Aspergers at Work – Perhaps a Change?
It’s been a while since I last posted. Various projects have come and gone, but basically I’ve been rather busy to put time aside to type something out.
In my first post about work, I wrote a lot about my dealings with suppliers. I left out the other side of my job – dealing with the customers. This is probably the part I find more frustrating on a daily basis, that probably being because no one customer is the same, where as with suppliers, I often know what to expect. With customers – you never know what to expect.
I struggle with the questions I don’t know the answer to. I often just go blank instead of trying to answer the question. I also struggle to deal with the situations where someone else has spoken to the customer, and I don’t know what’s happened or has been said. This is very frustrating, and I often end up venting my anger and frustrations at someone. I often just wish people will keep me in the loop of what’s happening.
The other big frustration is people who assume things. The most common is people assume their car will be ready before the end of the day because they brought it into us early – even though it might have been an hour after we opened. I also get people who assume I can tell them exactly what is wrong with their car without looking at it, even when they can’t tell me what type of car they have. Oh – and of course – exactly how much it will cost to fix their unknown fault! All of this, plus the normal frustrations are what I face every day, and on top of this, there are the interactions with my colleagues, which is far from easy at times. The challenges here are much the same as I have described previously.
After over eight years in my current role, you might wonder why I’m still here. The short answer is simple – I’ve not managed to find another job yet. The long answer has much more to it. About 3 years ago, I hit a dark patch, where every day was a real fight against the issues I face, with customers, suppliers and colleagues alike, and the big issue of working and living with the same people, my parents, meant everything from work impacted on life at home. Over weeks, the situation worsened, and I found it very difficult to escape from things. Everything I did was closely monitored, whether or not it had anything to do with my parents or not. I lost weight over a period of months, and had some very low times indeed.
Eventually things did start to get a bit better. I can’t place what happened, or why, but today I’m coping. I wouldn’t say things are perfect – they’re far from it, but I can cope. I think it’s because I distance myself from work life outside of work a lot more. I can often be found sat at my computer breaking a Simsig, or chatting on Teamspeak or Skype with people from the Simsig community whilst doing nothing much. Having that group of people who, largely, accept me for who I am and what I can offer to the group as a whole. Sadly, they’re at the other end of the country, or even in America or Australia
I still try to have one day each week away from most things work or parent related (sometimes this might be as basic as shutting myself in a room with a computer all day, and sometimes going out and getting complete change of surroundings). The only problem is when this change doesn’t work, and then I find that one week’s issues roll into the next week, and I can’t switch off. I often feel that I can’t sort out the things that get me down, only hide them (and then they come back). I can’t consciously put them to one side either. Sometimes things fall so that it just happens, and sometimes I end up even more frustrated trying to get away from my frustrations.
I’m coping now better than I used to, but things get me down at times. Even things going on whilst I’ve been writing this have really annoyed me, and I’m trying not to just let it all out in this post.
I have tried a number of times to point my life towards something different, or to split away from my parents. I know most of the issues come from work (they often don’t occur at work), and so I looked at ways of helping to take away the situations where things occurred. The obvious one was to look for another job, which I did, and shall come onto in a moment. I also looked at the option on moving out of home. From a realistic perspective, living on my own would make finances very tight (not to say I could have done it if I’d had to), but the thing that stuck was that once work was well out of the way, home life wasn’t a problem, and neither was the relationship with my family.
So, I set out to see if I could find a different job. Being something that was completely foreign to me, I set out to look at areas which I knew about, or had dealings with already. So, I found myself looking at railway jobs, and jobs relating to vehicle parts. I’d already had one interview with a supplier at this stage (I didn’t receive an offer), but I sent a number of speculative applications. I even got to the stage of asking about any short term unpaid work experience. The few replies I received were either the standard issue responses, or straight negative (aside from those companies who didn’t reply at all). I did have a couple of conversations with managers at suppliers who I knew quite well, but the general feeling was that although I had the knowledge, and possible some potential, I didn’t have the experience they would be looking for if any vacancies came up. I ask one rather obvious question – how do I gain that experience then?
During the following months, I had two more interviews for jobs at suppliers – basically selling parts to garages including my parents in some cases. These second two interviews were different to the first one, in that I didn’t know the people directly involved. But, as before, I received no offers, and the reasons I got were much the same. It did however become apparent that one of those interviews was not quite as it seemed. I was introduced to another manager from their head office – who, together with a manager I did know, was listening into the interview. Shortly afterwards, that company started changing things, and we have never spent as much money with them since, and I seem always to be not getting the full picture from them. Even when I bumped into their sales representative the other day, it was very apparent that he had no interest in speaking or dealing with me, even though the issue he had been called to deal with by another garage was an issue for something on the job they were doing for us!
I also applied for some railway jobs – I won’t go into detail as to what these were as it would make it obvious which companies they were for, but I am going to talk about my view on the events and interviews which took place.
I had an interview for a job with one company, with two people I knew well, as well as some assessments. Although I’d applied for the job, I had also done some work for them behind the scenes on a subject, and it seemed rather convenient that the interview came shortly after, and that I appeared to be added to the day’s list of candidates. I wasn’t sure how to approach the interview, and putting myself across as confident is probably far from my strong point (certainly something which was picked up on at some subsequent interviews, and fed back to me). These people knew I had Autism, and I don’t think that helped. Whether them knowing me made a difference I really don’t know. But, when it came to the outcome, I was unsuccessful, and they didn’t reply to my request for feedback either, which for a first application with that company, I was disappointed with.
I still see the people who interviewed me to this day, and I’ve put that down to never really being on their shortlist, and only having the interview because of the work I had done. Over two years or so, I’ve also had 4 interviews with another railway company, for similar roles, but in different locations. I completed (and passed) their assessments, but it has been the interview stage where I have not been able to be successful. Given the nature of the roles, I chose not to disclose my Autism – whether or not this was the right thing to do – I don’t know. But, it’s what I chose. If I applied now, I would disclose it. Let’s be honest, anyone could read this, and there’s no point in hiding behind such a major influence on my life, and the way I am. I know this now, but I didn’t understand things as well back then. Their interviews are distinctly structured, and so aside from the worries of what to expect, nerves and general difficulties in assessing how I was putting myself across, I really didn’t know what to expect.
The first and second interviews weren’t very good, aside from learning the structure of the questions. The feedback indicated I lacked confidence and conviction in my answers. By the third interview, I had spoken with others who had succeeded where I had not, and felt much more confident, although still a bit unsure of myself as to whether I was saying the right things. This time, from the feedback I received, and the general way I felt being much more positive and comfortable, I hoped for a better outcome. It wasn’t to be the right option, but the feedback I received was more positive, but again my failing had come down to a lack of specific experience.
The fourth and final interview was the most recent, and was itself now nearly a year ago. This one didn’t go as well as the third one for whatever reason. I went into it with events in my life being better than at the times of the previous interviews, and I felt more relaxed, but I think I was perhaps seeing it as something that either would or would not be, rather than really wanting it. I didn’t get the job. Indeed, I haven’t applied for another job since then (not without looking), but other things are not as bad as they were, and the obvious roles which have come up are either too far away from me, or have been taken by others I know in our industry with more experience.
Looking back over time, I know why I was unsuccessful with some things I tried, and for others, I know it was not the right time, or that the person who was given that job was the right person for it. I’m sure there is little point in hiding my Autism, as it will probably only come back and bite me afterwards, and I believe in being honest. I thank my friends and family for their prayers and support in some very difficult times, and through some difficult challenges.
Moving forwards, I’m not really sure where life is taking me at the moment. Things are certainly much better than 2-3 years ago, although far from perfect. I feel that my current job is a bit single ended, and I keep looking for ways to move on without taking a big jump or direction change. If I was to look at something different, then I simply have no idea what, and so I’m not looking. I pray that when the right time comes, the right opportunity will become available for me to move forwards in my career, and that the people involved will see me for who I am, and what I can offer.
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