How many with autism really want to work or are able to?

How is your health bad Senator? Is someone helping you?

Please keep positive as it seems from your post you know what you want to do and that is a great start....

Sending you positive vibes

Hello trainspotter,

I totally empathize with your situation - I felt like that in my last job when I let the poor treatment of others get to me and it caused me great stress - I need to work because I used to buy things to make me happy but as you can guess, it didn't.

Is there a possibility for you to work in an environment that values your skills? I have been lucky to find such a place now and I keep pinching myself for the last 7 months..

It is my mother who tells me to be grateful....even at 46 she can wind me up and I have a low tolerance for her attitude....let's not go there.

How long since you were diagnosed?

Keep the faith mate as it sounds like you know what you want....I listened to a podcast today and the chap talked about having a journal and starting off by writing down what you value.....that would be a difficult one for me....have kin of drifted along over the last years waiting for happiness to find me....

A lot of people will say I'm lucky.  I have a job. 

It gives me money, not a lot, but I can support myself.  But what it doesn't give me is satisfaction.  It causes me great anxiety.  I dread going to work each day.  And trying to explain the reasons for my anxiety gets remarks about how negative I am.  The managers think I need 'support' to get me to do work I absolutely hate.

What I do want is to do a job I have skills at.  I will always be useless at telephone work, at work that is tedious which I am forced to do in a way I am unhappy with.  At working as a 'team' member.  At working in an office full of other people.  At continually being interrupted.  And no amount of 'support' will change this.  The support I need is being left alone to concentrate on the job in hand, in being able to use my mathematical skills my IT skills, my logic skills and skills of concentration on a job that allows me to think.  And all these have been taken away from me in the past few years in the cause of 'reorganisation'.

Work does not always give peace of mind and a sense of purpose.  I often wonder what I am there for. 

And the feeling of the management is that I should be grateful I have a job.

ClaireHig said:

Hi,

I just received an email from the national autistic society as many of you probably have also. It is asking us to sign a petition to put pressure on the government for us to get 'jobs we deserve'.

It claims:

But 77% of unemployed autistic adults, or people responding on their behalf, told us they want to work.

This got me thinking. How many of those responding were only doing so on behalf of those with autism, without stating how the autistic person really felt. For example if you ask my mother, she would say I do want to work. Stating I can & should want to work. She will then quote her Christian beliefs to say it's an order. But personally I don't wish to work because I know it leaves me suicidal etc, no matter how much support I were to have.

Obviously I'm not signing the petition. But it could still be signed by those such as my mother, on behalf of those with autism. Making it of benefit to the economy, but of little benefit to many with autism.

The state already tries to force us to work & refuses to acknowledge that many of us can't. It stops our benefit, leaving us with nothing to live on, pay bills with nor council tax (which many are now forced to pay). I view my council tax, as a tax on me having autism! All this seems against human rights & even migrants here don't have to tolerate this. This petition could give a very dangerous get out of jail free card to government, to do even worse.

I didn't get this email, so it's likely that I have probably missed it so I will go back through my emails and try and find it.

I myself have never had a job and I am 19 now. I'm not good with people and when I do go out I usually end up feeling faint or sick, so I've never been in a work enviroment in my life! I like the idea of working, especially in a nice little shop maybe like WHSmith or possibly a local little shop but currently my health is very bad so I can't.

Sounds like a really great idea Stephen - I know about the meltdowns with my former manager - he was a micro manager and I tried to explain what leaders should do for their employees and he didn't like that....

It is a breath of fresh air to know we have ASD and that we have great ideas....and yes, I totally agree about becoming a novelist - I want to become a coach and help others....

I think though the missus is a bit worn out after 12 years of me being me and that is a hard thing too.....maybe one day :)

I'm high-functioning ASD and I not only want to work, I have worked.

That said, I have had trouble getting myself across at times in interviews, left my only permanent job after problems with my manager where I ended up having several meltdowns and would really like to be a full-time novelist so I don't have to go to an office all the time.

No need to apologise Random - everything you said was true.....

Nice to see though that manufacturing is returning to the UK from low cost countries - I live in DK now and Denmark still manages to compete for manufacturing and it is great to see that industry in DK actually uses locally built items too.....

We have to get away from using "cheap" labour just because it keeps shareholders happy....I know the people in "cheap" labour locations need the money however, it shouldn't be at the detriment of others

So true Vometia....it is wrong to ship jobs abroad for the sake of saving a few quid....the company I work for now is a family owned company and it makes a difference that they don't have shareholders to placate however, they do have bases in all the low cost countries however, they are there and giving good employment. That being said, it is always a toss up between making money and doing the right thing eh? 

Seems us on the autism spectrum have a sense of right and wrong and we don't like seeing injustice and now that I know, it feels better that I am not alone and that we want to do the right thing.

Have you kids? If so, do any of them have autism / aspergers?

Hi,

As working from home came in to fashion, technology advanced, which meant work could be resourced remotely on a global scale. This led to outsourcing this work to the lowest bidder, and India became a very big winner.

One of the largest BT research labs is near me, and employs thousands of IT workers. I briefly landed some work there, and that was only from a personal recommendation of someone who already worked for them. BT used an agency to recruit, and jobs were not advertised in UK,  they were pursued in India with an office based there and big outsourcing organisations that were booming.

Problem with outsourcing is lack of training, apply for job in UK and employers want someone with experience, even graduate positions. With the outsourcing in India, this was not the case. Unskilled employees would work alongside or remotely with experienced members, in the understanding that they would pick up the skills quickly, although the company outsourcing them were under the impression it was all skilled labour.

Problem is a fair proportion of the unskilled employees had no interest in the career (it was the only thing available to them), or did not have the capability to gain the level of skill needed. Not to mention communication problems. This led to problems on project, and outsourcing has now gone out of fashion.

That's a good thing for UK, as we simply just can't compete on price with some countries because the cost of living is very different.

Sorry, a bit of a rant, but just putting my thoughts down. 

Random

Hey Electra,

You are so right, it is not the question of us not being able to get a job - I have had the senior positions and high salary to boot however, it isn't worth a toss when us Aspies have such a difficult time with the political BS of big organisations...

I argued so much with my former boss because I hated the way at management meetings we would tear strips off our employees and then go back and do nothing about it....

I was bullied in school because I couldn't do humour or understand when people were teasing because I didn't understand why they would do that on me and that only made it worse and I have seen this follow me all my life until I went to a coach here this year who spotted I have Aspergers instead of ADHD.

In relationships it also hard because you think you are doing ok and your other half is tearing their hair out.....

So we Aspies have so much to give and are not bad people and I wish more were like GCHQ because it seems they have the right attitude. Also, engineering companies are good with Aspergers because a lot of engineers have it - I now work for an engineering company and I love the entrepreneurial spirit of the place - am trying to find another position in the company I am in though because the department I am in is political and purely driven by savings....

How are you doing in your job now? Are things ok?

Hugs

I too am disappointed with the NAS camapign around adults and work.

Firstly I found the campaign video just baffling and I don't think a neurotypical person would make any more sense of it. Also it reinforces the idea that we are unstable and prone to outbursts in public places. Not something likely to attract employers so why has the NAS portrayed us in this light? I  would have found it more informative to  have two autistic people discussing the problems they've faced at job interviews.

Secondly its not getting a job that many of us find hard, its keeping it and keeping our sanity. Almost every autistic person who has worked has experience of unhelpful managers, office politics and horrible work environments that resulted in stress and poor health. Requests made for reasonable adjustments under the Equalties Act are routinely refused by ill-informed managers and employers would rather we left than make the effort to integrate us into the workforce.

And not all of us can work even if we would like to.

At GCHQ, where a high proportion of staff are autistic, there are specialist support systems in place to make sure they get the best out of their talented and skilled neurodiverse workforce. This is what we need NAS, not videos of us having public meltdowns. I would just hate my manager to see that video.

Hey there,

We Aspies have so much to offer.....and it is only now that I understand that I am an Aspie, I can start to live...

If I were to tell my former boss about me now and why he was always on my case, I wonder would he change his attitude....

Now, I have a great boss and great company....I still worry and am still anxious however, now that I know I am different, I can get the help to become stronger and face down the sh!ts we meet as we go along.

A friend of mine told me yesterday, my trusting people is the way we should always be....except we are conditioned not to trust eh?

Sorry to hear about the dark place....I too have been there...

I have to say, it is so refreshing to talk to others like me now :) I hope we all get to meet some day

I see that many assume people with Aspergers are too difficult to work with or having an ASD diagnosis makes you handicap and unable to live independently. I have worked since I was 14 and am 41 now. I like working and am very good at what I do. I enjoy my job, it feeds my obsession with numbers and math and it keeps the depression away. I stayed home once for 4 months and started slipping back into the dark place. I'm not sure if I'll ever stop working in one way or another, whether it be for a paycheck or volunteering. I need the schedule and consistency in my life.

Oh yes.....I know all too well about the high paying job....two years ago I was never off a plane - ended up being 2.500 points away from reaching Platinum with the airline and then I prolapsed 4 discs in my neck and ended up being out sick and while I was out sick, they killed my position.....

Then I got a new job last year which really didn't suit me as I couldn't read my boss and I ended up rowing with him all the time so we agreed to part company....he was a bit of a micro manager and I tried to be something I wasn't so let's just say it takes two to tango :)

Sounds like you and I should start a movement to allow us wonderful people to shine and bring their delight to the world.....I am a firm believer we have so much to offer as do you :)

NAS22687 said:

They want to work but feel more comfortable at home, if the goverment could create job opportunitys to work online from home for people with autism i 100% belive you would have lots more autistic people working.