Edited by author 04-11-2009 05:01 PM
Hello, I'm going through the same situation as most others on this board as a person diagnosed with AS and having troubles with work/job issues.

I have not been "officially" diagnosed with AS but I know in my heart that I have it. I've always been extremely shy, have had very little friends and was often labeled "different" and "weird" by my family, peers and classmates while growing up and still today. I still dread attending some family functions and some social activities with the few friends that I have.

Anyway, I got fired last year from a really stressful job as a clinical trials monitor (CRA), which looking back, it was probably for the best. That job required alot of travel (which was difficult for me since I still suffer from panic attacks when having to fly on airplanes, driving over bridges and driving through tunnels) as well as the ability to train and have strong communications with clinical trials staff employees (including doctors, which CRAs were required to correct and train, which was also very intimidating for me), all of which I was terrible at doing. I thought I would initially be good at this job because it always requires extreme organization and attention to detail, which I've always been good at maintaining but ultimately it wasn't enough to save my job.

But I still can't help but wonder what I could have done better to avoid what happened. But a part of me knows there is probably nothing I could have done to change that situation, it mostly had to do with having AS and the characteristics associated with this condition that makes keeping a job sometimes difficult. Fortunately, I was able to find a new job rather quickly after getting fired however I'm facing some the same issues as my old one and fear I may lose this one as well. My boss says that I work too slow and I know she thinks I'm very weird because I'm very antisocial at work. But I often work late at night to get my work done (because it takes me longer to grasp how to accomplish an assignment) and I think she sees how hard I work and that's why I haven't been fired (yet). But the possibility always remains.

Some issues I've had to deal with at the job that make work difficult include having trouble with multitasking and trouble with generalizing things. I've always excelled when dealing with specific tasks that have very specific rules attached to them for accomplishing the one main task at hand. I really enjoy technical writing and writing instructions for accomplishing routine work tasks and have written several mini "manuals" for our routine office tasks and my boss said these were pretty helpful but still this is not enough to "get by" with her.

My passion has always been public health and I'm trying to figure out the best profession at the field where I can combine my passion for helping others (without having to interact directly alot with them) and my passion for writing about public issues and creating instructional documents related to public health issues. It's too complicated to figure out all at once now but I'm slowly getting there.

In the meantime, I'm definitely going back to school to earn a masters in public health degree and am thinking about pursuing this full-time since I'm so burnt out with work and all that it requires with the constant deadlines, following up (which I still have great difficulty with doing) and then the constant required socializing, which has always been a major source of frustration and anxiety for me.

I'm just trying to keep the faith that somewhere out there is the perfect job for me and other Aspies who face these same job difficulties. Good luck everyone.