Ways in which aspieism conflicts with your job

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This sounds oh so familiar.

Interestingly, I end up spending a lot of my non-work time doing extra unpaid work (even though it's a part time job). I suppose I have convinced myself that I am not doing a good enough job. And, while I am at work, I am half-way expecting them to let me go at any time.

What I don't understand is, how people I consider to be "lesser" (in terms of many factors including experience, education, and yes, intelligence), can exude so much confidence (about their abilities). I just get it. I realize the entire thing is a game. I just am not good at playing it.

Four days later: I am aware, that I have to learn all the little details before being able to remember the procedures, and there isn´t time for that.
I have a rigid style of learning. If I´ve been told something one way by somebody, and someone else says it another way, I am lost. I very much depend on learning routines.
Today, I was called in by the very kind bosses for a chat. They asked me, if I am OK (I am very shaky and cry very easily these days), about what I did for a start (which I had difficulty explaining clearly). I hesitated a bit before telling them, that I have dyscalculia and most probably have aspergers.
That makes sense, they said. One of them had worked with kids with special needs.
Even before I told them, they themselves proposed some very simple regular tasks, already thinking, that I might be aspie.
So I was sent home for today, and well meet tomorrow at 9.

Dunning-Kruger effect?

yellowtamarin, there may be some stuff you can do to cope with this better, like pushing more responsibility onto your supervisors and training yourself to care about the output only to the extent that you can influence it. So I'm not saying to not care at all, but to adjust your level of caring to be consistent with your level of control over the outcome. If it helps, consider how much your supervisors care, based on their actions. If they don't care - or don't act like they care - should you? That can only help so much, though - it's just trying to make the best of a bad situation. The only real solution would be to find a better type of job (which is not news to you, I know).

Interesting. I imagine this same affect also explains why, over the years, I was so oblivious of my poor social skills. LOL.



yellowtamarin – I am wondering if these issues follow you from job to job. They did for me. I spent 20+ years blaming others for my inability to effectively integrate into (and I suppose cope with) a social work setting. Only recently (after spending a solid 4 months of reading, learning and self discovery) did I realize that I was the problem. It was an unnerving discovery.

"the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others"

I would agree with this completely, in my case at least. Knowing about it doesn't help make it go away though! It's similar to the optimist/pessimist bias where optimists see things as better than they are, and pessimists see things more like reality. This way of thinking causes optimists to get on better in life.


Does this advice not apply to Rocket123 and taxman as well? I think they have described exactly the same problem as me. As with the above, what I rationalise about it doesn't help the issue go away, unfortunately. I can sit there and say "not only do they not really care about this task, but they won't even know if I've done it or not", but I'll still then think "okay so what do I do then? I still have to do something. I still should do this task, as it was assigned to me", and I'm back where I started.


Yes it certainly follows me from job to job. But I've never blamed other people, only myself. Because I'm the only person I know who skips from job to job as much as I do, so it can't be other people's fault.

I think I know what the kind of job is that I need, but I'm not sure that exists. I haven't found it yet. I had one job that I LOVED at first. But they had, in the previous few years, joined the likes of most other companies and decided to hire "generalists" rather than "specialists". I have a specialist mind, so they probably shouldn't have hired me. I wanted to sit and do the tasks that I was awesome at, and get more awesome at them, and be a "go to" person for the skills I had that others didn't have. The company wanted me to grow and expand and be a part of all aspects of the department, and that's when these issues started yet again. I actually had a complete breakdown, quit the job, then got my AS diagnosis a short while later. If I had have known earlier, maybe I could have told them and kept my job. I don't think I have another chance to get a job like that (it was a graduate position and I can't apply for those anymore).

yellowtamarin – You are spot on. The advice definitely applies to me as well.

Interestingly, one of my many problems in the workplace has been caring too much.

Tony Attwood (in “The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome”) wrote:, “A career or vocation well matched to the abilities and character of the person with Asperger’s syndrome can provide this much-needed self-worth and self-identity, along with a real reason to keep going. When I ask adults with Asperger’s syndrome to describe themselves, the descriptions are usually what they do, their job or special interest, rather than their family or social network. As Temple Grandin said to me: ‘I am what I do.’”

That definitely is me. It’s hard not to care, when you are what you do.



You know, after thinking about it a bit, I probably should not have used the term “blame”. Rather, it was more confusion (i.e. I didn’t quite understand why I was unable to effectively integrate). Now I understand.

Hmm that's interesting. I tend to describe personal qualities if I describe myself, and maybe a few things that I like to do for fun, as that gives an indication of my personality. I wouldn't describe my job, because that's got nothing to do with who I am. Maybe when I find a job that suits me, it will form part of my description of myself!

I have been fortunate enough that my work is related to one of my special interests (computers/software/internet). Which is why that quote really resonates with me.

1. Bosses that order me to do things that are unethical. Example: with my first job in fast food, in situations where we were waiting for fries and/or chicken nuggets to cook for people in line at the drive-thru, my boss would order me to pull them 20 seconds early (out of just 3 minutes!) and serve several customers food that was just BARELY done enough (and worse, could have possibly caused food poisoning!! !)

2. There are no doubt some unspoken "rules" of most workplaces that I don't get, and that nobody will tell me about. I've had coworkers mysteriously give me the silent treatment for long periods of time with no explanation, and I suspect I may have been set up for failure at one job as well because I broke one of those "rules!"

This is way too common. I have quit one job due to unethical practices, and started to dislike another because of same.

The lack of ethics has been a big issue for me as well. Because people in the business world seem to constantly bend the rules and cross the boundary of what I consider ethical.

For example, I worked at a well known hardware manufacturer known for high quality products. I discovered that the team was planning to put a compliance label on a product that hadn’t passed compliance. While some people were bothered by this, no one was willing to “step up” and say it was wrong. So, I launched a mini-crusade. It didn’t win me any points.

The same happened when working at a software company. So, it is not uncommon for software companies to knowingly sell software that does not work. Likewise, it is not uncommon for engineering management to knowingly release software that does not work (to recognize revenue). Invariably, I was always the first to speak up when the software was not ready for release. Again, this didn’t win me any points (as it impacted people’s bonuses).

I was shocked at the absence of ethics at these companies. I actually believed what I had learned when I was young (about doing the right thing).

Oh yeah, software is notorious for this. I think that's because it's so complex that it's very difficult to clearly define "doesn't work", so even though everyone (subjectively) knows it's not good enough there is always some (ridiculous) definition of "works" by which it works. Having said that... decisions about releases are often made by non-technical people. That's an issue in itself, but what this means for the ethics side of it is that sometimes they may genuinely not understand how bad the problems with the software are, though of course they will say they understand (and perhaps actually think so).

There aren't many things that bother me at work. But my previous bosses noticed, that tasks have to be precise and written down (or mailed to me using computer network's mail). A task without a deadline date can cause trouble to me, because I don't know when to start working on it. If I have nothing to go and I get a task without a deadline date, I immediately start working on it. Multiple tasks will be carried out in order of being given them.

When other people receive a task without a deadline, they intuitively know when that deadline is. Not in my case. I MUST be given a deadline, so that I can know in what order I must complete the tasks.

Sometimes I have to interact with pupils. As long as they are girls, that is not a problem. When they are boys, this can be tedious.

Bosses have strange thinking patterns, i.e. they think in a strange way when it is about me, also due to lack of knowledge about autism. If I never did something, this doesn't also mean, that I would not be capable of doing something. That I never fixed a colleague's computer problem, doesn't mean that I am not capable of doing that either. If I only copy, doing the dishes, distributing internal post, doesn't mean that I can only that.

Based on what you've said, you require very detailed written instructions, firm deadlines and zip in the way of ambiguity -- effectively, close supervision and zero chance to think, let alone problem-solve, independenly.

I'm would guess that yourt boss isn't assigning you new tasks tasks you haven't don before, because you can't handle independence or autonomy in your current ones. You can't prioritise, set a deadline or cope with boys in a coed school environment.

For your boss to assign you a brand new task, they'd need to:
1m give detailed written instructions
2 give a firm deadline
3 re-prioritize and re-deadline all of your other tasks for you.

If your boss assigned new tasks to another colleagu, they'd likely be capable of figuring out out how to do it while juggling other tasks.

Third attempt to reply to your message (otherwise I will give up, and say that you are premature with your conclusions).

The boss has no task list, nor does she know what my tasks are, since they are given by my colleagues. With sometimes 20 or 30 tasks on a day, it is necessarily that I know from each task what the description is, who gave it, and what the deadline is.

1. Yes, because of many tasks sometimes, detailed instructions have to be written;
2. See 1.
3. No, that I do myself. I reprioritize the tasks when necessary. Sometimes I have to, sometimes I can add the new task after the latest given task.

Last edited by hmk66 on 06 Oct 2015, 12:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Other problems are my and other colleague's way of thinking.

If a boss gives me a task, I can come up with a system which may be more efficient than the boss's system is. Sometimes I am allowed to apply my new system, sometimes my system is too strict and has to be changed (made more flexible), sometimes my system is rejected, because the boss's system is the way that she would do it, or that she is used to, even if her system takes more time and is less efficient than my system would take. I can never be sure about it.

Sometimes I need permission from my boss to do certain things (in a learning process). The boss has no time, so I have to suspend the task, till she has time. It would be better if I do these things independently (without her permission, i.e. she would agree anyway).

If I have to reject my system, I have to relearn the other's system from scratch (that can be interpreted as a learning disability or retardation). I have an example outside my work. I wanted to be a bookkeeper of a council. I came with a bookkeeping system, but was rejected by someone. She had to reteach the system to me, so that I do the bookkeeping on her way. The problem was that she had no teaching skills, so instead of a day, it took a year to learn it. Then it could be easily interpreted as a learning disability from me, while I think she has a teaching disability.