I'm Uncomfortable with you: you're fired.

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If you work in an "at will" state, they can fire you for any reason at all, and just say what they like.

A lot of times it isn't obvious what went wrong until after the boss blows up. Then hindsight will guide the next attempt. This goes for autistics and non-autistics alike. All anyone can do is observe, get advice, try different things and see what works.

I hate successive approximation.

Now, as this board has members from the UK and other countries, what I am about to post applies only to the US. Here in the US you can be fired at any time for any reason. Conversely you can quit at any time for any reason. The doctrine is "at-will employment". With the exception of Massachusetts and Montana, along with a few other states, employment is "at will" everywhere else. That is, if the boss doesn't like an employee, doesn't like the way he/she dresses, and so forth, he has every legal right to fire the employee. The same applies to employees; they can leave their jobs at any time, with or without advance notice.

So yes, your boss can fire you if he doesn't like you. I've heard that, of the vast majority of firings that take place, the reason why employees are let go is because they couldn't get along with their coworkers. That is, while they were competent at their jobs, they didn't fit in or they clashed with management.

There is no common literal logic that guides behavior in the typical human workplace and trying to find it will just drive you crazy. If the workplace you pick is one filled with petty, small, closed minded people you are out of luck. Little willfully ignorant people are by design the lowest form of herd animals who will close ranks to make your life in their workplace a living hell. If you work for a large corporation or the government you might be in better shape as they often have elaborate often effective institutionally driven processes designed to protect unique employees. Just remember even the best safeguards are only as good as those people administering them so they are NOT PERFECT!

In a perfect world as an autistic person you do not want to be in a place where the workplace culture is so ignorant or arrogant that rights to be different disabled people need are not respected. If any job continues to piss on your leg you have four choices. 1. Stay there and let it happen. 2. Wear hip boots to work and let it continue with your fix intact. 3. Walk away from the situation and find something that does not insult your dignity as a person. 4. File a greivance leading up to legal action if the offensive actions do not end forever.

This is not a perfect world so doing the right thing does not always insure success in the typical human workplace. In any workplace there is always at least one fool or herd of fools that will make your life painful. Running accomplishes nothing because, no matter where you go there will be ignorant idiots who will make it their life mission to play games with the new ret*d <meaning you!> Your true task if you choose to accept it is to use all the tools at your disposal to educate fools in your workplace about what it means to be an autistic person. As an autistic person educating others is the best survival strategy on the job. In time you will win over most of the fools by turning them into autism allies and even job coaches, this will break up the heard. Oh yes there will always be pockets of hardcore stupidity in any workplace that no amount of autism education efforts will reach. You must steal yourself to deal with these people because they populate the shallowest end of the human gene pool where willful abiding ignorance in the face of facts to the contrary is a sign of strength. There are some people who are better off pitied than scorn and such are these I refer to herein.

Hope this helps!

My early job history pretty much consists of me working at a place, them wanting to fire me, but not having a reason to because I showed up every day, worked hard, and did exceptional work. Eventually I would quit before they fired me, or I would get laid off because they liked me enough not to fire me, but just didn't want to put up with me anymore. My coworkers would dislike me because I was "weird", and then they would start finding all kinds of supposed flaws in my work. Waiting on the public stressed me out and made me miserable. I was probably sometimes rude to customers or co-workers I didn't like anyway. I don't blame them for having a problem with me there. I would have hated me too.

This has become less of a problem as I have begun working in higher paying places with a more educated workforce.

I know this might sound conceited, but I find that when I'm working with a group of highly educated adults, rather than a group of angry teenagers who are making minimum wage, I get along much better with everyone, and no one seems to find my behavior to be all that strange. I still have my ups and downs, but I am happier because the work I do gives me an opportunity to showcase my skills. In addition, everyone I work with seems to be happier, and by just being polite to them, 90% of the battle is won.

I know that most of us are very intelligent, and not very social. It's little wonder you are miserable working at Walmart or behind the counter at a store. You are surrounded by people, doing menial physical work that stresses you out and doesn't gratify you in any way. My suggestion to Aspies is this: If you are able, find a night job or an office job where you can be relatively alone, or at least surrounded by people who are more like you. Or go back to school. Something, anything to escape that bottom tier of employment. Everyone is miserable working at places like that, ESPECIALLY the management. You will find you may not be as much to blame as you think.

I was not an angel when working those kinds of jobs, but sometimes when you are completely miserable it's nigh impossible to act friendly and cheerful all the time.

Of course they would make up "legal" excuses to fire you if they wanted to fire you for legal reasons. And here in the US, thanks to decisions by the Burger, Rehnquist, and Roberts courts, proving discrimination, sexism, ageism, or other forms of wrongful termination is all but impossible absent a significant smoking gun.

Yeah, I think it would depend on how indispensable you are to them and also whether you are in a workplace where the bosses are more enlightened. Some jobs such as fast food work are notorious for their fast turn-over; ditto with call centre operations.

But in the vast majority of jobs you can be fired at any time for any reason. Everywhere that I've ever worked, written clearly in the new employment paperwork, there has always been a clause to the effect of:

"Employment at XYZ Corporation is not guaranteed for any period of time. XYZ Corporation reserves the right to terminate employment for any time, for any reason, with or without reason. Employees may also end their employment with XYZ Corporation at any time for any reason, with or without notice."

Government jobs probably offer some more limited protection. However, by and large, if the boss doesn't like an employee, he can fire them for any reason.

I'm fine with at-will employment, but I think if people are going to fire you simply because they don't like you, then a firing should have less stigma attached to it. If you go to an interview and you tell the interviewer you got fired just because the boss "didn't like you", they'll never call you back, assuming you were a poor worker.

I just so happen to work for the federal government. It is rare that a government employee is fired just because, somebody higher up does not like them. To be fired from federal employment you have to fail in performance based appraisals of your actual work output. Under the new PACS rating system management can suggest you do not get along well with others which will lower your performance rating. Getting a low rating in one area will not likely cause a government worker to fail their evaluation.

Even if a federal government worker did get a lower rating in an area, the worker must first be told what the issue is. Next the worker has to be given a list of ways to improve their performance. The worker if they feel they have been treated unfairly can file a grievance with EEOC and also start an action against management via the union. All during this time the worker can be taking opportunities offered by management to improve their performance to acceptable levels. All this takes time most management people would rather put into productive tasks.

Its because of all these layers of checks and balances that it is highly unlikely that a federal government employee would be fired just because, someone in management does not like them. It is more likely a federal government employee who does their job properly would be transfered to another department during the next agency re-organization. It matters more in the federal government that you do your work in a professional timely manner. A person who is not liked might not get the awards and other extra's peers around them get. Firing an otherwise good hard working federal employee in these lean times of budget cuts id unheard of. Employees who leave government service for any reason usually is not replaced makes a firing for personality clash alone highly unlikely. Any manager who fired a federal employee now just because they did not like them is a fool because, they will be running their operation short handed in these times when everything is backlogged because we just do not have enough people.

Private industry might have the luxury of firing people they do not like on a whim. Good hard working federal employees who do their jobs correctly and leave others alone won't be fired because they are unliked! Any manager that fired a hard working productive federal employee in these times of cuts had better be able to justify why they did so. A manager that fires an employe because they did not like them will likely be pounding the pavement after having been fired. At best a manager who even tries to fire a hard worker over petty personal issue will likely be kicked out of their management position.