Job Thread

[Bob Sacamano]

22 hours ago, bigruss said:

Good luck man, hope you get an offer!

And don't worry about it man, if they are worried about coverage they could act on it now.

Thanks! And I did find out they have a temp coming in to take over her current responsibilities. While she's on leave, she will probably log in at month-end next month I would imagine to cover the stuff that I took over from her. I'm not going to worry about it though. Gotta worry about myself and do what's best for me.

[Iwritecode]

7 hours ago, greg775 said:

That sucks. People should be able to go out for lunch and they pretty much can't if the boss is a clock watcher. Again ... how can you pull it off in Chicago. Let's say at 11:58 you go to the restroom amid dirty looks from the boss since you are ripping him off two minutes. Then you leave and are on the downtown street. You see a Subway as today you want something quick. There are 10 people in line. You get your food at 12:25. You gulp it down and return to the office at 12:50. Yay! I made it.

Now you want to meet friends at a sit down place. You leave your desk at 11:58 for the bathroom stop. You hit the streets of Chicago at 12. You walk 5 blocks to meet friends at a sitdown place. You have a reservation. The waiter comes by at 12:20. No way in hell u are gonna make it back to work by 1. And if you don't have a reservation, totally forget it.

I don't know how you all do it.

 

Nobody that I know of typically does any kind of "sit down" type meal for lunch. At least not on a regular basis. At my old job there was a group of us that were essentially contract workers and got paid through a 3rd party. Hence why they were so strict on reporting hours.

The guy that we reported our hours to took us out to Red Lobster once a year. That was basically the one time a year we got permission to go over on our lunch. 

At my current job the IT group (there are 6 of us) will go out every once in a while and it's not a big deal if we go a little over since we are all salary employees.

[Y2HH]

I've worked in IT Security for years, and I'm not sure if it's just our area of the IT business, but we kind of come and go as we please. Lunch is never timed nor are arrival or departure times. Remote work is okay once or twice a week, etc. It was like this even when I worked at my previous jobs, such as at Blue Cross Blue Shield and Hinda Incentives. In the past fifteen years or so, I've not had one manager breathing down my neck about when I show up, leave, or how long I take lunch for...and I'm not sure I'd be able to accept that anymore.

I recently took a position at Coyote, which seems pretty damn fun so far. :D

[raBBit]

Jeez some of these stories make me worried about ever leaving my job. I can kind of do what I want when I want but we're more project or task based (as opposed to having a role with recurring responsibilities). I work with a disproportionate amount of young people too. At the end of the day, the nature of our work kind of holds people accountable. The cons of the job are more in the uncertainty of schedule, being subject to the work of others (both your coworkers and the client) and the hours. I will say I've worked at some clients where I am not sure specific individuals work for 60 minutes in a day. 

[Y2HH]

On 6/21/2019 at 2:11 PM, raBBit said:

Jeez some of these stories make me worried about ever leaving my job. I can kind of do what I want when I want but we're more project or task based (as opposed to having a role with recurring responsibilities). I work with a disproportionate amount of young people too. At the end of the day, the nature of our work kind of holds people accountable. The cons of the job are more in the uncertainty of schedule, being subject to the work of others (both your coworkers and the client) and the hours. I will say I've worked at some clients where I am not sure specific individuals work for 60 minutes in a day. 

I've never understood that sort of "set schedule" mentality in most jobs outside of retail or places with set "open" hours. I mean, when it comes to a job where an office or store is only open certain hours, it makes sense you'd have to be there during those hours -- but for other jobs where there is no official "open/close" time, I don't get the point of micro managing people. The bottom line is, are they getting their work done? If yes, then leave them alone. If not, okay, there is a discussion to be had and expectations to be reset.

One of the advantages (and disadvantages) of IT work is for most jobs, there doesn't tend to be a start/stop time. It's an advantage in that you tend to come and go as  you please, so long as the work is done, however, on the downside, it could potentially mean working long off hours during times of maintenance, etc.

[Bob Sacamano]

42 minutes ago, Y2HH said:

I've never understood that sort of "set schedule" mentality in most jobs outside of retail or places with set "open" hours. I mean, when it comes to a job where an office or store is only open certain hours, it makes sense you'd have to be there during those hours -- but for other jobs where there is no official "open/close" time, I don't get the point of micro managing people. The bottom line is, are they getting their work done? If yes, then leave them alone. If not, okay, there is a discussion to be had and expectations to be reset.

One of the advantages (and disadvantages) of IT work is for most jobs, there doesn't tend to be a start/stop time. It's an advantage in that you tend to come and go as  you please, so long as the work is done, however, on the downside, it could potentially mean working long off hours during times of maintenance, etc.

Every accounting/finance job I've had so far was really flexible. Last job I had, my department's boss was so cool. Some people came in at 6:30 every day to leave at 3. Some were not morning people and came in at 10 and worked until 6:30/7. They didn't care when you came in as long as you were there 8.5 hours (including the hour lunch break) and got your work done.

Edited June 24, 2019 by soxfan2014

[G&T]

1 hour ago, Y2HH said:

I've never understood that sort of "set schedule" mentality in most jobs outside of retail or places with set "open" hours. I mean, when it comes to a job where an office or store is only open certain hours, it makes sense you'd have to be there during those hours -- but for other jobs where there is no official "open/close" time, I don't get the point of micro managing people. The bottom line is, are they getting their work done? If yes, then leave them alone. If not, okay, there is a discussion to be had and expectations to be reset.

One of the advantages (and disadvantages) of IT work is for most jobs, there doesn't tend to be a start/stop time. It's an advantage in that you tend to come and go as  you please, so long as the work is done, however, on the downside, it could potentially mean working long off hours during times of maintenance, etc.

This is how my office works. With young kids, the flexibility is necessary. There's a lot of other crap we put up with, but micromanaging isn't one of them.

[Chisoxfn]

2 hours ago, soxfan2014 said:

Every accounting/finance job I've had so far was really flexible. Last job I had, my department's boss was so cool. Some people came in at 6:30 every day to leave at 3. Some were not morning people and came in at 10 and worked until 6:30/7. They didn't care when you came in as long as you were there 8.5 hours (including the hour lunch break) and got your work done.

That is my mo for managing my finance & accounting teams.  

[Y2HH]

On this topic, I think the WORST thing a manager can do is make their employees feel like prisoners at the workplace. All that does is create turnover and give people incentive to move on when they gain the skills necessary to do so. Building a solid team is much like building a baseball team -- you need those core players, but then you need to fill in the gaps around them. If you ride your core players into the ground, they'll burn out and move on, the idea is to continually elevate people -- and fight for them for things such as raises or promotions -- in order to keep the team together for as long as possible.

Yelling at someone for clocking in 5 minutes late despite the fact they always get their work done is a good way of telling everyone that works for you to get the hell out the second they can.

And they will.

Edited June 24, 2019 by Y2HH

[raBBit]

Giving a little more thought to this, it seems to me that smaller companies seem to have more of these issues where the larger companies don't really have as much "babysitting." I know my gf's mother left a huge company as she's scaling back and moving towards retirement and has experienced a totally different experience. Then with my clients, sometimes we'll be working til 8-9-10 and our client contacts are out the door by 4. It seems like most of the companies I work with, the personnel has a lot of flexibility outside of a few seasons (reporting periods, quarters, etc.). 

[Bob Sacamano]

Looks like this company is making me an offer. Benefits and perks are even more amazing than I thought. Easy decision to leave my current job.

[Chisoxfn]

3 hours ago, soxfan2014 said:

Looks like this company is making me an offer. Benefits and perks are even more amazing than I thought. Easy decision to leave my current job.

Congrats! Awesome news for you! 

[Bob Sacamano]

3 hours ago, Chisoxfn said:

Congrats! Awesome news for you! 

Thanks!

[Jack Parkman]

Ok, so to clarify my issues with holding a job: 

This is how I roll: 

Every job is broken down into tasks and subtasks, and with the completion of each task there is a quantitative level of progress attached. 

Upon being hired, the tasks required for advancement are clearly defined. 

If you complete goals X, Y, and Z, you get A dollars. 

If you go above and beyond that, for X time frame, you get promoted/ a raise and extra responsibility. 

Numbers and time make sense to me. Clearly defined goals and steps make sense to me. 

It is insanity to go into a job, do it every day and hope that you're doing a good enough job to hold the position and advance. If those things are not clearly defined, the job is a complete waste of time and effort to me. Everything must be quantified, in both numbers and time. Without that, there is no reason to continue doing the job. 

It is why Uber Eats works well for me. I know that, on average,  X number of deliveries gives me Y dollars. Those quantifiable numbers makes the entire thing doable. Without those quantifiable numbers, my entire motivation to work falls apart. I find it nearly impossible to motivate myself without a concrete goal and concrete steps to measure my progress along the way. To me, without those things, there is no purpose to your work, and there is no reward for your time and effort. 

They say that you have to "dangle the carrot" in order to motivate people. If you're always chasing the carrot, and never get to take a bite, it loses its effect for me. Without taking a bite of the carrot, the carrot might as well not exist. 

X amount of work and effort= Y reward. This makes sense to me

X amount of work and effort = mystery reward. This is insanity. 

 

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by Jack Parkman

[ptatc]

5 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

Ok, so to clarify my issues with holding a job: 

This is how I roll: 

Every job is broken down into tasks and subtasks, and with the completion of each task there is a quantitative level of progress attached. 

Upon being hired, the tasks required for advancement are clearly defined. 

If you complete goals X, Y, and Z, you get A dollars. 

If you go above and beyond that, for X time frame, you get promoted/ a raise and extra responsibility. 

Numbers and time make sense to me. Clearly defined goals and steps make sense to me. 

It is insanity to go into a job, do it every day and hope that you're doing a good enough job to hold the position and advance. If those things are not clearly defined, the job is a complete waste of time and effort to me. Everything must be quantified, in both numbers and time. Without that, there is no reason to continue doing the job. 

It is why Uber Eats works well for me. I know that, on average,  X number of deliveries gives me Y dollars. Those quantifiable numbers makes the entire thing doable. Without those quantifiable numbers, my entire motivation to work falls apart. I find it nearly impossible to motivate myself without a concrete goal and concrete steps to measure my progress along the way. To me, without those things, there is no purpose to your work, and there is no reward for your time and effort. 

 

 

I can see why you have trouble keeping a job. That is far too much supervision needed for most jobs to maintain any type of high level of production.

Sounds like you need a factory or warehouse job where everything is on a movement and production schedule.

[Jack Parkman]

37 minutes ago, ptatc said:

I can see why you have trouble keeping a job. That is far too much supervision needed for most jobs to maintain any type of high level of production.

Sounds like you need a factory or warehouse job where everything is on a movement and production schedule.

Not necessarily, if steps and progress are clearly defined at the beginning of each project, I'm fine. I can work independently with those guidelines. If the project needs to be done in three months, With step X done after the first month, step Y done after month two, and the entire project done after month 3 that is fine. 

If you give me a project, and say " Have this done in 90 days" that would drive me nuts. 

If you say " Have this done in 90 days, and if you have X done in 30 days and Y done in 60 days you're pacing yourself properly" That works for me. The interim steps are necessary to make sure I'm on the right track. Those are the little things that help. Is that too much to ask? 

This is the task-subtask model that would help me greatly. 

If the task-subtask is too much, than a 1-1 meeting with my boss at the end of the month to go over what I've accomplished is ok. As long as I'm keeping my boss happy, and it is clear to me that my boss is happy, I'm fine. 

The biggest thing that drives me nuts is not sharing career advancement goals. Without that, my motivation is gone. Clearly defined. Goals.

1 year goals, 3 year goals, 5 year goals, etc. 

If you meet these criteria, then you advance. If you don't, you stay put. There is no arguing and no excuse making. Everything needs to be objective. When shit gets subjective, it drives me nuts. 

I'm fine working independently if all of these things are laid out at the start of the program/job. When the job itself becomes ambiguous and the performance measurement subjective, then it falls apart. 

I was able to motivate myself fairly easily in school and college because everything was quantifiable and I could measure my progress along the way. 

The one exception was my HS and college literature classes, because the grade was 100% subjective. 

The main reason I need these things is to give me peace of mind that I'm doing my job properly. Without them, I become deathly afraid that I'm getting fired tomorrow.  I've had jobs where I got hired and fired within two weeks and I never saw termination coming. I thought the job was going well, and my boss never indicated anything was wrong. It has left me with PTSD about my jobs where I need reassurance that my boss is satisfied with my work periodically for peace of mind. Otherwise, every day I go into work with dread that I'm getting fired. All of these quantifiable things are a response to my PTSD with being blindsided with getting fired. If I know that it is coming, I can handle it. If I don't it is horrible. 

 

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by Jack Parkman

[Chicago White Sox]

7 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:

Not necessarily, if steps and progress are clearly defined at the beginning of each project, I'm fine. I can work independently with those guidelines. If the project needs to be done in three months, With step X done after the first month, step Y done after month two, and the entire project done after month 3 that is fine. 

If you give me a project, and say " Have this done in 90 days" that would drive me nuts. 

If you say " Have this done in 90 days, and if you have X done in 30 days and Y done in 60 days you're pacing yourself properly" That works for me. The interim steps are necessary to make sure I'm on the right track. Those are the little things that help. Is that too much to ask? 

This is the task-subtask model that would help me greatly. 

If the task-subtask is too much, than a 1-1 meeting with my boss at the end of the month to go over what I've accomplished is ok. As long as I'm keeping my boss happy, and it is clear to me that my boss is happy, I'm fine. 

The biggest thing that drives me nuts is not sharing career advancement goals. Without that, my motivation is gone. Clearly defined. Goals.

1 year goals, 3 year goals, 5 year goals, etc. 

If you meet these criteria, then you advance. If you don't, you stay put. There is no arguing and no excuse making. Everything needs to be objective. When shit gets subjective, it drives me nuts. 

I'm fine working independently if all of these things are laid out at the start of the program/job. When the job itself becomes ambiguous and the performance measurement subjective, then it falls apart. 

I was able to motivate myself fairly easily in school and college because everything was quantifiable and I could measure my progress along the way. 

The one exception was my HS and college literature classes, because the grade was 100% subjective. 

The main reason I need these things is to give me peace of mind that I'm doing my job properly. Without them, I become deathly afraid that I'm getting fired tomorrow.  I've had jobs where I got hired and fired within two weeks and I never saw termination coming. I thought the job was going well, and my boss never indicated anything was wrong. It has left me with PTSD about my jobs where I need reassurance that my boss is satisfied with my work periodically for peace of mind. Otherwise, every day I go into work with dread that I'm getting fired. All of these quantifiable things are a response to my PTSD with being blindsided with getting fired. If I know that it is coming, I can handle it. If I don't it is horrible. 

 

 

Jack, career achievement goals are always going to be subjective.  If you can’t work around that uncertainty, I really don’t know what to tell you.

[G&T]

8 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:

Not necessarily, if steps and progress are clearly defined at the beginning of each project, I'm fine. I can work independently with those guidelines. If the project needs to be done in three months, With step X done after the first month, step Y done after month two, and the entire project done after month 3 that is fine. 

If you give me a project, and say " Have this done in 90 days" that would drive me nuts. 

If you say " Have this done in 90 days, and if you have X done in 30 days and Y done in 60 days you're pacing yourself properly" That works for me. The interim steps are necessary to make sure I'm on the right track. Those are the little things that help. Is that too much to ask? 

This is the task-subtask model that would help me greatly. 

If the task-subtask is too much, than a 1-1 meeting with my boss at the end of the month to go over what I've accomplished is ok. As long as I'm keeping my boss happy, and it is clear to me that my boss is happy, I'm fine. 

The biggest thing that drives me nuts is not sharing career advancement goals. Without that, my motivation is gone. Clearly defined. Goals.

1 year goals, 3 year goals, 5 year goals, etc. 

If you meet these criteria, then you advance. If you don't, you stay put. There is no arguing and no excuse making. Everything needs to be objective. When shit gets subjective, it drives me nuts. 

I'm fine working independently if all of these things are laid out at the start of the program/job. When the job itself becomes ambiguous and the performance measurement subjective, then it falls apart. 

I was able to motivate myself fairly easily in school and college because everything was quantifiable and I could measure my progress along the way. 

The one exception was my HS and college literature classes, because the grade was 100% subjective. 

The main reason I need these things is to give me peace of mind that I'm doing my job properly. Without them, I become deathly afraid that I'm getting fired tomorrow.  I've had jobs where I got hired and fired within two weeks and I never saw termination coming. I thought the job was going well, and my boss never indicated anything was wrong. It has left me with PTSD about my jobs where I need reassurance that my boss is satisfied with my work periodically for peace of mind. Otherwise, every day I go into work with dread that I'm getting fired. All of these quantifiable things are a response to my PTSD with being blindsided with getting fired. If I know that it is coming, I can handle it. If I don't it is horrible. 

 

 

How are you going to advance when you always need someone to draw out the timelines of a project and set expectations with this amount of clarity? You can't be a manager with these needs, so how do you define "advancement"?  And how do you take on projects that have never been tried before where progress cannot be so readily defined? What value are you bringing to the company?

What you see as reasonable are the things that every employee wants, but eventually understands they won't always receive, so we all learn to work within that uncertainty and set our own timelines to accomplish goals based on experience. That's what managers expect. Failure is acceptable if you learn from it and correct it in the future. You don't seem capable of handling that.

Career advancement is always subjective, and has as much to do with personality as experience and technical ability.

You really need to find a way into a government position with civil service protections and position criteria so getting fired requires process, and advancement and raises are a little more defined.

[raBBit]

On 6/26/2019 at 2:26 PM, soxfan2014 said:

Looks like this company is making me an offer. Benefits and perks are even more amazing than I thought. Easy decision to leave my current job.

Hey! That's awesome man! Hopefully this company values what you bring to the table better than the last.

[Jack Parkman]

2 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Jack, career achievement goals are always going to be subjective.  If you can’t work around that uncertainty, I really don’t know what to tell you.

It's fine if they're subjective, as long as my boss lets me know what he's looking for and if I'm actually accomplishing them. 

Even if the steps aren't measurable, as long as I know where I stand throughout the process and have some goals I need to reach to get there, I'm fine. It's all about communication. If my boss just wants me to do my job and leave them alone and have them make all of the decisions, that isn't going to work. 

The X Y Z stuff is kind of idealistic and is my "in a perfect world" type thing, and it would be really easy to hold that kind of job. 

I need to check in with my boss to make sure we're on the same page with stuff periodically. What I'm not going to do is put in 12 months worth of work with zero feedback. Feedback and clear communication is really important. Without those I get anxious and frustrated. 

Edited June 28, 2019 by Jack Parkman

[Chicago White Sox]

1 hour ago, Jack Parkman said:

It's fine if they're subjective, as long as my boss lets me know what he's looking for and if I'm actually accomplishing them. 

Even if the steps aren't measurable, as long as I know where I stand throughout the process and have some goals I need to reach to get there, I'm fine. It's all about communication. If my boss just wants me to do my job and leave them alone and have them make all of the decisions, that isn't going to work. 

The X Y Z stuff is kind of idealistic and is my "in a perfect world" type thing, and it would be really easy to hold that kind of job. 

I need to check in with my boss to make sure we're on the same page with stuff periodically. What I'm not going to do is put in 12 months worth of work with zero feedback. Feedback and clear communication is really important. Without those I get anxious and frustrated. 

I don’t know what kind of jobs you’ve had in the past, but I can’t believe there is any manager in the world who would assign a 12 month project and not provide any real time feedback.  Most managers have a regular meeting cadence with their reports to talk about their workload amongst other things and they should be discussing overall performance & development at least a couple times a year.  I can’t tell if you’ve just gotten a bum rap or you’re simply expecting too much.

[raBBit]

Jack you obviously are no dummy, have you considered working in roles that are more autonomous? I think you said you did uber but there are uber-like jobs out there that carry more weight on your resume. 

 If you're struggling to communicate with your superiors, maybe a role where you are your own boss and set your own goals is something that could be beneficial to you. I know Amazon has some interesting opportunities as they take over the world. The nature of the roles they offer, the perceived value of their brand and the "self-directed" "autonomous" experience you will have will enable you to leverage the role in future job interviews if you do end up wanting to switch back to a more traditional role. It seems like your folks are very supportive of you and you to stay with them rent free, I would hit the ground running with a job that rewards volume and build up a nice base of savings so when you're ready to get back to a more traditional/ideal role for you, you have a nice fallback.

I don't want to speak out of turn with regards to your autism that you've been open about in the past, but have you ever tried to look at yourself sans the autistic label? Obviously you're not the real Jack Parkman, but for sake of my point, I feel you look at yourself as autistic Jack. I don't know how you go about disclosing it with work in the past, but you are you. When you're walking down the street or meeting someone for the first time they do not look at you as Autistic Jack. And while I don't mean to imply it's simple for your to just ignore who you are and why you are you, but maybe bringing a different approach will help. It doesn't seem that you're happy with the results you've been getting so maybe try something different. I am sure it's not easy to do that but just a though. If I bumped into you on the street you would just be Jack. You're not autistic Jack until you share that detail with everyone else. 

In any case, I wish you the best in your efforts to find the right career.

[Jose Abreu]

On 6/24/2019 at 1:03 PM, raBBit said:

Giving a little more thought to this, it seems to me that smaller companies seem to have more of these issues where the larger companies don't really have as much "babysitting." I know my gf's mother left a huge company as she's scaling back and moving towards retirement and has experienced a totally different experience. Then with my clients, sometimes we'll be working til 8-9-10 and our client contacts are out the door by 4. It seems like most of the companies I work with, the personnel has a lot of flexibility outside of a few seasons (reporting periods, quarters, etc.). 

Obviously every place is different but I'm working for a small company (35 employees) in the western suburbs and it's extremely laid-back and flexible. My hours are technically 8-5 with half days on Fridays but I come and go as I please as long as I am working 9 hours per day (and half on Fridays). So I usually end up coming in from like 730-430, and even though I'm 19, I'm trusted to do my job and am not constantly being micromanaged or anything.

I had a similar experience last summer at a tech start-up downtown. I think a lot of it depends on the age of ownership. In both cases my superiors are generally young (<40) and have a more relaxed attitude about the little things. Their only concern is that I do the work I'm supposed to do and complete it within those 9 hour days. They don't care about the exact minutes I'm working, whether I do some work at home, or whether I'm wearing a tie. That's the way it should be in most places, IMO. 

Edited July 2, 2019 by Jose Abreu

[Iwritecode]

I just saw an advertisement for a show on A&E called The Employables and it reminded me of this thread. My DVR is bursting at the seams right now but I want to try and catch up on it eventually.

 

https://decider.com/2019/05/15/the-employables-stream-it-or-skip-it/

Edited July 2, 2019 by Iwritecode

[Jack Parkman]

On 6/28/2019 at 12:33 PM, raBBit said:

Jack you obviously are no dummy, have you considered working in roles that are more autonomous? I think you said you did uber but there are uber-like jobs out there that carry more weight on your resume. 

 If you're struggling to communicate with your superiors, maybe a role where you are your own boss and set your own goals is something that could be beneficial to you. I know Amazon has some interesting opportunities as they take over the world. The nature of the roles they offer, the perceived value of their brand and the "self-directed" "autonomous" experience you will have will enable you to leverage the role in future job interviews if you do end up wanting to switch back to a more traditional role. It seems like your folks are very supportive of you and you to stay with them rent free, I would hit the ground running with a job that rewards volume and build up a nice base of savings so when you're ready to get back to a more traditional/ideal role for you, you have a nice fallback.

I don't want to speak out of turn with regards to your autism that you've been open about in the past, but have you ever tried to look at yourself sans the autistic label? Obviously you're not the real Jack Parkman, but for sake of my point, I feel you look at yourself as autistic Jack. I don't know how you go about disclosing it with work in the past, but you are you. When you're walking down the street or meeting someone for the first time they do not look at you as Autistic Jack. And while I don't mean to imply it's simple for your to just ignore who you are and why you are you, but maybe bringing a different approach will help. It doesn't seem that you're happy with the results you've been getting so maybe try something different. I am sure it's not easy to do that but just a though. If I bumped into you on the street you would just be Jack. You're not autistic Jack until you share that detail with everyone else. 

In any case, I wish you the best in your efforts to find the right career.

I can't hide it. I tried that to begin with and it was an unmitigated disaster. I'd never interview well enough, no matter how prepared I was, if I didn't disclose it. I'm somewhere from a mediocre to bad interview even at my best. I can't compete with neurotypicals in the job search process. I know damn well that if I got my foot in the door I'd be great eventually. I've been hired by a few places and I always get launched during the 90 day onboarding period. When they let me go, I always ask them to stick it out longer, but they launch me anyway. The huge issue for me is that even in my job as a QA software tester, in a position designed for autistic individuals, it still took me 18 months to get comfortable and confident in my ability to do the job with minimal supervision. I tried a different approach( fewer questions, more individual problem solving) when I left there for a work at home position, and I got fired because I tried to figure things out to the best of my ability(hint: It didn't cut the mustard) while taking minimal time from my supervisors. Unfortunately, because I thought asked too many questions at my previous position, I didn't ask nearly enough at the next job that I had.  I don't know where to go from here, to be honest with you all. 

If you met me in person, I have a loud, monotone, high pitched voice. They call it the "autistic voice"  Don't you know how there are people that you can spot in public that you automatically know are gay because of their flamboyance?  I'm the same way with regard to autism.  I don't flap or rock or anything like that but I do have some other tics, besides my voice. 

My folks are pretty supportive, though we do have arguments from time to time about stuff. Imagine living with your folks in your 30s. Mostly minor stuff though. It has taken me years to get them to understand what I am going through out there looking for work. My mid to late 20s were not fun at all. I had so many arguments while educating my friends and family about the challenges of job hunting while autistic. 

One of the things that makes interviews hard for me is that I can't pick up on non-verbal cues about how the interview is going, and what type of answer the interviewer is looking for based on non verbal communication. Non verbal communication may as well not exist to me unless blatantly obvious. I can leave an interview and I have no idea how it went. None whatsoever. 

Edited July 2, 2019 by Jack Parkman