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Job-related challenges

belles12345

I have autistic traits (possibly enough to be autistic- currently undergoing assessment), and I am now very much aware of the difficulties that I have in my work due to my research on autism.  Aside from the social and communication difficulties (which I know are big challenges for me), I also feel that I struggle in other areas in job-related organising/communicating etc.  However I am a perfectionnist and am unable to understand if these challenges are also fairly normal for neurotypical people too and within the 'normal' (if it exists!) range of daily challenges... these are the following:

- difficulty remembering to do a task that I am aked to do after a minute unless I write it down

- asking something that I have already been told or that is obvious, only to realise that I already knew the answer before but completely forgot

- not realising something seemingly obvious, such as that a schedule can change (I tend to view it as fixed and work around it, then feel stupid when I realise that there was no reason to be so rigid)

- difficulty reading 'inbetween the lines'- I think this is fairly standard for those on the spectrum as far as I can gather

- feeling irritated when interrupted doing a task, and struggle to do so unless directly asked

- looking through piles of work repeatedly if they're not clearly organised (due to lack of space to organise properly), to check that there is nothing I should have done in the pile

- forgetting to take some essential equipment (some of which it is dangerous to be without)

It would be great to gain some perspective on these struggles, as I am aware that I may be getting these out of proportion in my head and that actually I am coping ok when sometimes I feel like I am not.  I suppose it also depends on the frequency that this happens, which I am not sure, and again compared to what.

Parents

  • Ah yes - very ciritical point there in the close of Longman's reply...

    "Able people cannot think disabled."

    And the reverse is also true - though I think often rather less so, as we are forced to live our lives in the NT world, whereas NT folk never have to inhabit ours!

    This is important if needing to discuss any "reasonable adjustments" with an employer, as you have little choice than to describe them in words that NT managers and colleagues can understand.  From personal experience, I can vouch that this can be very difficult.

    For example, managers in my previous job were pretty open and sympathetic when I first began struggling and approached them.  However, when we say to our manager; "I have great difficulty multi-tasking", they will read those words in a neuro-typical way - they may take on board that you cannot persue two projects simultaneously, but it will not occur to them that this also means you will struggle to get a job done simply because you cannot tolerate "trivial" interruptions such as office banter.  (Particularly true because there is a pervasive, very trivialising, "truism" than men cannot multi-task!!)

    Similarly, when describing difficulties in dealing with ambiguity, you are likely to find that they will make an attempt to be more specific, but still nowhere near specific enough - because they are totally unaware of just how many assumptions, and how much implicit information, their minds provide them with that an AS person simply does not have access to.

    It is also very important to make sure that any adjustments are reviewed periodically.  Again, because the assumptions that NTs make are so "instinctive", they are very likely to simply slip back into the old ways of dealing with an AS employee.  Our "reasonable adjustments" require them to break with habits and ways of thinking that they have been familiar with for their entire lives and are contantly reinforced by NT society.

    However, the list of very specific areas of difficulties in the original posting are a very good start - the more specific you can be, the better, and it is well worth keeping a note somewhere of any specific issues that come up in the course of  each working day or project to assist you when having performance reviews etc.

    Tying requests to specific events or tasks is useful because it helps to overcome the problem that, although AS and NT employees appear to use the same vocabulary, generalities can very often be mis-interpreted by both sides - your real needs can be "lost in translation" unless they are very concrete.

Reply

  • Ah yes - very ciritical point there in the close of Longman's reply...

    "Able people cannot think disabled."

    And the reverse is also true - though I think often rather less so, as we are forced to live our lives in the NT world, whereas NT folk never have to inhabit ours!

    This is important if needing to discuss any "reasonable adjustments" with an employer, as you have little choice than to describe them in words that NT managers and colleagues can understand.  From personal experience, I can vouch that this can be very difficult.

    For example, managers in my previous job were pretty open and sympathetic when I first began struggling and approached them.  However, when we say to our manager; "I have great difficulty multi-tasking", they will read those words in a neuro-typical way - they may take on board that you cannot persue two projects simultaneously, but it will not occur to them that this also means you will struggle to get a job done simply because you cannot tolerate "trivial" interruptions such as office banter.  (Particularly true because there is a pervasive, very trivialising, "truism" than men cannot multi-task!!)

    Similarly, when describing difficulties in dealing with ambiguity, you are likely to find that they will make an attempt to be more specific, but still nowhere near specific enough - because they are totally unaware of just how many assumptions, and how much implicit information, their minds provide them with that an AS person simply does not have access to.

    It is also very important to make sure that any adjustments are reviewed periodically.  Again, because the assumptions that NTs make are so "instinctive", they are very likely to simply slip back into the old ways of dealing with an AS employee.  Our "reasonable adjustments" require them to break with habits and ways of thinking that they have been familiar with for their entire lives and are contantly reinforced by NT society.

    However, the list of very specific areas of difficulties in the original posting are a very good start - the more specific you can be, the better, and it is well worth keeping a note somewhere of any specific issues that come up in the course of  each working day or project to assist you when having performance reviews etc.

    Tying requests to specific events or tasks is useful because it helps to overcome the problem that, although AS and NT employees appear to use the same vocabulary, generalities can very often be mis-interpreted by both sides - your real needs can be "lost in translation" unless they are very concrete.

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