With the starting up of Meticulon, I would like to talk about employment. For those of us on the Autism Spectrum, we have more to think about than the NTs out there. For anyone, AS or NT finding something you are interested in is always a good place to start. Next we need to consider our strengths and weaknesses. The NTs just need to concern themselves about their strengths, as they are better at working through or hiding their weaknesses. Next, we need to find the job that best fits us. Finally we need to somehow get the job. To try to explain how this works I will use myself as an example with further commentary where necessary.

 

Special Interests

I worked in the printing industry for over 15 years. If you include when I was working with photocopiers starting when I was in grade 3 at my family’s construction business, close to 30 years. As you may have guessed, photography, printing, and graphic design was one of my two areas of interest when I was young. The other will come out later.

Special interests are a good place to start when looking for a job. When evaluating what you would be good at, start by listing jobs that use you special interest in some fashion. As with all steps covered here it may be helpful to have someone to help with the brainstorming.

 

The Problem With Special Interests

In 2006 I started to loose my passion. The print industry had changed; no longer were quality and craftsmanship a main focus. At this time a couple of things happened, I wanted a new house and the family construction company wanted to become active again. So I bought some property to build a house.

When you base you job on one of your special interests you can find your job very fulfilling. However, what happens if you taste changes or the job requirements change? Will you be able to continue working at that job? Will it hurt how you feel about your special interest?

 

Weaknesses

Listing you strengths, weaknesses and non-starters is the next step of the process. This will lead to narrowing down the jobs in your special interest that are nor well suited for your talents. For any job pay attention to your non-starters, the tasks that you just cannot do, and will lead to meltdowns in a very short time.

From 2007 to 2009 I designed and built my own home. I was involved in everything that I could. Once finished it was decided that the family company was not going to continue building. I stayed in construction for about 18 more months as an operations manager at an electric company. The work was not a good match for me. Although I liked the coordinating and hand on work, the dealing with customer complaints and general phone duties with customers. I began to hate the job more and more. It got to the point where I have now lost the drive to work anywhere in construction.

The negativity of our weaknesses and the affect it has on our employment has to be considered. Our enjoyment of employment, and thus willingness to do a job, works only if there are more positive than negative aspects to the job. The way our mind works emotionally leave very little room for middle ground. We will either love the job or hate it.

 

Finding your Strengths

I ended up unemployed (October 2010 – April 2011) for the first time right during the time of my diagnosis. I went back to working in the print industry, because I needed to stabilize my working life. After a year, I was again loosing my passion. So before the job changed into me hating it, I took what I have learnt as an Aspie and started mapping out my strengths on the view of finding a new job. During this time I looked back on my life for inspiration, as well as taking into account my weaknesses, to come up with ideas of where I wanted to go in my career. I always liked trains. When I was a child, I would watch them whenever I would get a chance.

The whole process of looking at my strengths and weaknesses was not done in a typical way (not surprising I am Aspie). The best way I can describe it is, subconscious thinking with things popping in to conscious thought once each strength, weakness, and job possibility was fully vetted. (True multitasking at work!)

After awhile of applying and not getting any interviews. I decided last fall (2012) to take a Railway Conductor course. I was hired by a railway in the beginning of 2013 and am now a qualified conductor.

For any one on the spectrum thinking of following my example, the Railway Association of Canada medical guidelines notes that Asperger’s (with IQ over 70) can perform in safety critical operations. However, if you are taking mood-alternating drugs like, anti-depressants, drugs that may cause drowsiness or drugs that caution you from operating heavy equipment, please talk to your doctor/psychiatrist or pharmacist about options for a safety critical job (Railway Medical Guidelines pages 89-94). You do have to disclose you diagnosis and any medication during you medical evaluation, but the diagnosis will have no grounds for you not to get hired and does not show up in your employment file. Medication may have extra restrictions and hoops to jump through that will require you doctor or psychologist/psychiatrist will need to work with you to get the required medical evaluation completed.

 

Conclusion

For finding a job, looking at you special interests, strengths, weaknesses, and non-starters, is a good strategy for finding a job for people on the spectrum. The process may take a lot of time. For me I knew at the beginning of grade 10 I wanted to be in printing but doing what took 6 more years to decide (after I had already been working for a couple of years in the industry). Moving to construction a decision that lasted one month to decide I wanted a custom built home and 2 more to decide I want to build it myself. My decision to becoming a conductor started 2 years before I truly committed to becoming one. Getting a career is no small task for anyone and is so much harder for us.

Use all the resources available to us. Family, friends, Autism agencies (like Autism Calgary), research on the Internet are all useful tools. But, remember to stay true to who you are.

If you have any questions or topics to you would like to see on this blog please contact me .

AdamGlendon
Conductor Asp(ie)