From A Toxic Job To A Healthy Job. Finally Finding A Safe Space

[ShesJustAGirl]

I've had a very difficult journey when it comes to my career path. Since I started understanding my neurodivergence, I have figured out slowly over time all the ways it has impacted my life. I figured out that I am autistic and likely have ADHD when I was 23. I spent a lot of my younger years trying to understand what was "wrong with me" and it was a bit of a relief when I could finally put a name to why I was so different from everyone else around me.

That didn't stop my career journey from being difficult. I still had to learn how my ND's affected me at work. My first serious job, I worked so hard to take it seriously, and I ended up learning a lot. Most of my core job skills came from this place. It's difficult though when you know you're smart, but you have a silent barrier between you and everyone else. I would make mistakes and it made me upset silently because I truly cared about the work I was doing, but I noticed how much more small mistakes I made compared to others. Eventually, employers would give me simpler and simpler tasks while my colleagues at the time flew past me, became salaried, and adjusted to the work environment. I think one of the most painful parts is not being able to connect with the people I work with everyday because ultimately I get over stimulated and don't speak much eventually. I noticed the pattern I had and this would begin to scare me on my job searches moving forward. I know how to interview well and say what they expect of me. It's actually the easiest part of getting a job for me. I realized that I sounded very promising upfront. I knew how to be charismatic, and sound promising. Then my first few weeks of work, I put on my best mask. I smile, I try to say hello to everyone, and I am super on top of things. It almost feels like I was attempting to perform a corporate woman. But then slowly my NDs starts to appear. I make less eye contact. And nothing is worse than the feeling of watching people who were curious about you and smile at you slowly stop talking to you, stop smiling at you, and eventually avoid speaking to you all together. I know the exact moment that people start to find me odd. And it hurts my feelings so much, but I know it's not their fault. They just do not fully understand, and I never explain why to anyone.

I was in a traumatic situation at that job, and eventually I lost it which was the most gut wrenching feeling because I didn't want to leave. I felt ashamed of myself. I had to find another job, and it was hard to get, but one small company emailed my private email from their private email. I should've taken this as a red flag, but I needed the money and was in a horrible situation. The same thing happened at this job. The great interview. They spoke like I was going to come and fix all of their problems. I was only Admin. From the start the work environment was terrible. I never experienced anything like it. There was only about 6-7 of us total included the owners who were married. We'd have a meeting every morning, and he would want us to give feedback to the mechanics, and it almost felt like perpetually negative feedback. Say what you did wrong, get a lecture from the boss. In a tiny small backroom in an auto shop. I was in hell. My traits were way more obvious in that setting. All I wanted to do was do my tasks and keep to myself, and this bothered them. They kept telling me I needed to take more initiative. Again, I began to see their disappointment. From once thinking I was this great candidate to then sensing something was weird about me. On top of that, I was in a horrible situation in my private life and I was literally in so much turmoil, I don't even know how I survived it. They did reviews for everyone and I watched him berate another coworker who I also suspect was an older ND person who was great with numbers and a very sweet soul. He told that coworker in a fit of rage one meeting that he didn't even want to hire him back (They let him go before but asked for him back.) If it wasn't for his wife (Other owner) he wouldn't have wanted him there. I was shocked by this, and expressed to the manager there that I found it to be inappropriate. But it was like nobody said anything. I got to my review and their plan for me was to go down my resume and tell me why what it said didn't match with what I gave them. I start crying and they asked me if anything was going on. They were also extremely nosy. I watched them weaponize peoples personal business against them and speak about it ignorantly and blatantly in a group setting as to why a worker wasn't doing what they wanted. They always inquired about why I didn't have a car. To the point where they kept bringing it up, and I know they had private conversations about it. They had a favorite, who was the manager. I didn't mind that, I wasn't aiming to be the favorite, but oh my goodness... He would get gifts and bonuses in front of everyone while everyone got berated. If everyone did good that week, manager was praised. If it was a bad week, everyone got chewed out. I could go on and on, but the main horror that made me leave was when the CEO came and berated me telling me I didn't communicate about the shredder people coming. It was in front of the manager. I just stood silent. I texted him and asked to have a conversation with him. Of course his wife was there, and I told him I do not appreciate being spoken to that way and to not talk to me like that again in a group setting. He then began to have a power struggle with me, but I stood my ground. I know he would not let it go. I did not yell. I didn't pout. I said clearly and directly do not disrespect me like that again. The next day he had a meeting with me and the manager, and they came down on me... For 3 hours. And then my hours got cut. I quit. The only thing I regret is not saying **** you to them before I left.

Well, that was a horrifying experience, and I never told anyone what happened. I felt targeted and humiliated. But anyways, I had to restart my life after that point, because I just couldn't maintain my life as it stood at that time. Well I interview at this place, and I was going to do admin again, but she saw my set of skills and asked me to interview for something more aligned with data entry and finance. She said it paid more, and we got along great on the phone. Again, I interview well, so it wasn't an issue, but by this point I have this wound. Of feeling like ultimately I will have to leave because people will not want me around. I got my current job, and my boss is quirky. And it's comfortable to where I feel I can talk to her. My coworker at this job I notice silently helps me. When I was confused on something early on I got nervous that they'd think I was stupid. But no... When a mistake was made, my coworker even took the blame and nobody got upset. I notice after my experiences that I spiral if I'm confused on something or if I make a mistake because I expect people to make me feel incompetent. But at this job.... It hasn't happened. My boss does not micro manage me at all. Not even a little. And I guess I'm inspired to make this long drawn out post because I made my first kind of big mistake at work. Not earth shattering, but it made me so scared that my appetite left last weekend and I felt sick before I had to solve the issue this week. But when I got to work, I was just honest with my boss, and she told me that she appreciated my honesty, and that most people would blame someone else. She said it was not a big deal, and we talked about our weekend.... It almost makes me want to cry. Because it felt like the only way I could ever get and keep a job where people understand me is if I got extremely lucky. So many small factors would have to line up for me to get a place where I can be successful. And it's not perfect, but at least now have a place where I am treated with respect and provided freedom and autonomy. I don't even know what I wanted to ask or get at with this post. But if you're an autistic person who struggles in the work force, I see you. People don't even begin to know the difficulties and the stress that we deal with to navigate a job. It really does feel like you just have to get extremely lucky, and bonus points if you have another neurospicy person on your team. I'd like to hear other peoples journeys too. Just know I stand with you and I see you.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

Congratulations on finding a job that accepted you and is a good fit.

 

[Outdated]

Congratulations. I hope it continues to be a good fit for you. I worked in many places like the auto shop you mention, a toxic culture within the workplace. I also found a couple of places where I seemed to do OK but eventually social relationships within the workplace would sour and I'd move on.

Like you, for me the easiest part was the job interview, if I could speak to people face to face I got the job nearly every time.

Once I had a boss that accepted me just as I was and appreciated my talents. That job lasted 7 years and we ended up becoming really good mates outside of work too. One day he asked me if I thought he was a good boss, I said "Put it this way - there's plenty of people I only worked for for two weeks.".

So there are places out there where we'll feel comfortable but it often takes a lot of searching to find them.

 

[ShesJustAGirl]

Congratulations. I hope it continues to be a good fit for you. I worked in many places like the auto shop you mention, a toxic culture within the workplace. I also found a couple of places where I seemed to do OK but eventually social relationships within the workplace would sour and I'd move on.

Like you, for me the easiest part was the job interview, if I could speak to people face to face I got the job nearly every time.

Once I had a boss that accepted me just as I was and appreciated my talents. That job lasted 7 years and we ended up becoming really good mates outside of work too. One day he asked me if I thought he was a good boss, I said "Put it this way - there's plenty of people I only worked for for two weeks.".

So there are places out there where we'll feel comfortable but it often takes a lot of searching to find them.

Thank you for sharing that. It's a learn as you go existence. And yes, interviewing well has been my saving grace. I'm glad your boss values how you feel about him. I'm happy you've had something you liked too! I just want to feel proud of the work I do and feel like I'm making a difference.

 

[are]

I'm glad you found a good job.
Some places are just really intolerable and it def is luck for me.

 

[ShesJustAGirl]

Congratulations on finding a job that accepted you and is a good fit.

Thank you so much!

 

[Ken]

I guess my experience is not exactly the same as yours, but it was along the same path.

My issue was my autism; social anxiety, social blindness and inability to accurately control my mannerisms to not seem like an off-putting retard.

From a very early (single digit) age, I was obsessed with becoming an electronics design engineer. But, as life went, I discovered that I could not handle college and I knew that a college degree was a requirement to be an electronics design engineer. Thus, it was clear that I could not be an electronics design engineer. I was deeply, deeply devastated. Still I was obsessed. I would dig old radios, TV's and anything electronic out of junk piles, take them home, take them apart to get the electronic parts out to "play" with.

As I got old enough to get a job, I would only look for jobs that involved electronics. Nothing else was even considered. After several really bad experiences with several jobs, I realized that I could not handle any job that required me to interface with the general public or customers. I had too many meltdowns and was suffering a major nervous breakdown.

Finding a job that I could handle was really hard. I tried getting electronics repair jobs. Since I had no college or any professional education, not even an associates degree, I decided to request a test to prove my repair abilities. This was typically rejected. On one occasion, I was given something that was so hard to fix it was just abandoned. I took it home and fixed it. I took it back and the person doing the interview. After seeing it work, he said that he couldn't hire me because he was afraid I would take his job. Other jobs were also very toxic for me, where coworkers would steal or sabotage my work or the boss was too hostile for me.

This went on until 2008 when I finally got a job as a technician at an electronics design firm. My job was to assemble prototypes of engineers designs for them to test with. Most designs went through 12 or more prototypes. But, I had my own space to work and did not have a lot of social contact. However, I still suffered from social blindness. On several occasions, as an engineer gave me the schematic and parts for the prototype, I would tell them the design would not work and how to re-design it so it would. That almost got me fired. The engineers were very offended by an uneducated technician telling them how to design. Especially a technician that acted like a retard.

The boss - the owner of the firm - was my savoir. He looked at the schematic and my suggestion and told me to build two prototypes one of the original engineers design and one of my suggestion. The prototypes were then tested and the boss asked the engineer if his design worked or failed as I said it would and did the prototype with my suggestion work. He hesitantly said that my version worked and his did not. After several instances of that, the boss said that I was to review all engineers designs before any prototypes were built because prototypes and all the testing was expensive. With that, instead of an average of 12 prototypes per design it dropped to 2.

Eventually, my boss promoted me to senior design engineer. Exactly what I dreamed of as a very young kid and all my life. It was the job that I very happily retired from.

Yes, it could be said that finding that particular job, with that particular boss was luck. Perhaps, but I feel like with both you and me, it was a matter of persistence. None of that could have happened without my obsession or without your work ethic, effort and hard work. That's persistence. Yea, I have to admit that we were lucky, but we were also persistent, of which was required to ending up with a truly fitting job.

I always knew something was really wrong with me, but I had no clue what it was. As a child, I was actually diagnosed as retarded. No doctors in my part of the country had ever heard of autism. I finally figured it out in 2016 when I was 64 years old.

 

[are]

I guess my experience is not exactly the same as yours, but it was along the same path.

My issue was my autism; social anxiety, social blindness and inability to accurately control my mannerisms to not seem like an off-putting retard.

From a very early (single digit) age, I was obsessed with becoming an electronics design engineer. But, as life went, I discovered that I could not handle college and I knew that a college degree was a requirement to be an electronics design engineer. Thus, it was clear that I could not be an electronics design engineer. I was deeply, deeply devastated. Still I was obsessed. I would dig old radios, TV's and anything electronic out of junk piles, take them home, take them apart to get the electronic parts out to "play" with.

As I got old enough to get a job, I would only look for jobs that involved electronics. Nothing else was even considered. After several really bad experiences with several jobs, I realized that I could not handle any job that required me to interface with the general public or customers. I had too many meltdowns and was suffering a major nervous breakdown.

Finding a job that I could handle was really hard. I tried getting electronics repair jobs. Since I had no college or any professional education, not even an associates degree, I decided to request a test to prove my repair abilities. This was typically rejected. On one occasion, I was given something that was so hard to fix it was just abandoned. I took it home and fixed it. I took it back and the person doing the interview. After seeing it work, he said that he couldn't hire me because he was afraid I would take his job. Other jobs were also very toxic for me, where coworkers would steal or sabotage my work or the boss was too hostile for me.

This went on until 2008 when I finally got a job as a technician at an electronics design firm. My job was to assemble prototypes of engineers designs for them to test with. Most designs went through 12 or more prototypes. But, I had my own space to work and did not have a lot of social contact. However, I still suffered from social blindness. On several occasions, as an engineer gave me the schematic and parts for the prototype, I would tell them the design would not work and how to re-design it so it would. That almost got me fired. The engineers were very offended by an uneducated technician telling them how to design. Especially a technician that acted like a retard.

The boss - the owner of the firm - was my savoir. He looked at the schematic and my suggestion and told me to build two prototypes one of the original engineers design and one of my suggestion. The prototypes were then tested and the boss asked the engineer if his design worked or failed as I said it would and did the prototype with my suggestion work. He hesitantly said that my version worked and his did not. After several instances of that, the boss said that I was to review all engineers designs before any prototypes were built because prototypes and all the testing was expensive. With that, instead of an average of 12 prototypes per design it dropped to 2.

Eventually, my boss promoted me to senior design engineer. Exactly what I dreamed of as a very young kid and all my life. It was the job that I very happily retired from.

Yes, it could be said that finding that particular job, with that particular boss was luck. Perhaps, but I feel like with both you and me, it was a matter of persistence. None of that could have happened without my obsession or without your work ethic, effort and hard work. That's persistence. Yea, I have to admit that we were lucky, but we were also persistent, of which was required to ending up with a truly fitting job.

I always knew something was really wrong with me, but I had no clue what it was. As a child, I was actually diagnosed as retarded. No doctors in my part of the country had ever heard of autism. I finally figured it out in 2016 when I was 64 years old.

Thanks for sharing that.

 

[the_tortoise]

@Ken I'm so glad you got to actually fulfill your dream and work as an engineer

@ShesJustAGirl, I'm glad you finally have a good job with sane people, reasonable expectations, and safety

I wish we all could have similar experiences!

Fingers crossed for everyone still dreaming and still trying.

 

[ShesJustAGirl]

I guess my experience is not exactly the same as yours, but it was along the same path.

My issue was my autism; social anxiety, social blindness and inability to accurately control my mannerisms to not seem like an off-putting retard.

From a very early (single digit) age, I was obsessed with becoming an electronics design engineer. But, as life went, I discovered that I could not handle college and I knew that a college degree was a requirement to be an electronics design engineer. Thus, it was clear that I could not be an electronics design engineer. I was deeply, deeply devastated. Still I was obsessed. I would dig old radios, TV's and anything electronic out of junk piles, take them home, take them apart to get the electronic parts out to "play" with.

As I got old enough to get a job, I would only look for jobs that involved electronics. Nothing else was even considered. After several really bad experiences with several jobs, I realized that I could not handle any job that required me to interface with the general public or customers. I had too many meltdowns and was suffering a major nervous breakdown.

Finding a job that I could handle was really hard. I tried getting electronics repair jobs. Since I had no college or any professional education, not even an associates degree, I decided to request a test to prove my repair abilities. This was typically rejected. On one occasion, I was given something that was so hard to fix it was just abandoned. I took it home and fixed it. I took it back and the person doing the interview. After seeing it work, he said that he couldn't hire me because he was afraid I would take his job. Other jobs were also very toxic for me, where coworkers would steal or sabotage my work or the boss was too hostile for me.

This went on until 2008 when I finally got a job as a technician at an electronics design firm. My job was to assemble prototypes of engineers designs for them to test with. Most designs went through 12 or more prototypes. But, I had my own space to work and did not have a lot of social contact. However, I still suffered from social blindness. On several occasions, as an engineer gave me the schematic and parts for the prototype, I would tell them the design would not work and how to re-design it so it would. That almost got me fired. The engineers were very offended by an uneducated technician telling them how to design. Especially a technician that acted like a retard.

The boss - the owner of the firm - was my savoir. He looked at the schematic and my suggestion and told me to build two prototypes one of the original engineers design and one of my suggestion. The prototypes were then tested and the boss asked the engineer if his design worked or failed as I said it would and did the prototype with my suggestion work. He hesitantly said that my version worked and his did not. After several instances of that, the boss said that I was to review all engineers designs before any prototypes were built because prototypes and all the testing was expensive. With that, instead of an average of 12 prototypes per design it dropped to 2.

Eventually, my boss promoted me to senior design engineer. Exactly what I dreamed of as a very young kid and all my life. It was the job that I very happily retired from.

Yes, it could be said that finding that particular job, with that particular boss was luck. Perhaps, but I feel like with both you and me, it was a matter of persistence. None of that could have happened without my obsession or without your work ethic, effort and hard work. That's persistence. Yea, I have to admit that we were lucky, but we were also persistent, of which was required to ending up with a truly fitting job.

I always knew something was really wrong with me, but I had no clue what it was. As a child, I was actually diagnosed as retarded. No doctors in my part of the country had ever heard of autism. I finally figured it out in 2016 when I was 64 years old.

Thank you for sharing that with me. It actually made me feel optimistic about my path. I feel like you where I'm gaining all these skills at work and it takes me a minute due to the social aspect but I do feel like I have more to offer than people may see up front. But your story is truly inspiring!

 

[Ken]

Thank you for sharing that with me. It actually made me feel optimistic about my path. I feel like you where I'm gaining all these skills at work and it takes me a minute due to the social aspect but I do feel like I have more to offer than people may see up front. But your story is truly inspiring!

Thank you for that.

I would like to point out, however, that I am not a smart person. I am too slow for school. My strength is simply my obsession to learn electronics theory and physics. Unfortunately, I can't seem to learn by being taught due to debilitating social anxiety and being too slow. All my learning was from quiet study of books and "playing" with electronic parts in "hidden" solitude. I guess that makes me look smart, but it's only passion and persistence - not being smart.

I feel my life has taught me that passion and persistence is more important than intelligence. You only loose when you quit. As long as you are still struggling, regardless how grueling, you have the chance of succeed.

Your experience makes me want to say, "You Go Girl!!!"