be a salesman. But the anti-gloss implied a degree of honesty - to nerdy to lie.
Lots of employers are just really bad employers, who treat their staff atrociously, knowing that you can always be replaced. Those workplaces unsurprisingly have low loyalty, and are a relief to get out of. But there is hope. There are good employers out there. Temperamentally, I always picked small companies. I have ended up in a multinational via a takeover, but never by design. A good smaller company is less regimented, and more tolerant of quirks - as long as you do your work.