Here goes...
After leaving uni I got a part time position working for my dad. This lasted around three years until I was made redundant due to financial difficulties. (Dad had sold the company by then). At the time I was glad because I wasn't enjoying it and was finding it a bit tedious and repetitive.
So after that I spent plenty of time looking for jobs, getting a decent amount of interviews but being able to cross that hurdle, though I felt my interview skills were constantly improving from being pretty much unable to utter a coherent sentence to being able to hold my own OK.
In October last year, I was offered a paid work trial at a clothing company. The job was in a warehouse and was simply packaging clothes-folding them, sticking labels on and putting them into bags. I was given the impression that on the first day we weren't really being tested too much, it might take us a while to pick it up, that sort of thing. In any case I was going along OK, better than I thought I'd be as I thought I'd be stood there on item 1 for the first hour, glaring at it and shaking my head. However just after lunch a woman appeared and took me into her office and told me she didn't think I was "getting it" as I wasn't going at the required rate. I reasoned with her that I deserved a bit more time to impress so she agreed to an extra hour. In that time I improved on speed but the quantity decreased and I was sent home. I thought there were a few things they could have done better like seen I was struggling and said something like "It'd be quicker if you did it like this" and a few hours is very quick to judge but in hindsight I probably would have hated it. I also realised in hindsight I should have told them I am dyspraxic, and a job involving manual labour was probably not right for me, or at the least I needed a bit of support.
Fast forward to April and I was offered a temping job as an Admin Assistant/Data Entry person. With what happened in the last job fresh in my mind I made sure to write on the disability form that I have dyspraxia. The woman from the agency asked what dyspraxia was and I told her that it pretty much meant I'm very clumsy and have poor motor skills etc. I started the job and the first week went pretty well and I was told I was picking things up quickly. Early in the second week I got chatting to one fellow temp who seemed nice and the manager said he was hoping to have a chat with me as we hadn't really spoken. However, I suspected they hadn't been told about my dyspraxia because there was a LOT of handwriting, and I was made to do quite a bit of manual stuff, for example tearing off those perforated labels which I think even someone without dyspraxia would find tricky. I got on with it anyway though. Unfortunately sometime in week 2 I made a mistake which although it was not altogether my fault I still felt bad about. We had to register some people onto a course and I took a pile of sheets which had the people and their details on to import into the database. I did that OK then about an hour later I realised that one of the people was on a different course-it was hard to tell at first glance but the name was slightly different. So I told them and apologised profusely but the attitude towards me seemed to become a little less friendly. On one occasion the stapler needed reloading and I didn't know/had forgotten how (sounds stupid but I've never had to load a stapler before) and the person I asked was rather stroppy about it, as though I was stupid.
On the Friday of week 2, as I was getting the bus home the agency called and told me they didn't want to keep me on. I wasn't accurate enough,which was fair enough I guess as they required high standards of accuracy and I was prone to the odd slip like for example I'd be adding a load of male candidates so would be selecting male in the drop down menu then when it came to a rare female in the middle I'd instinctively select male.
This month, I passed an interview for the first time (a group interview) and got another temp job at the same company as the clothes folding place, this time on the phones doing sales-inbound, kind of like a call centre. There was a week of training and again I thought I wasn't doing too bad yet I thought the woman doing the training didn't like me much. She never seemed to value my contribution to conversation and seemed to get on a lot better with the two girls. On the second day (last tuesday) I was told by the co-ordinator that they were a bit worried about me and I needed to pick up or I'd have to go. Apparently I was not at the required level and also I wasn't concentrating well. I went back in and by home time I still hadn't been let go and the training lady reminded me to bring a pen when I came in tomorrow, and there was no call from the agency.
So on the Wednesday I went in and she didn't seem surprised to see me or anything but then at around 10 another of the training co-ordinator types came in and took me for a word and told me the agency were supposed to have informed me on Tuesday I was being let go. I asked her what areas I needed to improve on and my list of crimes involved yawning during a presentation (I was tired, I hadn't slept much due to excitement and I did try and stifle it) and that I was disengaged-though this did improve after the first talk. In fairness it was hard to get a word in edgeways but I felt I was doing OK, sat with the other trainees at lunch, joined in the chat as much as I could. It also turned out that yet again the company hadn't been told by the agency about my dyspraxia.
Got a letter with feedback and it mentioned how I didn't come across well at first in the interview as I mumbled and struggled to put on the headset (dyspraxia problems!) but I did well on the phones and passed the tests so they gave me a chance. I was accused of having "limited memory" as sometimes I'd forget how to do things or need them recapping. For example I'd get confused between c for copy and d for duplicate. Also I'd use the arrow keys instead of tab to navigate-just one of those habits I have. I didn't make any critical mistakes, just things like "oh sorry you press f1 instead of f2 here". Often I'll say something like "oh sorry, I thought it was such and such" and explain why, and I think people take that to mean I'm disagreeing/contesting which isn't the case.
I pretty much understood their decision but a couple of things rankled with me, namely that the other trainees also made mistakes-for example turning up five minutes late from lunch due to looking round the staff shop, forgetting to bring an important folder, and I remember a couple of times having to wait because they'd pressed a wrong button yet as far as I know concerns about them weren't raised. Furthermore, they mentioned being behind in the training yet the trainer spent half an hour or so chit chatting with us, not the behaviour of someone in a hurry.
It felt a little that my face didn't really fit and so my mistakes mattered more, if that makes sense. As in if I'd been more outgoing and slotted in better, they'd have let things slide.
Before now, I've not tended to declare my aspergers as it doesn't really cause me too many problems but here I think it did. I'm one of those people who takes a while to settle and I need to find somewhere that will give me the time and a bit of patience to develop. I'm never going to come in and be the life and soul of the office straight away but given time I can become a valuable employee. For my next job I'm going to make it abundantly clear I have Mild Aspergers AND Dyspraxia and explain what they are and what I struggle/need help with. I don't want it to be used as an excuse, just so they're aware of any quirks I might have.
I feel I'm getting closer but right now I can't get past the trial/probation period as I never make the best first impression.
20 Oct 2014, 10:05 am
At least you have the perspective here. Try not to be nervous.
