Work: A Love/Hate Relationship!

It might be true that we don't always want to go to work, but man do we miss it when there is no work to go to! With recent statistics showing at least 8.5% of America without work, the Aspie's are feeling the strain as well.

The Aspie Insider's mused yesterday over coffee about the challenges that they find in participating in the work force. Take a look at their thoughts below, concerning finding, interviewing, and keeping a job!

A.I. WORKPLACE THOUGHTS

• "Meeting new people, getting through the interview process is really hard...but gets easier the more times that you do it."
• "Finding a job that you are interested in is really challenging, but once you find one that you like, it is easy to stay interested. Jobs that I don't find interesting... well I don't want to keep them."
• "After turning in the application, being proactive and talking to a manager about your interest in getting the job is really intimidating... I'm just not sure what to say to them."
• "Communication with co-workers and boss can be a challenge... because Asperger's often presents me with a challenge in communicating with everyone."
• "I sometimes don't speak up about problems at work and just let them go, hoping that they will go away... until they become a bigger problem and I get in trouble."
• "Arguments among co-workers can be a challenge... I just don't know what to do when they get into arguments."
• "Working in smaller places, where the employees are fewer in number, tends to be easier.
• "Finding an employer that understands you is very important... working for someone that you already know, who already understands your strengths and challenges can be very helpful." 
• "Not fitting in with co-workers can be really challenging and isolating."
• "Having the pressure to work fast and do a lot of things at once is very anxiety producing."
• "Being asked to do a new task or varied tasks can be challenging... I would prefer to do the same thing everyday rather than have to do multiple things... even though the diversity of skills is really helpful to an employer and they seem to want me to know how to do multiple things."
• "Flexibility: changing plans on the spot can be really challenging to cope with."
• "I often don't know that I am doing something wrong because I think that it is right... so it is really frustrating when someone then tells me that I am doing it wrong. It feels like I et blind-sided with this news. It is REALLY important to frequently ask your employer for a honest assessment of your performance and work to take their criticisms constructively... so that you don't get fired!"
• "You have to match the right job with the person, otherwise it will be a disaster!"
• "I have to know my strengths and weaknesses... as do my employers. I am really good at somethings, but just make somethings worse when I try, so my employer does not force me to do the things that I am not good at. It is probably not a good idea for me to be upper-level management at the grocery store... I prefer to just manage myself, not a lot of people."
• "Getting new managers can be really frustrating because they do not know how you worked in the past and they often want to change things."
• I prefer jobs that I can work on independently. I don't mind being part of a larger team, but when there is a lot of collaboration required, I have a hard time performing as well as I would with a clear, defined, independent task.