Firstly I’m going to talk about why in my case keeping steady employment while autistic can be a problem. When I was younger, I found that I had the ability to cope longer. I could sit through dealing with a job and the social things that come with it way easier when I was in my early twenties versus me being thirty now. The older I got, the less capable I became of coping with employment. My last two recent places of employment were call centers, and talking on the phone is a hassle in itself for people who have autism. I feel that was the reason why I didn’t last long at either of them- I had to constantly answer phone calls and talk to strangers on a daily basis. While the first call center job was one I did like, the exhaustion from the constant talking wore me out, not to mention I was trying to finish my degree.
The second, however, was for a center that processed ride requests and I got so tired of the boring repetition of each call and the snarky people who tried to get around the rules. The calls were boring, and the call center manager made that place painful because of her constant reminders about the queue. A lot of the people there didn’t really seem to understand my being autistic except for two of them, and it was really tough to drag myself out of bed and then onto two buses a day to deal with this. I could tell I wasn’t coping well because I couldn’t stick to schedule to save my life. I would always start a few minutes late and return from breaks and lunch late because of horrible dread of getting back on that phone to be bored out of my skull. I tried having objects to stim with, setting reminders on my phone to come back at a certain time, but it never really worked. I still ended up late, and I still had to deal with the main boss getting irritated because I was late.
That place was loud. There were people talking loudly all around me, lights that were entirely too bright and people standing directly behind my desk- I was near a supervisor and the others would always come hover around her desk and chit-chat, giving me even more noise to try and filter out, but it didn’t work. I was burnt out from the constant sensory overload and tired from trying to hide that something was wrong. So I quit. I quit because that was driving me nuts.
It always seems to be difficult for autistic women to keep good jobs, or a job at all. One issue that happens is the fact that society is still stuck under the whole “Only men and boys are autistic” and that’s what makes it more difficult for women to get help with keeping employment.
When I’m looking for a job, I have a few things against me, and other autistic women of color can agree:
My race, my sex, and my autism.
It is hard enough to get hired as a Black woman, but imagine going in for a job interview and you’re trying not to be awkward as hell or start talking really fast. One thing that gets me is the eye contact thing- I have a hard time looking at people I don’t know in the face. It makes me extremely uncomfortable and they notice that. Also, I tend to suffer in interviews when the interviewer is female. I’ve gotten lucky and passed interviews given by women before, but not all the time. Then I get interviews with men who pass over me because I’m not acting like the typical prissy neurotypical employee.
I am pretty sure there were jobs that I didn’t get because I was black. I am also sure my autistic traits have kept me from getting jobs. I really hate interviews. Why can’t employers just test to see if someone can do the job on site before hiring them instead of forcing people to sit there and sell themselves? I can’t stand the stupid small talk that slides into interviews. It is really annoying. How does this system work?
And another thing going against some of us:
Education.
If you have a degree and experience it is 1000 times harder to get employers to look at you. They don’t want to pay for an expensive experienced employee. They’d rather pay fresh people with no degrees to do a job versus someone with the skill, knowledge and experience to do it properly.
So I have even more against me.
Readers, I encourage you all to discuss your ups and downs with employment on this post. I want to hear from you all. What do you think? What have your struggles been? Let’s get a discussion going!
Autism in Black 