Terrified of work

My experience of librarianship was that a lot depends on the library. I did fine in a small, higher education library where much of my job was cataloguing and I had little user interaction. Unfortunately, I burnt out and had to leave. Then I got a job in an enormous further education library with significant amounts of user interaction, a noisy environment (!), difficult students and occasional antisemitism. I burnt out there too, but struggled through until my boss more or less told me that she had no confidence in my ability to do my job and was changing it to something more user-focused (!! I wasn't diagnosed autistic at this stage, but still). I've had a couple of short-term library jobs since then, but failed to progress my career any further and am now not in the library sector (also in a bad-fit role, but good enough to struggle through for now).

My point is that a lot depends on environment and the level of support you get from colleagues and managers. Maybe you can think about this and look at adjustments you might ask for?

Yes, well. There's a lot to say about the misconception that library work is peaceful and that librarians spend a lot of time reading books and learning stuff when a lot of time can be spent doing customer service work. I used to have a nice balance of reference library management, local history enquiries, managing home library service, and youth library services, as well as covering leave for small village libraries in our district. The down side was working every other Saturday when we had thousands of customers use the library and it was all user interaction all day long. The public can be very difficult to deal with even if you're not autistic. For me it was worth one day of discomfort to be able to do a job I loved the rest of the time. 

I agree identifying potential difficulties can be a way to manage stress but Billy doesn't have a diagnosis yet so doesn't have the right to ask for "reasonable adjustments". That's why I asked if he can look how to break the day in to manageable sections and try to get regular breaks from customer interaction while he is adjusting to the new role and learning the ropes. I think about this a lot myself at the moment - how to ask for specific tweaks without saying "I'm autistic", which most people don't get anyway. Things like "I need to be somewhere quiet to work on this and focus" or "I'm finding I can't complete this task with constant interruptions. Could I go somewhere quiet to finish it? I know I can get it done quicker that way " or "I don't mind shelving/repairing books if that needs doing " is much more helpful and specific than "I'm autistic and I struggle with customer interaction". It's worth trying - if it works then great, if not then at least you tried and then you can try something else to manage. There are many parts to starting a new job that are potential difficulties - finding your way around a new place, meeting new people, a new sensory environment, learning new social rules of the group (all groups operate differently and have unspoken rules and ways of being that can be difficult for us to pick up on), learning new skills specific to the role, and dealing with change which is particularly difficult for us. When you break it down it's no wonder that all those things together are a challenge. 

Sorry you had to stop working in libraries, Luftmentsch. It sounds like the cataloguing job was a good fit for you. I'm still trying to find a job that I can find as much satisfaction from but that doesn't burn me out. It's not easy, is it?

Yes, well. There's a lot to say about the misconception that library work is peaceful and that librarians spend a lot of time reading books and learning stuff when a lot of time can be spent doing customer service work. I used to have a nice balance of reference library management, local history enquiries, managing home library service, and youth library services, as well as covering leave for small village libraries in our district. The down side was working every other Saturday when we had thousands of customers use the library and it was all user interaction all day long. The public can be very difficult to deal with even if you're not autistic. For me it was worth one day of discomfort to be able to do a job I loved the rest of the time. 

I agree identifying potential difficulties can be a way to manage stress but Billy doesn't have a diagnosis yet so doesn't have the right to ask for "reasonable adjustments". That's why I asked if he can look how to break the day in to manageable sections and try to get regular breaks from customer interaction while he is adjusting to the new role and learning the ropes. I think about this a lot myself at the moment - how to ask for specific tweaks without saying "I'm autistic", which most people don't get anyway. Things like "I need to be somewhere quiet to work on this and focus" or "I'm finding I can't complete this task with constant interruptions. Could I go somewhere quiet to finish it? I know I can get it done quicker that way " or "I don't mind shelving/repairing books if that needs doing " is much more helpful and specific than "I'm autistic and I struggle with customer interaction". It's worth trying - if it works then great, if not then at least you tried and then you can try something else to manage. There are many parts to starting a new job that are potential difficulties - finding your way around a new place, meeting new people, a new sensory environment, learning new social rules of the group (all groups operate differently and have unspoken rules and ways of being that can be difficult for us to pick up on), learning new skills specific to the role, and dealing with change which is particularly difficult for us. When you break it down it's no wonder that all those things together are a challenge. 

Sorry you had to stop working in libraries, Luftmentsch. It sounds like the cataloguing job was a good fit for you. I'm still trying to find a job that I can find as much satisfaction from but that doesn't burn me out. It's not easy, is it?