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Paid Work Woes

Pandoren

I'll start the thread by saying I'm skint. I still live with my parents and I'm sort of in debt to them now...

I picked up an application form today for a Sunday job at the local supermarket... but she said it was working the tills and I think having to interact with the public for six hours a week is my idea of hell. I already work three voluntary jobs where I don't really interact with the public but also don't really interact with my own coworkers! When I did work experience at a shop when I was at school, I did my best to avoid everybody.

There's also the awkward question "Please account for any periods of non-employment" and other than the voluntary stuff, I've never been employed- I left college at 18 and have spent 7 useless years at home. Frown

Sometimes I think I'll never be employed. Frown

Parents

  • Because we are all distinctive individuals with a wide range of severities (or mildnesses) of autistic 'spectrum', comparisons are inappropriate.  However I will make the observation here, all the same, for what it is worth.

    At 18 I left school after three feeble attempts at O' Levels, mostly repeats. After several months fruitless job searching I worked four months as a clerk (catastrophically), then several months seeking work, then four months as a reporter on a pathetic weekly (my unrealistic ambition foiled), more time job searching, then six months as an orderly in a hospital, wards and theatre.

    Somewhat numbed by bullying because I was good entertainment, I was generally regarded as a retard, with the only compensation that someone worse than me was designated "village idiot" within my age group. At 16 at a careers talk in the assembly hall the speaker hoped none of us would end up as a dustman, and there was a resounding chorus of my name. When I tried to go to college for a few weeks I was followed around by a crowd of school contemporaries mocking me in public.

    I went to FE college at 20, and got into university the following year on special entry. At the time people were saying it must have been fixed in some way and it wouldn't last. By 29 I had a degree and a PhD. I still had trouble in the job market for many years because interview panels obsessed with me about the poor school results, the short work periods before college, and my times out of work. There's still that absurd notion you have to be guilty about early setbacks, like is it really that important?

    One of the things I think happened to me, whether scientifically valid, is that I had maturity delays. I was very naiive and slow witted in my teens, but underwent sudden dramatic changes in early 20s, mid 20s and late 20s, and again mid-30s. I reckon puberty didn't happen properly. Always meant that apart from acute social difficulties I was always seen as a bit naiive and immature.

    As I say, it isn't possible to do cross comparisons because we are so varied as individuals. 

    I'd just venture to say that what seems bleak now, doesn't always have to remain so. Hopefully you will find a way through it all.

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  • Because we are all distinctive individuals with a wide range of severities (or mildnesses) of autistic 'spectrum', comparisons are inappropriate.  However I will make the observation here, all the same, for what it is worth.

    At 18 I left school after three feeble attempts at O' Levels, mostly repeats. After several months fruitless job searching I worked four months as a clerk (catastrophically), then several months seeking work, then four months as a reporter on a pathetic weekly (my unrealistic ambition foiled), more time job searching, then six months as an orderly in a hospital, wards and theatre.

    Somewhat numbed by bullying because I was good entertainment, I was generally regarded as a retard, with the only compensation that someone worse than me was designated "village idiot" within my age group. At 16 at a careers talk in the assembly hall the speaker hoped none of us would end up as a dustman, and there was a resounding chorus of my name. When I tried to go to college for a few weeks I was followed around by a crowd of school contemporaries mocking me in public.

    I went to FE college at 20, and got into university the following year on special entry. At the time people were saying it must have been fixed in some way and it wouldn't last. By 29 I had a degree and a PhD. I still had trouble in the job market for many years because interview panels obsessed with me about the poor school results, the short work periods before college, and my times out of work. There's still that absurd notion you have to be guilty about early setbacks, like is it really that important?

    One of the things I think happened to me, whether scientifically valid, is that I had maturity delays. I was very naiive and slow witted in my teens, but underwent sudden dramatic changes in early 20s, mid 20s and late 20s, and again mid-30s. I reckon puberty didn't happen properly. Always meant that apart from acute social difficulties I was always seen as a bit naiive and immature.

    As I say, it isn't possible to do cross comparisons because we are so varied as individuals. 

    I'd just venture to say that what seems bleak now, doesn't always have to remain so. Hopefully you will find a way through it all.

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