Navigating The Neurotypical Workplace

My varied autistic work experiences spanning a quarter-century

Anyone who has a disability knows how exhausting it makes our lives. Whether it’s having to justify our disabilities to those who don’t understand, or enduring constant ableist microaggressions once people find out about us (and even beforehand) — we never know what to expect from the peanut gallery of privilege.

This can be especially traumatizing and demoralizing whenever we go to work. Are our coworkers going to find subtle ways to use our disabilities against us? Will our supervisor invent a “performance-oriented” excuse based on plausible deniability, so they can terminate our employment largely because they don’t want to deal with how “difficult” we are?

With such a diversity of employers out there, every disabled person will have unique experiences. But, while the exact circumstances might vary, one thing remains constant: our competence and work ethic are routinely questioned when bosses and coworkers don’t even want to try seeing things from outside of their able bubbles.

The following is an oral accounting of my work history. I’ve summarized it chronologically, to give you a glimpse at what sorts of occupational positions I’ve held. Hopefully, this helps naysayers understand why I (and so many others with disabilities) may be branded as “unemployable” beyond a certain span of our lifetimes.

TICKET-TAKER

My very first paid job was at the age of 15, between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I served as a ticket-taker at my local county fair. For five days, I would check fairgoers’ daily and seasonal passes as they entered and exited the fairgrounds. Occasionally, I had to deal with cranky local yokels. Kids complaining about the fact that there was an entrance fee. Fellow teenagers who wanted me to let them in for free (I wouldn’t!). Unhinged bumpkins demanding a refund because they hadn’t had a good time.

This position was obviously seasonal and temporary. I’d first sought it out because I wanted to earn extra money to pay for a trip to Spain that our Spanish Club would be taking in three years. That dream got dashed the following autumn at the beginning of my sophomore year, when Señora Urbanowicz told us she’d preemptively decided the Spring 2000 Spanish Club trip would be traveling to Mexico rather than Spain — because half of the Spanish Club members who were going to Spain in Spring 1998 felt disappointed that they’d been outvoted when deciding between Spain and Mexico as a destination.

My heart was no longer into my goal of raising money to travel abroad (since I was unwilling to deal with Mexico’s drinking water), so I became completely disenchanted with the ticket-taking job when I returned for it the following summer. I quit, three days into the Summer 1998 County Fair.

OFFICE ASSISTANT: TAKE ONE

Two summers before I would go off to college, I was placed at my city’s Chamber of Commerce as part of the WPIC summer internship program for high school students. I learned a lot of valuable skills, including how to fax, make copies, answer the phone, schedule appointments, and enhance my computer-based word processing skills.

At the age of 17, I myself was only beginning to learn more about my own Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis. Unfortunately, I made the same mistake which I would go on to make at so many future workplaces: I hid it from my coworkers. In this case, my coworkers were the chamber’s Executive Director, Carol, and Carol’s office manager, Mary (who happened to be the mother of one of my former K-12 classmates).

Mary was extremely nice to me (despite the fact that her son, John-Paul, had always seemed to resent me when he and I were classmates). Carol, on the other hand, was a whiny, unhappy, and abusive person. She took out her personal problems on us. I completed the entire summer internship… but with a host of sour memories.

CANDY FACTORY WORKER

Immediately following my stint at the Chamber of Commerce, I worked at the Figi’s candy & gift basket factory outside of Marshfield. My parents made me take this job in order to earn money for college, as they couldn’t afford to pay for multiple years of my tuition… and they doubted I’d receive a full-ride scholarship.

I quit after one day. Various supervisors kept moving me around to different areas, where each task would be completely different. As an “Aspie,” I struggle with environmental volatility and lack of structure. My day of torture was topped off by an elderly forewoman yelling at me for an hour straight because I wasn’t bagging candies fast enough. It felt like I was on that classic I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel couldn’t keep up with the conveyer belt of never-ending chocolates.

STORE ASSOCIATE

Following the fiasco at Figi’s, my parents sent me to The Dollar Tree where I was hired as a cashier and floor worker. While training me, my supervisor, Sonny, kept telling me I wasn’t ringing up items quickly enough or accurately enough. He explained the company’s policy that, after three register errors, an employee is automatically terminated. Sonny also berated me for not having my own vehicle.

“Are you going to expect Mommy and Daddy to drive you around for the rest of your life?” he chided me.

I quit, after three days. When my mom accompanied me to tell Sonny that I was turning in my nametag, he seemed remorseful and asked if he had done something wrong. I was too nice. I insisted, No, it’s me. I have this disability that makes it hard to follow instructions. I’ll just create too much stress for you and the company.

In hindsight, I wish I’d said to him, “Yes, I’m quitting in order to get away from you, you ableist asshole!”

OFFICE ASSISTANT: TAKE TWO

After graduating from high school early, I spent the spring and summer before college as a seasonal office assistant at our city’s Parks & Recreation Department. Here, I did many of the same sorts of tasks I’d done at the Chamber of Commerce. Our Parks & Rec Director, Steve, was jolly and seemed to appreciate my hard work. However, he constantly took verbal jabs at me for not having earned my Driver’s License yet… because he wanted to send me out to do errands around town in a company car.

To this day, I haven’t learned how to drive. On some level, I knew that would be the case: but I could never bring myself to admit it to Steve, because I was afraid he’d get rid of me — and I needed the money for college. So I awkwardly bantered with him about it and stalled for time, as I ran out the clock working there that summer before going off to college.

OFFICE ASSISTANT: TAKE THREE

Two years into college, I found my first work-study position. It was at the university’s Arts & Sciences Department. It involved most of the same variations of duties I’d been assigned at the Chamber of Commerce and Parks & Rec. My student coworkers, the university deans, and our Office Manager, Carol (a different “Carol” from the nasty mess who’d been my boss at the Chamber of Commerce) were all really pleasant.

Alas, two months into the fall semester, I was laid off because I’d just received a two-year scholarship from benefactors in my hometown… and the department couldn’t afford to pay work-study funds to a scholarship student.

BOOK-SHELVER

During the Summer of 2004, I shelved books at the McIntyre Library while living on-campus during the summer and taking summer courses. My supervisor, Diana, was fairly pleased with my three-month job performance in the main stacks. But her colleague, Renee, became furious with me after I quit a supplementary position on the periodicals floor, which I’d only taken because I’d been desperate for (and tantalized by) the notion of fifteen extra hours per week.

The first day I’d arrived in Periodicals, the red flag for me should have been how Renee spent half an hour arguing on the phone (long-distance) with her father while I just stood there, stupefied, listening to her end of the conversation. I soon became overwhelmed after she thrust me right into binding book edges with a hot glue gun. When I quit, she let me know (in no uncertain terms) how I was putting her in a tough spot since she would be leaving for vacation the very next day.

Cue Eichy’s violin…

TV STATION STAFFER

Okay, this one was only part-time during the school year. “TV10” paid students for working behind the camera (and in front of it) on the student-run closed-circuit campus TV station. There were a lot of fun students who I met through this venue. But it could also be very cliquey, which brought back severe anxiety from my social trauma during K-12 school.

FRONT DESK WORKER

During the Summers of 2004, 2005, and 2006, I worked the front desk at both the Towers and Putnam residence halls. By 2005 and 2006, I was no longer taking summer courses — but working at the residence hall front desks came with the perk of free room-and-board (my own private dorm room during the summer months).

My duties consisted of answering the phone, greeting visitors, and cashiering beverages/snacks to student residents or visitors. It was fairly easy… and, overall, a pretty low-stress position. I frequently took graveyard shifts, and then slept during the daylight hours.

OFFICE ASSISTANT: TAKE FOUR

During the Spring 2006 semester (my last full semester before transferring schools), I was a front desk receptionist at the Academic Skills Center. This was pretty similar to my jobs at the Chamber of Commerce, Parks & Rec, and Arts & Sciences — with the most noticeable difference being how I’d work with program coordinators and student tutors to schedule tutoring sessions.

Kim, my boss, was also very congenial and soft-spoken — much like Carol from Arts & Sciences. My student coworkers were all really friendly, and our student tutors were easy to work with. Since this was another work-study position (and my scholarship had run out by this point), it ended when the semester did.

OFFICE ASSISTANT: TAKE FIVE

On my new campus, I was hired to be a student assistant by the Department of Health Sciences. While the basic job was similar to the previous office positions I’d held, I felt extra-tense having arrived 2,000 miles away from my old campus… with an unstable bank account.

This was a toxic workplace I’ll never forget. I could (and probably will) write multiple longer pieces about all the experiences I had here. Two factors did me in, though.

First, our office manager, Vangi, became quickly disenchanted with how I lagged behind the other student workers in terms of both social skills and understanding directions. But, secondly, one of the full-time staffers, Iris, made that workplace utter hell for me. She ran hot-and-cold on everyone. She zeroed in on my anxious demeanor like a hyena preying upon a gazelle.

With Iris, I wasn’t pronouncing words correctly… or reading her mind properly… or replying to her vapid small talk with the “right” responses… or answering phone calls the way she would answer them. She also had obvious contempt for anyone with my genitalia, racial background, or social awkwardness.

After one full year, I quit that position in order to save my sanity.

MOTEL RECEPTIONIST

The summer before my final semester as an extended undergraduate (long story!), I was hired at the now-defunct Howard Johnson on Reseda Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley. This was at the height of the Great Recession, so I was desperate for ANY position due to my intensified fears that there would be literally no positions hiring in the foreseeable future.

One day of training became too overwhelming for me. As a would-be motel receptionist, I struggled for hours fumbling around with check-in software that I couldn’t understand. And then, I was told that they would withhold my salary for the first month of my employment there… just to make sure I wouldn’t need to be terminated.

Yeah, okay… see ya!

LEGAL RECEPTIONIST

A couple of weeks after the Howard Johnson fiasco, I was hired by a law firm in Woodland Hills. For two months, I alternated day shifts with another receptionist — greeting clients, scheduling appointments, and word-processing legal documents. They kept me on for about two months… before pink-slipping me at the end of October.

The official reason for letting me go was that my co-receptionist, Diane, was training to be a paralegal, and they wanted to give her the chance to function in the position on a full-time basis. In reality, I’m pretty sure that the new office manager, Chantel, had thrown me under the bus to our bosses, Alan and Michael, after coworkers had complained about a nervous breakdown I’d had in the breakroom over an unpaid gas bill.

PLAYGROUND AIDE

Barely a week after being fired from the law firm, I found a job at a local elementary school. The job was simple and straightforward enough: watch the kids during their lunch hour and recess, and make sure they stay safe. Several of my faculty coworkers were really great. Others… weren’t.

The “Iris” or “Chantel” of this workplace was our office administrator, Debbie. For whatever reason, she hated me from Day One — even though I was nothing but pleasant toward her. Eventually, her coldness and rudeness toward me intensified —and I stopped trying to even keep up the pretense of faking cordiality with her. I would clock in and out while avoiding any eye contact whatsoever with Debbie.

After another full year, my position — along with the similarly-nonessential positions of my coworkers, Oscar and Maria — was cut because LAUSD schools were mandated to trim their budgets in order to receive the recent federal stimulus money. (Yeah, explain that one to me…)

PERSONAL ASSISTANT

My most recent formal job was from 2009 to 2016. I worked for an Independent Medicare Broker out of his home office. Lloyd acted like a kindly, gregarious father figure toward me… at first.

I made cold calls to potential clients, attempting to convince them to let Lloyd be their broker. Yes, I was one of “those” annoying telemarketers. Over time, Lloyd would dump more and more random office duties onto my lap.

Gradually, I began to discover the dark underbelly of his world. Lloyd’s wife, Judi, was deteriorating quickly due to Alzheimer’s Disease. Judi’s family was becoming withdrawn from her. Lloyd didn’t want to send her to an assisted living facility, so he tried to care for her while simultaneously running a home-based business (where she was always in his face!). It didn’t help that he was terrible at managing money… so our payroll would constantly be in jeopardy.

Lloyd’s mood grew increasingly volatile and verbally abusive toward me and the various other employees who worked for him: Sarah, Lillian, Nancy, Melissa, Patricia, Patti, Sheni, Guadalupe, and Shabria. I outlasted all of them other than Sheni (mainly due to my financial desperation and lack of self-respect).

But even somebody as sweet and angelic as me has his limits. It was primarily due to Lloyd’s miserable and erratic temper that I ultimately made the decision to move from California back to Wisconsin. At a certain point, I had to choose between income and my own mental stability.

If you’re still reading this, I’m sure many of you are tempted to brand me as a constant quitter who blames other people’s unbalanced personalities for my inability to function in life. You may accuse me of failing to take ownership of my flaws or problems.

I recognize the areas in which I can improve — both in terms of skill-building and social interactions. However, when you struggle with “social dyslexia,” high anxiety, intense phobias, and identity-based anger… completing workplace tasks while surrounded by vile personality types can be daunting, arduous, and downright debilitating.

Who knows what my future career holds for me… or even if I’ll ever really have one? What I do know is that I’ve derived strength from political activism and online writing. For the first time in my life, working from home and setting my own schedule, I feel as though I’m CONTRIBUTING to the betterment of society.

Even though it does very, very little to enrich my bank account.