Autism and the Workplace

When I told the job centre I had High Functioning Autism they wanted to know how it affected my ability to work. It’s not an easy question to answer. I don’t know really – it makes every job stressful because you’re dealing with people. (Are there any books on autism and the workplace?). I usually tell people I wouldn’t be comfortable in a client facing job because I have difficulty dealing with people. The thing is, they are expecting straightforward bite size answers, like it should be obvious to me. It isn’t, I’m still learning about my symptoms. For so long I thought that I was NT and my faults were down to me not trying hard enough.

Since my diagnosis I’ve had the lengthy task of sorting through all the things I do, and categorising them into autistic behaviours and non autistic behaviours. That’s really how this blog came about. I don’t think there are any simple answers. I’m not sure a professional would even be able to give one. What it really boils down to is how much stress you think is acceptable. You are very unlikely to find a job that doesn’t involve dealing with other people. You have to decide how much interaction you can handle and stick to those boundaries.

Everything I know about autism comes from what I’ve read and what I’ve observed about myself. People don’t ask someone with borderline personality disorder to be able to talk in detail about their disorder. There really should be information available to employers about people like me. Another difficulty I find is that because my disability is not immediately obvious (people don’t look at me in the job centre and say – oh, she must be autistic) some people can’t see why I wouldn’t be able to do the same jobs they do. It’s a similar attitude to that which some people have towards mental health problems like depression. They think it’s all the mind and you’re not trying hard enough. I told one friend recently I had autism, and she didn’t believe me. I told her I’d been diagnoses but she still questioned what I was telling her. Of course not all people are like this, there are some people who are very sympathetic.

It’s very difficult telling people I have autism. I don’t like doing it. It’s a bit like a gay person deciding to come out of the closet. And it’s not something you only have to do the once, like having a big coming out and then everyone knows. You have to keep telling people. And then even when you’ve told them and they’ve accepted it, they still forget ten minutes later when they say ask you a question, and you give an honest answer, and they get offended. I don’t blame them, I’m still working out the ways autism affects my interaction with people. An NT person has even less knowledge than I do.

At the moment I am unemployed. I had a temping job for about a month but I lost that last week. Before then I was unemployed for about five months. It was all a bit of a disaster really. I told the agency I had High Functioning Autism and that this affected my ability to deal with the public. I had been worried that telling my employer would put them off, but it didn’t. Maybe they hadn’t read my application form fully, or maybe it was just because the job they were offering me was so menial they didn’t think it mattered. Anyway, I assumed that they would tell the company they wanted me to work for that I had HFA, and that I didn’t need to anything more. This turned out to be wrong.

After being there for about a month, the company said they wanted me to take a temp to permanent job in their finance team. I was unsure about taking it. I didn’t have any relevant experience. I’ve worked in accountancy, but this was mostly in private practice and I’d been out of it for about five years. I told them this but they seemed unconcerned. They said they were sure I’d pick it up quickly. The next day I reported to my new team leader and she explained briefly what they wanted me to do. Basically they had all these unallocated cheques and they wanted me to call up their clients and find out which invoices these cheques related to.

You can imagine my horror. They have about forty-five thousand clients and tens of thousands of pounds of unallocated cheques. After about half an hour watching another girl do the job (if this was my training it was totally inadequate) I knew there was no way I could do the job without my stress levels rocketing. I told the girl this and went to find the team leader I’d been working for before, to see if it was okay for me to go back to what I had been doing – which didn’t involve any client contact except occasionally by email.

My new team leader came running after me to ask what I was doing. I explained I wasn’t comfortable with the role, that no one told me what the role would be and that I wanted to go back to what I’d been doing. She looked cross and said she would go and talk to the HR manager. When she came back to me she said that even if I went into transaction processing (the department I’d been in before) I would have to be using the phone and so either I took the job they were offering me or.... I didn’t.
So I didn’t... So they called the agency and said I’d walked out! When I called the agency to explain what had happened they told me they hadn’t told the company I had autism. She then asked me what High Functioning Autism was and I had to try and explain in the two minutes before she decided she stopped me talking. She said she would call the company and explain to them, then get back to me. But she didn’t, so I guessed I couldn’t go back to my temp job, even though they were calling the agency asking for more people. (Sounds like sour grapes to me).

Even if I hadn’t been autistic I think the company’s behaviour was unacceptable. Two people had just left the finance department, and they tried to fill those positions with temp staff, one of whom (me) didn’t have the relevant experience and without offering any proper training.

However I have learnt some valuable lessons. Firstly to make sure that my future employer knows I have HFA. Secondly that they know what this is. Thirdly, that I find out exactly what a job entails before saying I’ll do it. Fourthly, not to rely on other people to do any of this for me; if they don’t know what HFA is, they won’t know how important it is in finding the right role for me.

I think the reason I didn’t talk to the company myself about autism is because it embarrasses me. I don’t like admitting I have this thing wrong with me. I so want to be like other people! I fought very hard against what I knew was true. I hope I’ll be strong enough to do all of what I’ve just said above in my next job. I just wish I had more attitude about me.

Creating Money Doing What You Enjoy

I’m reading ‘Creating Money’ by Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer. I’ve read all their other books, but I shied away from this one. I had trouble reconciling spirituality with materiality. Money has lots of negative connotations. You see wealthy people on telly and in magazines, they don’t appear very evolved spiritually, sometimes they don’t even look very happy. Then there are governments and politicians who use money to gain power over people. And somewhere we’ve developed this idea that to be poor is to have moral integrity, (the only people this serves are our employers!)

Jesus has a parable about a rich man and a needle. And I’m sure it says somewhere in the bible, we should store our treasures in heaven not on earth. For people who have developed an attachment to money, it’s good advice. Probably not so good for me, who has a dislike of money. I guess it really depends on the intended audience.

In the world today, in the west that is, we have a higher standard of living than in previous centuries. We have the internet, computers, mobile phones, satellite television. I think you can become enlightened, if you want, by withdrawing from society and leading a simple life. But then you wouldn’t be taking advantage of the opportunity for accelerated evolution for all of humanity. All of this media can be used to help raise the planet’s consciousness, it can also be used for negative reasons. In order to use it for positive purposes, we have to have access to it. Which means having a certain amount of disposable income.

Buying this book was a big step for me and represents a shift in my values. I don’t think I’m unique in this. I think lots of people have gone through the same process. It’s weird, when you arrive at a new place in your thinking; you ask yourself why it took you so long. For me I think a lot of things had to change in myself first. Like getting more self-respect and time for myself, and having more faith in myself and not referring every action to someone else for approval.

The first chapter of this book is really good. It teaches you that you are the source of your abundance. Just reading that chapter made me feel peace and confidence. So far I have lived life at the mercy of other people’s whims. If I was happy or sad, rich or poor it was because of someone else – or so I thought. But it doesn’t have to work that way. So long as you don’t mind how stuff comes to you, you can attract everything you need into your life. You are the creator, the Magician. You are in control of your own life.

The second chapter seemed less relevant to me. First it warned against wanting money to gain status, or because you think owning things will make you happy. Then it said that to make money you need to start doing the things you love. Don’t work at a job you don’t like thinking one day you will be able to retire and then do the things you enjoy – that’s living in the future not the present. Start doing the things you enjoy now!

And I thought, that’s kinda what I’ve been trying to do. Hence taking a career break and going back to university. And hence me leaving two jobs voluntarily, without any guarantee of another job – I was criticised by people for doing this, family and friends. I think some of them were genuinely offended at what they thought was reckless behaviour, I think some were just jealous. But really, you can’t run your life based on other people’s opinions, not if you want to be happy.

I’ve come up with lots of ideas for making money since then, doing things I think I would enjoy. So I thought, this chapter doesn’t have anything to say to me. Later on I was sitting on the sofa watching television. I saw a book lying on the coffee table, about making flowers from paper. (This was one of my plans for making money).

And then I realised, each of these schemes of mine has begun from the same premise – what can I do to earn some money. I’m still coming at this from the wrong direction. I still want some guarantee before I start, that what I’m doing will make me money. It’s the money, not the doing that is the inspiration behind these ideas. I’m not really trusting that what I want to do will bring me abundance. What I should be doing is tying to figure out what I want to do first, the money will come later.

I think that’s why none of my schemes ever got off the ground. I didn’t have the motivation to get started, money isn’t a great motivator for me anyhow. And just doing something because you want to make some cash from it, kinda takes the pleasure out of it. For me anyway, I think it also depends on your personality. I’m just not that focused on the material world, which gets me into trouble. I’m not saying it’s a good thing. Maybe it’s the autism. But if I want to be independent, so I can live my life according to my values, I need a source of income. So I need to decide what it is that i most enjoy doing.

Later this same day:
I sometimes think I’m not doing enough. Mostly this comes from measuring myself against people who are NT. So I’m always setting myself up for failure. This afternoon when I was in the kitchen, I thought, ‘All I’ve done today is cook and write’. Then a thought came to me – ‘That’s enough’. I realised, I’m not expected to do anymore than I’m able to. That thought made me happy, just cooking and writing. Two things I enjoy doing. So who knows, maybe it will lead to something. The thought I could earn a living just doing just those two things made me feel good.

Why is it hard to keep my flat tidy?

My flat is a mess. Not as big a mess as it was this morning. I've been tidying up, but still, it's not as tidy as I would like it. Organisation is probably a problem for lots of NT people as well, I don't think they understand though, just how much harder it is for an autistic person. The number of times I've been called lazy by people who hardly know me. I try very hard to keep my flat tidy. Bit like a yo-yo dieter, I take two steps forward then two steps back.

For example, if I see something needs picking up, part of me wants to pick it up and part of me is thinking, not more work, not again, I keep doing this, it never ends. There are lots of everyday tasks that autistic people find hard; like listening (if you have auditory discrimination problems), like any physical action (because co-ordination is difficult and you can't tell where you are in space), like planning (because you can't create sequences in your mind). I think that's why I stay slim even though I don't exercise; I spend so much mental energy even when I'm not 'working' proper.

From a spiritual point of view, your Self knows it hasn't always been like this, and it won't always be like this. In Spirit you change clothes just by thinking about it. There's no picking clothes off the floor, no washing, no hanging out to dry, no ironing, no putting away. In fact an enormous amount of work goes into putting clean clothes on everyday. At the same time, I don't like mess. A tidy home equals a tidy mind. It's difficult to concentrate when your surrounded by mess. I think anyone who knows something about Feng Shui would probably tell you its a bad thing too. What I'm trying to show is the tasks autistic people find hard, are purely related to how we interact with the physical world. There is nothing wrong with my conscious Self. All it means is losing my balance when I try to pick up that sock, and grabbing at it because I'm not really sure if I have a hold of it, then having a fight with a draw to put it away. Who likes doing stuff they're no good at? I get very mad at myself, but thats because I've been measuring myself against other people for so long. (I've only recently been diagnosed).

I was doing quite well when I first moved into my flat, that was a few months ago. Then I got this job about a month ago, and then it all just unraveled. I didn't have time anymore, or more accurately I couldn't spend the time I wanted on tasks. My circumstances told me how much time I could spend doing something. The routines I'd put in place while I wasn't working, went out the window, because I hadn't factored in time. Autistic people can't conceptualise time. It's very difficult for me to judge how long a task will take, or how much time I've spent on a task. I'm not very good at putting things into sequence, as I can't see ahead, I can't see several things at once, I can only see what I've chosen to do first. If I'd managed to keep my job i think I would have worked out a new routine. But I only had it for a month. Luckily I'm slipping back into my old routine quite quickly. I haven't forgotten it. So my flat is getting tidier. But I have learnt a lesson from this. I would like to spend less time on housework, and do things more quickly. Then I would have more time to do the things I want to do.