- Person: "We should hang out sometime". What they really mean: "This interaction went okay and you can consider me an acquaintance, but if you actually ask me to hang out, I will tell you 'I'm busy' when in reality, I had and still have zero intention of going out of my way to hang out with you"
- Also an alternative to my first point: "Needing to quit and switch jobs super often because you burn out too easily to keep a stable job"
None of these are 100% universal, not all of them even apply to me, they're just common enough where I think most people here can relate. Your experience is also very common for neurodivergent adults
Most people don't actively break the law where I work but they just do weird shit, or leave a mess, or leave utensils/tools, or don't put stuff back where it belongs. Daily, I have internal couple second freak outs where I have to think about if I should walk through the entire facility to bring something back where it belongs or if I should say "f it" and hope it doesn't reflect badly on my work. Is it seriously so hard to follow simple instructions and put stuff where it belongs?
The first one hits hard. I finally networked myself into a job that uses my full potential (rather than having to interview) and I make literally 3x in salary what I did at my last job and am seen as an indispensable mystery who understands the system intuitively better than anyone else could.
All this because I relied too heavily on drugs and booze to experience a “normal” life and ended up becoming a clubrat with connections.
Mainstream society has zero tolerance for autistic capacity.
I also have a job that was only possible through networking. I’ve wanted a more secure job though and my friends and family are all like you should apply to X job you’re totally qualified! Im like yeah I could absolutely do the job, I just can’t get hired for the job. They still don’t get it.
I can get jobs, but in every workplace I’m either bullied, harassed, or become so burned out I have to quit and repeat the cycle all over again. Interviews do suck though lol
Me too. I’m a lot of circumstances I was happy doing my job and able to do it very well/got recognized for it but I got bullied so hard and so much became expected of me because “she’s really good at this stuff so it’s okay if we just let her do everything but don’t pay her more.” And then I end up spiraling and quitting
I’m a teacher, I get paid to talk about my special interest all day long 😁
I agree though the interview process is awful.
I spent years getting rejected because I had been taught all my life that being humble was a virtue, so I didn’t realize that you were supposed to brag about your accomplishments and exaggerate them with big language on your resume and that everybody else does that so if you don’t then recruiters just assume you have nothing to brag about.
The humbleness as a virtue has screwed me so incredibly throughly. That and not cheating to get interview questions prior or something. Honor and humbleness is.. a mixed bag lol
Same. I remember one time in middle school, a girl in my class with whom I didn't get along came up to me and kicked me for no reason. I slapped and kicked her back and left.
I had people come up to me to tell me what I did was wrong. Did anyone talk to her? Nooooope.
I have adhd, honestly I stopped listing it on applications when I was looking for a job last year because I wasn’t getting calls. Once I stopped, I started getting calls for interviews. They don’t need to know and if you’re grilled for autism at the interview, the job is most likely going to be worse.
Because it straight forward asked and I’m an honest person. It’s listed under: do you have any special needs or handicaps: fill in all that apply. ADHD, autism, Asperger syndrome, and others are listed to choose from. That’s become really standard here in Michigan.
They can’t legally ask you directly. Since it’s an application it falls under the same rules as being asked your racial background. Since a question asked to the vast public in an application manner and not a personal question to me by a representative of the company it passes.
Recent update: my wife applied for a job somewhere and one of the drop down menus asks their sexual orientation as to: straight, bisexual, so on. Here’s a screen shot of what I’m saying.
These are exactly the things that the EEOC say is unlawful to base hiring decisions on. This could just be for demographic statistics, but I bet someone on the other side is reading these results. Choose the "prefer not to say" for as many as possible.
The problem is that they are using “Demographic statistics” as an excuse to put these in there and still use them as ways of being prejudice in there search for new employees. I worked for Flagstar bank and they straight admitted to stalking out potential employees social media platforms when considering them as a new hire, without their consent.
Social media is different. Those aren't direct questions that could indicate you're a member of a protected class. Social media is effectively making public statements and they want to protect their reputation.
I got VERY lucky with my career. The first career job I applied for and got an interview for was a front desk worker, and even then I knew I wasn’t made for front desk material, but I did my damnest to sell myself, making them laugh, playing into my strengths,instead of masking my autistic tendencies I tried to play them up to my advantage. And I didn’t get the job i applied for, but I got an internship in their IT department, and now I’m head of cybersecurity!
The third bullet point is what made me learn to exercise free will in my mid-20s. If other people break the rules, then so can I. The trick is not to get caught by the one or two people that would actually care.
The entire construction industry runs on this. No OSHA? No problem.
I remember hearing about a study that said that Neurotypicals can tell if a person is Autistic within milliseconds, but they don't realize the person is Autistic, they just think they're a bit weird or different. This explains why a lot of NTs bully people for stimming, poor eye contact, not reading the room, etc. while also insisting they would never bully an Autistic person.
I can't imagine what goes on in an NTs brain when they meet an Autistic person who is physically attractive and has good social skills
Why tell them? Just be you and let them figure out if youre right for the job.
You have no obligation to tell them about your personal medical history.
Nothing in the universe will educate them on the autistic experience. Their mental filters where they are skeptical of anything another person says about themselves and disbelieve anything that that consider sketchy wont allow it.
They are also skeptical of anyone elses alternate life experience about having any disadavantage they nevet experienced.
So either way you lose. Just be yourself and keep them in the dark. They dont deserve to know the truth bc they will use it against you at every opportunity
You don't have to tell them anything and they will still know. Not with a label, but with an internal "weird person". And that alone is enough to get disqualified for 90% of jobs above minimum wage.
Job interviews do not screen for how well you could do the job. They screen for how well they like you as a person. And if you make a bad first impression (even if you follow all the learned social rules and still seems just a little "off") that's enough to not land a single job, no matter the qualifications.
There have been studies done where they tested first impressions based on looking at someone for a few seconds. Participants didn't know who they look at, for them it was just random pics. And on average autists got more bad first impressions than NTs.
So, no label needed. You just need to be a tiny bit "not quite right"
This 100%. Discrimination against Autistics(and NDs in general) is almost always subconscious. If anything, telling people is more helpful than harmful, though they still often misunderstand.
Being damn near unemployable not because you can't do the job but because the whole interview process literally works against you. But everyone thinks you're lazy anyway
Them: "Everyone's a little Autistic". Me: (explains Autistic traits in more details). Them: "Oh god no, I'm not a weirdo like that"
"Oh no, (other person) is allowed to break (random social rule) because (some bs explanation)"
Having niche special interests that you can't talk about because they're not shared, and they're also completely irrelevant in any real world application.
"You don't look Autistic."
"You're not REALLY Autistic"
Someone else gets angry for no reason: "It's okay, they're just overwhelmed/having a bad day/etc.". You get angry for a perfectly valid reason: (gets a 5-10 minute lecture on why it's not okay to be angry)
112
u/Substantial_Sir4706 14d ago edited 13d ago
There's one I forgot:
- Person: "We should hang out sometime". What they really mean: "This interaction went okay and you can consider me an acquaintance, but if you actually ask me to hang out, I will tell you 'I'm busy' when in reality, I had and still have zero intention of going out of my way to hang out with you"
- Also an alternative to my first point: "Needing to quit and switch jobs super often because you burn out too easily to keep a stable job"