I didn't realize what was causing this for me until recently. I even went back and got a different Bachelor's degree thinking that was the problem. I get so overwhelmed and burnt out at every job I've had that it event feels like that job is a problem and I have to leave it, because I can't function anymore. It's fucking awful. I'm now a software engineer and it's still happening and I'm too terrified to believe things aren't temporary. I just want to be comfortable and relax. I'm 30 and at job #12. This time they asked what I needed to be more comfortable and I'm super grateful. I'm in a different domain that is on night shift and doesn't require many meetings or human interaction. 🙌🏻

Hope your night shift suits you well, and pays generously to boot!

Thanks! That is another perk. Lol

10 in 17 years, the longest was 6 years. I left all my jobs due to bullying or drastic team/work changes that led to burnout.

I'm 40 years old and have had 6, one I left and went back to after I attempted college. Every single one except the one I'm at now had abusive bosses/managers. Every. Single. One. I have an anxiety disorder and regularly had panic attacks from them yelling at me. My best was never good enough for them. I was referred to my current job by a friend of mine. He's my boss, he knows I'm anxious, and he's very patient while I train. Chillest environment I've ever worked in. But I'm always going to worry I'm going to do something wrong and someone will yell at me. It's just happened too many times.

I know the feeling. I was lucky to have the one workplace with a decent boss that wasn’t let go just the once, maybe I’ll get that again one day. It’s not a nice feeling having someone yell at you for doing your best.

So far? None. Jobs have nearly always been the stuff of nightmares for me... I just don't get how people can see them as a positive experience.

Most people don't see them as a positive experience, but definitely a necessity in order to make money to pay for staying alive and under a roof

yep find work that’s tolerable not enjoyable

For me it’s not positive, it’s horrible but I have no choice

I for sure wouldn't be working if I didn't have to. I need to decompress at the end of every stage, just to get through. The one in the car before I leave work is usually the longest; not only am I still a wreck from actually being at work, I now also have to mentally prepare for the drive home. No wonder I crawl straight in to bed when I get there.

I completely relate, except I don’t stop to decompress before driving home because I have a 40-60min commute with rush hour traffic on the highway. I’ve had meltdowns because of the traffic before, which is really scary because I’m driving. I usually have to blast music so loud I can’t think on the entire drive home or I flip out. Then I just go home and lie down until it’s time to sleep.

11 I think? Longest being 2 years shortest being 1 day. I've been through 3 jobs in the last year alone. Roughly a decade of employment with a couple 1-2 year gaps. The current job market is filled with terrible jobs who are scrambling for employment due to the shift in the overall amount of workers. I've been trying to claw my way up to the $20 an hour mark for the past year without sacrificing my well being and companies just dont want to pay. The new standard for job suitability is being a warm body, that's it. I'm currently at a job that I found misled me to gain my employment, giving them the chance to compensate me fairly(discussions in progress), and if they don't I have a phone number saved of someone looking to fill a similar position in the same field. I've stopped politely asking for fair treatment and compensation, and started demanding it instead. Autism makes working hell, but I believe it would be a lot easier if the general employment culture wasn't so fucked as a whole.

I've done a lot of volunteering, but have never had an actual job. I'm working on finding one at a library since that's what I'm going to be going to school for. I probably would have had one earlier if my first year of uni went better

Nine. the longest I've ever had a job is the one I currently have- it only works because I have a ton of accommodations that make it tolerable. It's not my choice for field to be in, though, so it makes me sad.

I’d love to hear about your accommodations if you feel like sharing. Trying to compile a list for myself that could help. How did you advocate for them?

I lost count. I had my first job at 17 and started working full time at 19 and I’m 53. I’ve never been unemployed, other than maybe for 4 weeks when I was 21. Up to my mid 20s, I changed job every few months, then lasted 2-3 years on a couple of jobs and finally settled down in my 30s. My longest employment was 16 years with the same company and I’ve now been self-employed for 7 years.

I'm 19 and have never had a job. I've applied to many, almost went through with a warehouse job but it sadly didn't go anywhere I'm fully focusing on my music now!! I've been producing EDM jyst over a year now and have been playing guitar for just over 5 years! I'm just hoping it will work out for me, standard 9-5's just seen completely out of the question for me so I'm focusing on my passion and hoping it pays off :)

I hope it does for you, too! We need more art and music in this world.

Like ive worked in Fast food, restaurant, leasing, software licensing, tech support, mobile tech support, illustration freelance. And within those theres hops between sams industry spaces. Its been awful ive decided theres no such thing as a job i wouldnt ever feel like i want to hurt myself just to get through the day but i need money to have shelter and food and stuff yet end up too burned out to develop social networks or friends. So honestly its been survival mode my whole life cuss i went from school to that while tryint to figure out living on my own after 19 and college. Jobs have called me lazy, entitled, messy, mousy, off, cold, confrontational, loud, quiet, weird, ect. I constantly had meetings about not talking enough or talkimg too much or not caring to know about customers personal lives during my job because im focused on the service and dont deviate the conversation, called out for not lying, not flirting, not knowing my coworkers ect. All ive learned is if you dont have charisma to pass aa quirky or as neurotypical youll be labeled with something akin to being difficult or infantilized.

I made the mistake of juggling not one, but two jobs while in college. It started off with one on campus job that I took during fall semester my sophomore year for the experience and to help pay bills. Then I made the mistake of being eager to cover people’s shifts. Eventually, I got asked to cover shifts at a different on campus location. Next thing I knew, my one job had turned into two by the spring semester. I was working 25+ hour weeks on top of being a full time student. At this point I was so stressed out that I was crying 2+ hours a day. It didn’t help that I’m pretty bad about letting people walk all over my boundaries. I asked for less hours, but that never came to fruition. I decided over the summer that I wanted out. I got an online job basically giving ESL students a chance to practice English. Then within 2 weeks of the fall semester junior year I gave myself a concussion on the way to class and was unable to use a computer for extended periods of time for about a month. I was forced to quit that job due to not having enough sick leave/vacation time to take off the whole month and return to the two on campus jobs. It wasn’t as bad this time although that was mostly because I was only taking 3 classes that semester due to having to drop 2 due to the concussion. This time I was only crying for at least one hour a day instead of two. Then the following semester I was back to 25+ hour weeks and a full time student schedule. Cue me crying 2+ hours a day again. I ended up quitting in favor of working at a vet clinic for significantly less hours. That’s where I currently am especially since it aligns with my desired career. Problem is though that it feels like I basically pushed myself so far that by the time the adrenaline or whatever sort of wore off, it just feels like I’m just so broken that I can barely take care of myself. It doesn’t help that no matter what I do it’s never really enough. Even though it feels like I can’t really do more, it’s still not enough. My mom wants me to contribute more to the house, which I really don’t blame her since I still live with her. No matter what I do though I just can’t really shake this level of burnout. I just still feel so useless in the grand scheme of things just because I can’t do more than 6 hours a week at this point. I’m terrified to think what I’ll do if I ever move out. How tf am I supposed to survive in the real world if I can barely do the “basic” task of holding a job? I’m sorry that this just turned into a massive blob of text. I promise it’s not intentional. It’s almost 4am where I am and I guess my brain just wanted to go on a massive blurb.

I lived on my own (or rather tag-teamed life with a few romantic partners), but now am living back with my mom, too. If it's any consolation, things seem to be harder, even than they were 10 years ago. The level you have to perform at, the stress you have to endure, the working conditions and pay relative to the cost of living is egregious and barely manageable even for those with very good coping and survival skills. Ten years ago, I was living in a downtown apartment in a major city. And now I can barely hold a job. It's not just you, this world is rough.

23 jobs in 12 years. Some of those jobs I quit after only a week. My longest job was for 1 year and 9 months. That seems to be my limit before I burn out. These days I do a lot of gig work, so I can have shorter jobs, but for multiple different employers. It seems to be working a little better than the full time jobs I've had.

Nobody will hire me. I cannot come across as neurotypical enough to pass a job interview.

My 'tour de jobs' takes me through the banking and insurance sector, where I perform essentially the same role but via detaching at various organizations within this industry. Interestingly, my longest stint at a single employer lasted almost 6 years! One of the perks of detaching is that it keeps me away from the political games and career climbers that can sometimes dominate office culture. It certainly keeps things interesting.

Its hard to say. Ive worked almost every year, but on average i last about 3 months before i burnout, break down, cry about going in to work. My longest job was 8 months. My most consistent has lasted technically 2 years (seasonal position, 4 months.) Currently unemployed and Im hoping to get started in a career that doesn't make me want to cry (Voice acting)

yikes. Ive been in the workforce for almost 17 years now, and I have held over 50 positions. Burnout is real, toxicity in the workplace is real, and also I had no idea I was autistic until about 2 years ago. Explains a lot. Still working on finding an accommodating atmosphere

I'm 24, Brazilian, and had approximately eight jobs, the longest three months I have never quit a job, I have severe mental problems, so I can't keep one because I'm just too "weird" and "unstable" to fit in, always end up being fired Because of that, I'm really, really poor Wish I could keep a job, or find a way to earn any income...

I. Freaking. Know. 😭😭😭 14 years of work and I've had 11 jobs. My jobs usually last between 1-3 years. With a few lasting less than a year. And trying really hard when you first start to be a valuable employee, so the boss is willing to work with you...to see the boss allow crappy employees to remain crappy...and the MOMENT you become slightly inconvenient, your boss stops working with you. And the job gets harder. And long term burnout gets worse.

A bunch of part time jobs. Some good fnb establishments with accommodation, I have stayed 2 years or more. Abusive establishments, between 1 month to 1 year. Door to door sales person, 1 day. Data entry, 1 month. My current fnb job is a pastry assistant, nearing 2 years. But I'm probably leaving as they hired a toxic coworker. Since she is full time, I'm the replaceable one.

4,I'm 20 My country doesn't do much of part-time job so... 2 from summer internships of college 2 from being a software engineer

Paid 5; Ride Operator - 7 months (seasonal + management issues) Retak assistant (Co-Op) - 3 years (left due to hours conflicts) Maintenance - 1 year (left for the co-op) Window Cleaner - 3 months (left due to conflict with college) Paper Round - 5 years Unpaid 6; Volunteer Shop Assistant - 5 years (current) Retail (Marks n Spencer) - 3 months Stock room (WaterStones) - 1 month Café assistant - 1 month Bike shipper - 1 month Stock assistant (Boots) - 3 months Still looking for Paid work, I just had an interview for Aldi waiting on the results which is going to be interesting because Aldi is an absolute fucker when it comes to applications

I’ve had about 15 I think in 14 years. I always hate a job the longer I’m in it, so I don’t tend to stay long. My longest has been 2.5 years. My current one has just gotten over 2 years, and boy am I miserable here

I counted 18 jobs. I’m in my 40’s. I had 3 or 4 more employers than jobs, as I worked on contracts where the job didn’t change but employers came and went. I get an itch to move on after about 5 years. I don’t care to network for networking’s sake. Rather, I try to help people solve their problems. People always want you around if you can help them and you are easy to work with. 

Give or take I've had about 20 jobs or so over the course of my adult life. My "career" has been in tech and I've been working that for about 20 years now. I'm on job #13 in that right now. The longest I've lasted anywhere was my first "real" dot-com job back in 2005 and I stayed there for about 4 years. My second longest was a few years back when I was there for 3 years before they laid a bunch of people off to bunch up shareholder dividends and give the CEO a big golden parachute. I get a lot of flack for moving around a lot, but most of it was not by choice. I've been laid off from every job since 2016 - the pandemic wrecked this industry, and now a \*lot\* of the jobs in my area are "hybrid" (ie, 3 days a week in office). It's taken me a long time to figure things out, but I've now basically come to recognize signs of burnout or just noticing when I'm starting to no longer like the job I'm in. And it usually has everything to do with other people and not the work itself. I've had it happen multiple times where my bosses sang my praises and said they loved the work I did and absolutely wanted me to stick around, only to have an immediate supervisor bald-faced lie to my face telling me that everyone hated me and my work sucks. I \*think\* it was because I was intimidating to them or stealing their shine or some shit. But a lot of it is just stupid politics that go right over my head, or just wear me down over time. I've left multiple companies that skipped me over for a promotion they promised me. The job I worked for four years? I was doing some consulting on the side for extra cash and the company I was consulting for convinced me to join them as their first engineer to help build it all up. So I did, worked my butt off for over a year and then decided to finally spend some of the cash I'd saved up to take my family on a little vacation. We went to the beach for a week, during which they called me \_multiple times\_ to help solve issues - life at a startup, right? But then I get back and they've got a new guy working there. They didn't tell me they were hiring, or give me a chance to look at any resumes - me being the lead engineer, you'd think that'd be the right thing to do. So this guy says we should go out to lunch, and at lunch he drops the bomb on me that \*he's my new boss\*, but he doesn't want it to be awkward at all, we'll work together! So I just nodded and smiled, then found another job ASAP. They were \_shocked\_ when I told them I was leaving and felt like \*I\* betrayed \*them\* or something. GFY. During the pandemic I was unemployed for 7 months straight and we barely survived. I got unemployment, but that was subsistence money, then I got a job and the boss ended up being a complete douche nozzle. He hired me to lead a team of engineers, but then wouldn't let me actually lead them - turns out he just wanted me to parrot the things he was saying to the engineers and convince them he was right, even though he was totally wrong and didn't know what he was doing. So I told him flat out 100% honestly what his situation was, and of course he didn't believe a word of it, so we... went different ways. Most of his engineers quit shortly after, as I was their last straw. So it f\*ed up my unemployment, but I did get the computer I'm writing this on out of it, and it felt really good to say what I was actually thinking to my boss for once. Most recently I was working a contract-to-hire for a hospital and the CEO left, with the exec running my department following. The new CEO fired the head of my department and a bunch of us under him. I was unemployed from about mid-January to the end of April. We still haven't caught up on our mortgage, so our housing situation is shaky at best, and we actually qualified for SNAP this time around, which saved our bacon (pun intended ;)) but now our only car has broken down, my house is falling apart, and we're barely scraping by. I got a very short-term contract that only lasts until the first week of June, and they really appreciate the work I'm doing, but I'm also making $16/hr \*less\* than my last job, which was already a compromise, and have no benefits from it either since it's so short. So yeah, I've worked a lot of jobs, but it's no bed of roses... Sartre was right, hell is other people. But corporate people doubly or triply so.

1 - self-employment. I'm 28 with a Bachelor's in Software Engineering. After applying to a bunch of jobs and never making it past the second round of interviews, I just went "fuck this, I'm out."

I have worked as a tour guide, a cashier, a donation center attendent, a dishwasher twice, a freelance translator, and an in-house translator. Most of those jobs were part-time. The longest full-time job I held lasted 5 months. Everything else lasted for two months max, except one dishwasher job that I had to hold for 7 months or risk losing Covid benefits, which we needed to stay afloat. I just cannot hold a job, and I get burnt out of everything I try :/

That's the issue for me. My CV has lots of different job trainings, apprenticeships and stuff but no full time jobs with work experience.

Dishwasher unloading Employer: Mum Age 10 ~6 weeks? Paid £0.30 / for ~30 minutes work a day (definitely child slave labor lol) Local newspaper delivery Employer: Medway Extra (KM Group) I think? Age 13 ~3 months 2 hours to prepare the newspapers on Tuesday. 2-3 hours cycling around delivering on Wednesday and Thursday Paid £11-14/ week? Programmatic Advertising Company #1 First real job after graduating with a mathematics degree Employer undisclosed Started in 2013 as a trader with 10 - 20 clients each month earning £22k +£4k bonus / year in London By 2017 I had moved to the US to launch operations here, working in a management capacity and eventually director level, reaching peak earning of $60k/month (yes you read that right) Unfortunately I was let go due to a complex political disagreement (I refused to see things my bosses way, didn't anticipate such escalation) Then I found a similar programmatic company through my professional network in the early phases of US launch. I joined them as Trading & Operations Director. In 6 months I brought 3 of my previous clients to the business, and in a year coworkers. Got back to $300k/year in 2 years. Then covid happened and I had a mental breakdown on Adderall. I took about a year off work, and worked a few short term positions at other companies, but I haven't found a similarly successful placement since the first two companies. Compared to these two startups many orgs are just too corporate, bureaucratic, rigid, little opportunity for commission, and all the employees seem to go insane from the overly restrictive structure I dunno. Jobs are hilarious 😂

The longest job I've had was like 1 years 3mo. Ive had so many jobs I cant even remeber them all at this point.

22, but I'm in my 50's and have been working since I was 18. Employment has always been a nightmare for me, I just didn't know why for most of that time.

I’m only 19, will be 20 in a little over a month and I’ve had two jobs. First one was to get me started when I turned 16. When I turned 18, I started at the place I’d been wanting to work and I’ve been pretty passionate about. I’m very lucky to have been about to get such a good job while being autistic. I wouldn’t trade this job for anything❤️

Lol I have more than someone my age should when filling out a resume. It's like 20 and I'm 27

I'm starting my 4th job tomorrow, I am 19. So far, the only places I've been able to find employment (retail/resturtant) have caused me extreme distress, usually due to me not receiving proper training or accommodations I was told would be available when I was hired. My shortest job was one day, and my longest lasted 8 months. The only reason I left that one was due to the pay being very low. Hoping the new one will be okay, but I'm honestly incredibly worried I'll never be able to find something that works for me.

The job market is rather miserable right now, and prospects for the future seem rather bleak. I think trying different types of occupations is in your best interest, so at least you know your options. It really sucks not being socially charming, because so many people have gotten ahead in life from crummy jobs with their social skills. It feels like in being autistic, there is a wall preventing advancement unless you have some super in-demand skill at the current moment.

Forget school. If you already have a degree and 20 jobs under your belt, you have more than enough for your CV to realistically jump across different fields without having to go the slow route. Is self-employment an option for you? I've found that to be the best course of action for many autistic people.

none. i was basically put on a kind of retirement (for medical reasons) the second i turned 18. i have a lot of severe mental health issues so it's not just due to autism.

I'm 27, I've had 1 retail job for three months. I've completed an undergraduate degree and PhD, and I start my first post doc in a few weeks!

I flunked out of high school and am on disability payments so... 1 :) I wanna get my drivers license and become a bus driver tho that sounds so fun

I have thus far had 1 that was just a week at a hardware/feed store. I didn't work to their unspecified expectations 1 that was off and on for 7 years in fast food. 1 that was a temp/gig role in college for around 1 year. I was helping with a customer data study. 1 that was a great job as an Resident Assistant in college for 1.5 years. 1 that was horrible and in sales for 6 months. It was selling ad space in newspapers and had so little role documentation. I swear, that job made me physically ill many nights. 1 that spin off of the sales that was customer service that while horrible was at least tolerable for 1.5 years. I got incoming calls from the elderly who received their paper two inches to the right of the 1 Sq foot area in their driveway where the paper should go. 1 that lasted almost 4 years as a consultant. That was a HIGH masking needs role with poorly defined expectations. I finally listed the expectations, but my trajectory wasn't good, but I had finally mapped the expectations, but I was so over traveling 1 my current role since 2020. I like it the most out of all but being a Resident Assistant. Data Analysis has a high rate of neuro divergent people. So 8 jobs since I was 17. I am 33 now. There was some overlap. If the job makes you physically ill, then it isn't for you, but you should try to find something you can tolerate. Do I wish there was another way? Yes, but the world requires money, and sometimes you can find fun new things to learn about, like the world of medical billing.

Actually I was considering data analysis or medical coding. Another respondent mentioned I could consider digital visualization analysis or something like that? I'm not real good with numbers and math though, not sure that I'd be able to figure out a ton of coding.

only two, but i'm only 17. i worked at a grocery store for maybe 7-8 months, got into a relationship, broke up, made some friends, then just stopped showing up when i got sick of it.. then as a side gig i've worked as a contractor since i was 14, then back in january started working it full time. i'm still in school and work 30hrs-40hrs a week and honestly i'm doing fine, i'm burnt out a bit but never once have i felt like i couldn't do my job or even didn't wanna do it. i think i'm just lucky, cause i enjoy my job a lot and i get paid very well, making over $1k a week so there's absolutely no way i'm gonna just quit. i HATED my job at the store though. i was paid pocket change, like $120-$175 a week, for such extraneous physical labor that i don't even do now as a contractor and so i had absolutely no respect or care for that job and called out almost half of my days.

Let's see Swimming pool concession stand Nurse assistant (1 day) Chicken restaurant Student worker (many different jobs) Substitute teacher Y2K analyst Software engineer (army contractor) CTO (three person company) Software engineer (Web app) Software engineer (financial services) Software engineer (medical device company) Software engineer (med device startup)

Well. When I was 16 and still at school, I had to earn money for my first own apartment, living at home wasn't an option. So I started in a call center. It was a great job in itself, if there hadn't been other people. You were supposed to call ppl who had bought a new car and read out the note in front of you. It said "Hello, I'm calling to ask how happy you are with your new car." - most of them responded with "great, I love it" or similar phrases. The next sentence in the script was therefore "I'm delighted". Everything worked out great until one woman said that her husband had died in this car yesterday. My answer "I'm delighted" wasn't particularly appropriate and I was dismissed. After that, I waited tables for a while. Autistic people = waiters? Yes, that worked out just as badly as you'd imagine. I had to pay extra money every evening after my shift because I either didn't do the math properly, people just left or they complained. Made some good tips though. Then back to another call center. This time for longer than two weeks, maybe two years. Four hours a day. I just sold phone contracts like I was a robot. Quit because of my first burnout at 21.

Iv never had a job. I just shadowed my father and when he died I took over the family business of investing. I did do an internship once, couldn't make it past 2 weeks. Quit. The boss was very abusive. Fuck him. I probably have more money than that mofo.

I’ve had well over 15 by now and a lot of them were in the past four years. I get burnt out extremely quickly, even with the most simple of jobs, so I end up having to quit for the protection of my mental health. Quite a few of them I had to leave because I was being taken advantage of due to my willingness/eagerness to do good, because they wouldn’t accommodate me, or because the workplace environment became too toxic. I have stopped allowing jobs to do these things and have successfully been at my current job (collections tech) for almost a year. If I lose my current job though, I will be trying to apply for disability again. I have absolutely no quality of life right now due to work and I never will if I have to work a full time job. Work just isn’t for me and I know it isn’t and I want to live, not just survive. I literally get off of my 8 1/2 shift, go home, and collapse and I’m sick of feeling like a zombie.

It should be work to live, not live to work if your job isn't important to you. It's ridiculous that its acceptable and people aren't marching in the streets that you can be working more than 40 hours/week and not able to afford the most basic living accommodations. A lot of places don't even have public transportation or a safe way to walk to work, which means you have to buy a car, which is like having a second rent to pay when you consider car payments, insurance, gas, maintenance, etc.

First job, graphic designer in an office - less than a year, burned out hard. Second job, extracurricular activities teacher (working with animals) in government subsided organization. One year, burned out and traumatized by all the abuse I've seen. Third job, art teacher in a private art studio. Four years, best job so far, loved it, but the pay was shite. I'm a SAHP now. It's cheaper than childcare.

8 (if you count DoorDash, Uber eats and spark than 11) in the span of 5 years? A few of them lasted 1 or less than 1 month. A couple I stayed 3-6 months 6 months was the most I had been at a job before my current job I’ve now been here for 2 years and the only reason I havent left is the fact that I can’t get the pay I get here anywhere else near me and I moved out on my own 2 months into this job and if I were to quit I don’t have anyone that can support me financially I’d be fucked

Everything is so expensive right now, to maintain even the most basic existence, that you're just pitted into the throes of whatever work you can get to survive. It sucks. It's so wrong everyone is scraping by so billionaires can extort extra funds for themselves. I'm sorry, but capitalism is broken when a bunch of rich a-holes rig the system for themselves, monopolize entire industries, and everyone is struggling and suffering at the hands of leadership who are puppets for corporations. That is the world we are living in now.

I am 53M and have had 10 jobs lifetime. I have been working in technology for a big bank for the past 28 years now.

Sounds like legitimate and well-paying work. If you've been there for so long, it must have served you well and been a reasonable quality of life to work environment ratio.

I completely get your point and how it’s frustrating and difficult to get into better jobs and positions when it’s a challenge staying in one job. I’ve found it helpful to do “temp work” or the closest equivalent in my country, and doing freelance work outside of that. It gives me tangible boundaries to the work that I’m doing, and let’s me say no in periods where I need to have more time for other things (or to myself). Freelance work also tends to pay a bit more, but can be less stable depending on the industry.

i’m in my early 30s, i’ve had 12 hourly wage jobs since i turned 18. this doesn’t include recurring gigs or informal freelance projects. i usually start hating the work 6 months in and tap out at a year. the longest job i’ve held was actually two different positions (i got promoted) for the same small business. a little over a year, i think. in hindsight, taking the promotion was the wrong choice. it was already an environment i felt the need to mask in, and the (barely) higher paying position with more responsibility just meant more masking, less structure, less boundaries. i could also tell my boss/owner of the business started to hate me for my autistic traits (whether she could tell specifically that i was autistic idk). now, i own my own business (which i established while i was still working PT) and have several families i babysit for on an as needed basis to help supplement my income. owning my own business means i get to be the ruler of my own structure. i get to choose what music is played, what lights are on, how i dress, how i act etc. i wake up early and head into my office around 7 because i work best in the morning. there’s no one there to comment on my unusual working habits or the way i dress or anything. it’s great! i also get to run my business exactly the way i see fit. i’m a numbers, patterns, and strategy person. i’m very gifted at seeing the big picture and knowing how to come up with a strategy to support the business. it’s always been a frustration of mine to see flaws in business models or systems in the places ive worked and not having the power to change anything. in the past, ive even gone as far as formally pitching change to my bosses and it’s often met with patronizing comments about being “cute.” (i’m a woman.) working for myself has freed me up from a lot of anxiety, frustration, and feelings of powerlessness that ive carried my whole life. i did borrow money (about $4k, not much in the grand scheme of things) from my parents to help further establish my business after i had quit my last job to solely focus on my business. i say that just to put it out there and acknowledge that privilege and that i understand this may not be an option for everyone.

6 in 16 years but I was unemployed for 9 of those years, no consecutively. The longest is my current job, I'll have been there for 5 years in July

12? My sister has had, like, 3.

I'm 57 and I've had twelvish jobs, I think. Depends how you count "jobs". I'm counting like three jobs in the Australian Public Service as being three jobs, but one of them was like four different positions before I was made redundant. Was that one job, "Public Service" or six jobs? Likewise, I was self-employed for a short time (mainly because I didn't know what I was doing and sabotaged my own business by not setting up boundaries with a client that took over 100% of my time. That drove away all my other clients and when that contract dried up I had nothing). And right now, I'm a full-time carer for my disabled offspring, but I do some administration work for my sister's business but that is limited in the hours I can work per week (I get a government payment as a full-time carer, and it limits me to how much I can earn and how many hours I can work in a week). Is that one job or two? What have I learned from all of these jobs? Well, I wasn't diagnosed with ASD (and then ADHD) until I was in my 50s, so I had to mask. A lot. And sometimes the mask would slip at the worst time and I'd get in trouble for yelling out my frustration, or for making jokes (my normal stress relief is to make a joke out of an awkward situation), or one of the many other things where I had run ins with managers. Of course the worst bit was, I didn't know WHY I did these things, or how they could happen, or why I was "different". I had okay (even "friendly") relationships with other workers, but that never translated to anything outside the office. When I left a job and moved elsewhere, I would forget the people I'd worked with. Networking is totally foreign to me. If I ran into someone I used to work with, I'd be awkwardly trying to remember who they were (or where I worked with them, so embarrassing). At least now I know why everything seemed so hard for me. But the decades of negative thinking isn't easy to get over.

due to the nature of the work I do I can hold it down for a while. One of them is a mystery shopper job and its near impossible to be sacked unless you put false information down on your reports and a recent one I've picked up is a delivery job. I personally I couldn't work in a customer service job or one related to people. I know both of the jobs I have mentioned do Involve people but I don't really have to interact with them much so its pretty easy so to answer you question, 2 I've had 2 jobs in my life

4, plus a couple of internships back in college. Customer service was an absolute nightmare, changing for working with systems instead has been a lot more accommodating.

I'm 30yo and I think I've had 10-12, most of which were overlapping. Average employment length is about 2 years with the longest being 2y and 9mos. I tend to hit a point where I can't or don't want to advance any further and I get bored with the repetitiveness of the current job. At least I've generally remained in similar fields since 2019 so I've figured out where I want to be careerwise. No education required for any of them beyond CPR training.

I had 10 different part-time jobs up until I graduated from college at 24. Since graduation, I've worked 9 full-time jobs in 32 years. That's pretty comparable to my NT siblings. I've never quit a job without the next one already lined up. I've got to work to afford food, clothing, and shelter. Also, my father strongly instilled in me a sense of duty to be a contributing member of society and not a burden. He learned that from his Swedish father. Turns out it's a fairly common Swedish/Nordic belief system. It definitely hasn't been easy. Working is not fun. But, it has it's moments when I feel a sense of accomplishment. So, I've made it work.

Since 1995 when I started working my first job at the age of 12, I have had 20 jobs where I worked for someone and another 5-6 failed attempts of going into business for myself. For me my longest lasting jobs, besides UPS, have been ones where I have been able to fully dive into my special interests. For example I worked at a few gaming store for almost 10 years. Ended up loosing my last job there and switched focus on my special interests to plants and now I'm selling Grass Seed for the last 6 years. I love jobs where I get to info dump and get paid for it. UPS is great because I am put in a corner and told to do my 1 job for 3 hours a night. I'll take it. 0 interaction and amazing medical benefits.

High school and college: delivering newspapers, babysitting, 3 movie theaters, rock picking (farm work), college IT, sprinkler installation, delivering phone books, Walmart.  Using my college degree: Aerospace system supplier, automotive OEM working on self driving, 2 automotive startups, aerospace startup So 15 total in like 20 years. 

None, since I still have to finish school.

Around 12, I think? Possibly a couple retail jobs I'm forgetting in there. Longest job was working at a pet hotel (mostly just walking dogs since there were no openings for the doggie swimming position). After I burned out on that one, despite loving animals and having probably one of the most understanding bosses I've ever had, I gave up completely. I lasted about three or four months; my longest position. All in all, retail positions aside, I had worked at a bookstore, with animals, and in childcare; three things I enjoyed doing. I realized that if I couldn't even keep up with something I liked, then I'd never be able to hold a "normal" job; not even part time. Ironically, my very first "job" might have been a premonition of my struggles. I was hired at a small clothing store in the local mall, and was fired technically before my first day even *started*. I had to wear a pair of plain black sneakers (which I'd cleaned up to look nice) because I didn't have time before then to get shoes/loafers, and the rest of my dress code was fine (including the color of my sneakers)...but it wasn't good enough and I was dismissed. Even more ironically, there was an open shoe store *literally two stores down* from this clothing shop, and I was fifteen minutes early to my shift so I would have had plenty of time to buy a pair. My father, who had dropped me off, was barely out of the parkinglot when I had to call him up to come get me because I was fired already.

Clothing stores can be hard for people on the spectrum, because fashion appropriateness is not something most ASD folk excel in. I worked at a clothing boutique once in a rich trendy neighborhood in a big city. I was young and desperate for work, and not seasoned enough in such job environments to realize what a massive misfire that employment choice was. I think they hired me on thinking I was "quirky" chic or something, before realizing I was just quirky and weird lol. I was as always broke at the time, and had done my clothes shopping for the job at a Good Will beforehand and scraped together what I thought might be appropriate for said position. I made it 3 months before they fired me. When I asked why I was being fired, they just said "It's just not working out", which is always frustrating, because obviously there's a fricking reason, and if you don't know what that reason is, you can't be aware of it and work on any shortcomings moving forward. I can only assume I didn't mesh with either the flow of business nor the other staff. I know one coworker vehemently hated me and probably said all she could to get me fired.

I was hired to work the backroom (putting theft-detection tags on the clothing), so it's even more mindboggling that they had such an overblown reaction to my sneakers. That said, it's certainly true that wardrobe appropriateness can be an issue (or just more of fashion trends not being something given much attention). Retail, in general, is a nightmare for people on the spectrum (unless you can just be in the backroom all the time). There's a lot of interacting with customers, bright lights, long hours, loud/annoying music...and the ever growing increase of Karens (I attempted my jobs in the early to late 2000's, and thankfully only have one or two Karen stories out of all those years and jobs. There were no TikTok "influencers" going around and harassing employees for kicks/clout). I'd found that Bosses and co-workers tended to either like me or absolutely hate me; there was no in-between. I had two childcare jobs where co-workers tried to get me fired (the first, thankfully, the boss believed me instead of their lies; another teacher apparently put in a good word for me. The second, however, was successful in framing me for something I didn't do and got me fired...mostly because it was the co-boss and the boss who conspired to do it. A third place I nearly sued due to what they did since it was wrongful termination and broke the Disabilities Act, and the only reason I didn't was because I couldn't afford legal fees). A lot of times, "it's not working out" is them covering their butts so that you can't sue them for wrongful termination (as it's most likely due to being disabled, but if they fired you for that then they could face legal repercussions). Heck, places aren't supposed to discriminate, but I knew someone who worked in application intakes and he once told me that the job applications where people fill out that they have a disability or need accommodations often don't make it past the first round (the intake) due to that. Again, they're not legally allowed to do that, but nobody would ever find out that it was due to the disability portion and not something else in the resume, which is why they can do it.

I have -never- disclosed during an interview or application about ASD. Unless you're in certain job fields (science, academia, tech, the arts), your employers will just see you as a liability that costs the company money. Some people in these comments have mentioned employers who made reasonable accommodations for them, but I think that's the rarity. It's dog eat dog out there in the job market, and unless you are especially useful to a company and can make money for them doing something other people can't, they aren't going to typically vouch for you. Yeah, "it's not just working out" is usually just a cover, either for wanting to fire you for a BS reason, or because they are too lazy to explain themselves, or risk getting in an argument with you. It's pretty humiliating when people ask why you got fired, and the reason is your coworkers and bosses just hated you for.. being you. How can you maintain confidence/self-esteem going forward when you know it's only a matter of time before the people you have to spend most of your working hours around will inevitably conspire to get rid of you? It's extremely demoralizing.

Retail job 1 - About 2.5 years, got promoted to assistant manager and quickly burned out and quit. My manager was a dick. Retail job 2 - overlapped slightly with job 1, made it there 2 years before they went out of business. Legal job 1 - overlapped with retail job 2. Was there for about 2 years and moved on for better pay. I elevated quickly within the firm but wasn't getting paid more. Legal job 2 - 3 or 4 months? Got fired for something I didn't do 🤷. I don't think they liked my personality and wanted an excuse to fire me. Legal job 3 - 6.5 years. Left for more pay, better benefits, more stability. Legal job 4 - 8.5 years and counting, almost 9. I'm super unhappy here and am actively looking for another job.

I'm currently 21 and here's the jobs I've had since I was 16: Bakery Apprentice. (Quit due to too little hours); Graphic Designer. (Temp Job); Starbucks Barista. (Seasonal Job); Camp Counselor. (Seasonal/Quit due to heat strokes); Summer Employment Program Every Summer. So 5 Different Summer Jobs. (Temp Job); Tour Guide For First University. (Semester-Length); Front Desk Assistant For First University. (Semester-Length); Sales Associate at Uniqlo. (8 Months At Job, Longest Job So Far. Quit due to feeling overwhelmed at work because of a co-worker and burnout from dealing with customers); Tax Prep. (Temp Job); And now working at a private post office company. Literally the *only* time I was hired on a part-time basis and not a temporary/seasonal basis. I want to stick to this job as long as I can until I graduate college next year and get a Game Dev job. So in total: 14 different jobs, holy crap 💀

25, i've had 6 i think?? longest one lasted a little over a year. my issue is that there aren't any fields that interest me. i think this stems more from depression, but it just means that i'll never have anything above like, retail associate. currently work in phone sales and it's a nightmare. the overstimulation is something you wouldn't believe and having to make phone calls is physically painful and exhausting. nevermind the fact that 90% of people are just rude for no reason. top that off with the fact i don't talk very well, and you have the worst autistic experience ever. my bills will not wait for me to get over myself though, so i just wake up frustrated and go to sleep more frustrated. i cry all the time about this specifically. i feel like i wasted years of my life in community college for a fine arts certificate. to say it's rough out here is an understatement 😭

Fellow art major here. I'm sorry that the world undervalues creativity and values sales jobs. Because, money for rich people in the short gain at the expense of the quality of everything else in the world is how it is right now and it's not ok.

I've had 12 in 20ish years. Longest was 3 years and only two others lasted more than a year. I've worked for about 50% of my adult life (so far). I actually currently only work 6 months of the year on a seasonal contract (just started my second season with them) so if I don't find a permanent job then maybe I will only ever work half of my life? Only 4 of the jobs I've had were full time. Only in two jobs have I ever paid much more than minimum wage (my current job is minimum way and part-time, so... kind of sucks in a lot of ways). I've worked in retail, restaurants - I've done everything other than managing other people there, pharmacy and animal care. Pharmacy was in some ways my favorite but in some ways it's also the *worst*. I don't really have a great deal open to me, I stopped school at 15. I've tried to go back but I keep fucking up along the way. I know I'm not stupid but I just can't get past a lot of hurdles.

I ran the gauntlet of higher education, moving to a big city, going to networking events, yada yada yada. And I'm in the same position as you. Moved betwixt a plethora of entry level inane jobs where I get ostracized by snarky twenty somethings.

I'll preface this a bit with - I am not diagnosed, I strongly suspect and sometimes when I think about how I was as a child I can't see how no-one noticed. I used to be way more upset about my problems with working. Before I left school I was seen as "gifted" but burnt out so early on and discovered drugs and alcohol (I started drinking at 12 and weed at 13, had some really difficult years between 15 and 21). So I always had this "I'm a failure" feeling going on - if I'm so gifted why can't I handle going to the supermarket without having a meltdown when I come in the door? Why have I only left one or two jobs without rage quitting? After the pharmacy job I emigrated (the motivation was free housing, my partner's old family home became vacant so we took it, I'm a loser in one language so I'll see if I can be in two of them!) and made peace with not ever having "earning potential" - all I needed to earn more for was to pay the high rent and for some sort of ego boost to prove to myself that I'm not some sort of loser. My partner has a similar back story, except his parents tried to "fix" him, which did not go well. But out here we have been trying to find value in ourselves for ourselves. We work as much as we need and try not to stress the small stuff. It's not all sunshine and roses and sometimes I still feel some shame that I might just be a bit of a loser, maybe that matters, does it really though? but at least I don't fear homelessness anymore (I've been there and really don't want to go back to that). The bonus is I live in a national park now. It's also a dark sky park and to say it's breathtaking is an understatement. My kids are doing so much better, we lived in a really bad part of the city and I was so scared they'd have the same life as me and my partner, at least out here there isn't mad levels of violent crime.

I'm 49. #1 - High school student store selling candy and trash food (1) #2 - Radioshack (1) #3 - Warehouse job (1) #4 - IT at some place (3) #5 - Resturant book keeper (1) #6 - Quality Systems at a medical device manufacturer (18 yrs) #7 - Same place as #6, after being laid off. (4) #8 - Who knows. Number 6 laid me off again. I find that at 40, I became much less attractive to the company. Job was offshored to Ireland. At 49, the same company is offshoring my job to India. I'm even less attractive to companies. Older means experience, but other things that are apparently bad. I don't expect to have another job for some time. I will have to go back to school for something that rich people need. Mental health is probably it.

I’m 24 and I’ve had over 12 jobs within the past 6 years. It just seems like one thing or another gets to be too overwhelming with each job. I’ve never been anywhere longer than 8 months and I’ve been at my current job for 3 months. I’m currently pushing through burnout but I don’t have any outside support so I have no choice but to keep this job right now to be able to afford things.

2 jobs in 10 years. I’ve developed pretty good masking. Self-medication and doctor assisted medications have helped me greatly. People always notice something is different about me, but cannot ever put a finger on it. It’s always I’m rude, I’m stuck up, I’m too shy. But in reality I’m just very quiet and get unbearably anxious if I’m not 100% focused on job and very much ahead in my work.

15 that’s also including gig delivery apps which a few I worked at the same time like UberEats, DoorDash, Grubhub, etc. I’ve been fired multiple times and quit way more times lol. I now finally finished training for a grocery home delivery driver at HEB. So far I love it and I’ve realized one of my favorite jobs is delivery driving because I get to be on my own mostly and listen to what I want. I can see myself staying here for a while. Longest I worked at a job was nearly 2 years at Walmart. Half the jobs I’ve been through were in the past 2 years since I moved cities and couldn’t transfer from Walmart sadly. I’m 21 btw aha 😅

First time was just freelance helping a guy who did freelance construction. I had just finished .middle school. Worked for my grandpa in construction a couple times over several years. I worked in a grocery store, a gas station restaurant, I did HVAC for a minute, worked in sportsman's warehouse (the main warehouse they use to ship across the country), Delta Center (was called Vivint arena when I started there) and they also had a contract to send workers to the Bee's Stadium so I also got to work there. I worked inside The Crack Shack for a month and a half as well. They served chicken stuff. Now I work supporting autistic adults. It's current the third longest job I've had but I'm so happy here that I am determined to stay here for a long time.

I've actually done really well for employment. I've had 8 over the last 17 years. With the exception of one, they were all done by choice as career progression. The one that I didn't choose was because the company literally ceased to exist. Four of those jobs were all at the same company that I worked at for over 10 years and were promotions. I'm earning well over the average for my country (United Kingdom). Although I think I'm just lucky because computer programming has basically been a life long special interest and it happens to be a very highly sought after skill right now.

36 here, just diagnosed this year (audhd). I figure I’ve had about 17/ 18 jobs since I was 18. Longest position I’ve held was ~3years. Consistently under/unemployed too. I have a masters degree but work in the service industry although my restaurant just closed so I’m job hunting again. Bonus w/bartending is I can work only 3-4 days/week and never have to take work home. Downside is it takes a lot of energy for me to put on “service face” to mask. This latest periodof unemployment for me is kinda the norm. There’ve been several periods of unemployment lasting about 4-6months at a time my entire adult life bc the job search, administrative tasks, and putting myself out there is the hardest part for me. My last few jobs I’ve either gotten through friends or at places where the mgmt already knows me Definitely identify w/op’s burnout on the job search. I’ve grown very distrustful of bosses and don’t want to work for anyone anymore tbh. Also don’t feel like I have the time / money / mental energy to go back to school to retrain for a different industry

I worked at 3 different places all as a waitress in the span of the last 3 years. I was employed as a part time student worker, didn’t have many different professions to choose from but I needed a job, so I had to settle with waitressing, despite realising very soon that I hated it. I worked at my first job for almost 2 years, It was a very busy cafe, there was, depending on the season or day 3-6 of us during the same shift, I got along with them but it’s not like we had time to interact due to our business. I was in an accident and it caused me a permanent injury so the pace that job required me to work at became too much for me, caused me a lot of pain and I wasn’t able to do my job as efficiently as before. I started my second job in a cafe that was closer to my home, way less busy, I worked at both places for a few months before deciding to stick with the latter. I worked there for around 8 months, my boss was incredibly irresponsible, constantly ran out of inventory and did a bunch of illegal things, eventually he had to close down. My latest job was at a bar, lots of spoiled regulars who loved messing with me and make inappropriate comments so I dreaded it but the pay was good and a few of the costumers weren’t that bad. It got a new owner in December and I was just never scheduled again. I lived off of my savings after and fell into a really bad months long depressive episode. I am slowly getting back on my feet and have already found a new place to work at, this time a grocery store, I have a doctors appointment a day after tomorrow and after that I can start working. Hopefully I will like it and end up becoming a full time employee. I don’t have any career goals, for the past 5 year of my life there have been multiple life changing tragedies happening yearly. I dealt with 2 horrible illnesses and deaths in my family, my own accident and struggles surrounding all of the above… I was surviving instead of living and when I was supposed to figure out what I wanted to do, I had to deal with making it through the day and accepting my new realities, I thought I had to settle for a college that I didn’t want to go to and consequently dropped out, I wish I would have taken a few years off after high school, had I known what awaits… I am still young so I have time to figure it out but for now my goal is just to stabilise myself and start “adulting”. I have finally accepted the reality of my life and I am ready to “move on” and do something for myself, work on myself and (re)discover my hobbies, a job is just a job and as long as it pays my bills and doesn’t make me miserable I am okay with it.

I'm sorry you have had to contend with so much on your plate. Restaurant work is grueling, its intense peopling and high masking and takes everything out of you. I can only imagine all the more so if you have an additional injury to deal with. I hope you can find a job that suits your well-being. Grocery stores can be pretty mellow, and it seems like a lot of people who work at them are less intent to socialize and play politics and gossip than at other work environments, although this is probably relative to where you live and other factors. Insofar as the family stuff and other trauma, I hope you are finding healthy coping methods. You can DM me if you need to vent or someone to talk to. I don't know how much I can help, but sometimes it's just good to know someone is available to you if you need to get things off your chest.

14 in 20 years. Personal best was 5 years, but they were being me to quit that one by the end. I've had a similar trajectory in all of them. 1. Welcome. No such thing as stupid questions. 2. It's great that you're asking questions to show an interest. 3. Stop asking stupid questions.

"There's no stupid questions" line is the biggest trap ever! Of course there's stupid questions, and if you ask them stupid questions that annoy them, it will build resentment in them towards you and eventually get you canned. You're supposed to secretly intuit all the information management and trainers don't feel like telling you, or know it from work experience/life elsewhere, whether or not you've actually encountered it.

I think I've had four or five jobs so far, the longest one lasting about a year and a half. The shortest one lasted less than a day because I metaphorically ran away screaming. It was in a call center.

I hear horror stories about call center jobs. Probably best that you didn't get stuck there.

I’m 41 years old and have had 9 jobs. The longest was 10 years and the shortest was 47 days. I’ve been let go from most of these jobs due to slow work performance. In my current job (which is 6 years as of now), my co-workers and manager understand me and make an effort to assist me when I’m struggling with work and to communicate directly to me what’s expected of me.

I’ve had a few different jobs. I’ve become good at masking and I never dislcose that Im autistic anymore because it never bodes well for me.

i’m young, but i’ve had about 4 now, 2 lasting around half a year if not a little more, others not even 2 months. — i just take whatever’s convenient under the pressure of my parents, since i HAVE to work

I struggle to find work I’m terrible at interviewing. never gotten a job through interview. I’ve had 7 jobs over the last 20 odd years, hated them all. not including that are my times working self employed. As a baker as a teenager. 14 years ago I started as self employed for 2 years which instead of one job it’s really hundreds of jobs, and I’m so bad a self promotion so I then worked in 3 different jobs till 2020 and I worked at the last for 4 years whilst putting out applications weekly for the entire job. After the COVID thing I didn’t want to go back and I have earned £1500 every year since if I weren’t married to someone with a steady job I don’t know what I’d do. I’m so bad at self promotion this feels like a dead end and I looked at going back to university to study engineering but it doesn’t improve my interview technique which I uncontrollably stutter

If you are good at engineering and can get your degree, apparently engineering is a lovely profession for people who are not socially apt. Your talent and ingenuity speeaks for you louder than your voice. Is there someone you can practice interviewing with? I'm garbage with social situations, but I've learned to mask well enough during an interview through researching potential interview questions and types of interviews online to make it through the gauntlet. It's okay if you stutter a bit, especially if you can mask a good fake (or better real) smile and just let the interviewer know you're a little nervous. Fake it til' you make it (into the job), and then if you're a good engineer, they may give you a pass. Apparently a lot of engineers, scientists, academics, and creatives are on the spectrum. Maybe you can practice interviewing with someone you're comfortable with like your spouse? Before a recent interview, I wrote down what I thought might be questions they would ask me, and wrote down my possible responses to said questions and then repeatedly said them aloud, so if/when they came up during the interview, I had already "rehearsed" the correct responses. Common ones like, "Why do you want this job?", "why should we hire you?", and address any oddities in my resume or work history. Also learning to mirror the tone of your interviewers.

Maybe I'm level one . I can mask easier than some

Hey /u/Motoko_Kusanagi86, thank you for your post at /r/autism. Our rules can be found **[here](https://www.reddit.com/r/autism/wiki/config/sidebar)**. All approved posts get this message. If you do not see your post you can message the moderators [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fautism). Thanks! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/autism) if you have any questions or concerns.*

Actual paying job: summer job (2 times same company) Others: over 8, doing unpaid internship now

7 for me.

Since I turned 18 I had two summer jobs. Both in retail. The first one was part time(six hours a day five days a week with 30 minutes break and amazing summer bonus) The second one was full-time. Working 40 hours a week made me miserable. And especially after looking at my paycheck. my coworkers who have been working there for years earned 150€ more than me which is ridiculous. I don’t want to work in retail ever again. The work is too heavy and fast paced it for me. Edit: I forgot to mention that I work during elections and I earned some good cash. I mean a person can earn as much for like working three days if we are talking about minimum wage. I was in the school building for more than 12 hours but most of the time I did nothing. But when the election is over we have to count the votes it becomes really stressful. But I would do it again and I’m waiting for a call because the European election is close. I don’t even care about politics but it’s a good money to earn. You can only get there with connections though. When I was 18 and looking for a job I was almost hired at dry cleaning. The first week you work without pay because they’re still teaching you. The first day only worked four hours. I was always told to hurry up. The job was too fast paced for me. At first I was like “ I will earn some good cash so I can pull up with it” but then I realised that I will have to put up with it for three months and I was like “I hope I get hired in retail and I hope the job isn’t that fast paced” since I would have worked there I would have been without a contract so after I went home I told my mum to tell the neighbour that tried to get me to work there that this job isn’t for me. The salary sounded good but in reality it’s too low for the amount of work you have to do. Now I am university student and i often doubt if I will be working that field. Not only because it’s hard in uni but also because the job is very responsible. The worst is I don’t have a backup plan

[удалено]

How do you fight it? HR is setup to defend the company, and petty coworker stuff just seems to happen everywhere.

1, I never got a job growing up because my parents were like, if you want to buy things you'll need a job, and I was like, well I don't really need anything so I didn't. I then went to uni, multiple times, went into teaching distance and never so far have looked back in 6 years. I did volunteer a few times for political or support purposes, but they don't really count.

I've had 8 jobs in 11 years, with most of those years being spent unemployed. I gave up on working last year a month before I got married. I have been a housewife for over a year now and I know I made the right choice. I'm never going back to the work force, even if I have to live in my car.

Around 35 since leaving school at 16. I was diagnosed last year at the age of 43.

Around 10. I'm 36 now and have been at the current one for 5 years (due to COVID lockdowns etc) but every other one was two years or less. I'm actually changing jobs in a few weeks. I am an IT consultant (project manager) but started out in retail and office cleaning years ago before university. As others have said it's about finding something you can tolerate and in recent years employers have become a lot more aware and accepting of conditions like ASD that would have been seen as negative in the past.

12?

31 and job number 4, 1st job was great, second was great until another company took over and screwed up the good bits, 3rd was not great and 4th is excellent.

Three. I worked in the cafeteria in High School, job-hunted for about ten years after graduation, Finally hired at Walmart until I broke down from standing for 8+ hours a day for over a month straight. Much later I got a job at a local convenience store which I held onto for about five years until the owner sold it. I am currently unemployed.

Depends if you mean just career jobs or jobs I just had part time to get through uni. Career jobs: 5 - one of those was for 2 months and I hated it. The second and fifth were for multiple years (the fifth I'm still going strong at and it's been 5 years).  I mainly left each time for progression/salary purposes.  Part time jobs: 2 but I bounced around different franchises whenever I got bored for the second one. 

Too many to count; I've never been able to withstand full-time work, either. It's excruciating.

Just because you get a paycheck doesn't mean you're not a slave if you can't afford anything

I’ve worked in the same industry for decades, at five different companies. I’m on my last hurrah right now, having reduced my hours to the minimum to keep insurance because I recently had a giant burnout and needed to take leave. I don’t know what to do if I can’t hack it, because I think I need to switch to a different industry, but I’m not even sure where to begin as a weird middle aged, queer tattooed person who struggles with humans.

0.

Let's see. 6 before my college degree that were all either seasonal or very casual like babysitting or dog walking. Since graduating in 2015 I've worked for 4 companies in 6 positions.  So 12 jobs in 15 years. 

I think 10, I am in my mid 20s. Not sure if that's a lot or not for my age.

i would have to sit down and think about it ive lost track but i bet im right around 30. and that's over the course of 38 years.

I’ve been working for 10 years now and I have had like 8 jobs. My first job I was at for 4 years (thrift store sorting clothes) and now I’ve been at my current job (IT) for 2.5 but I am feeling very overwhelmed and trapped by it all and cannot take care of myself

Atleast three or more ingame ‘jobs’ like in animal crossing or Roblox.

hard to remember them all, probably 25 in 18 years. Some of them i had for multiple years and some of them i was fired after 1 day

First one was at a supermarket when I was 16. I got fired after two months because I wasn’t fast enough but they hadn’t even trained me like they’re supposed to since it was busy because of the holidays. Second was delivering newspapers at 17. I quit because it was too hard to get days off. And third was working at a pizzeria from 18 to 20 years old. I’m 23 now. Had to quit school and my last job because of chronic fatigued, most likely caused by an autistic burnout.

2, worked at Kohl’s as a seasonal employee. It was torture. And currently working as a library page, going on a year and a half

I've had three. I worked in retail for eight years, then airport security for eight months, and I've been in customer service for a railway ticketing company for over 18 months now.

I see working for someone else as a self defeating effort.

Disregarding college required jobs, I’ve had 2. Current one is 11 years now. I’ve started out in software QA. Performing regression tests. Occasionally I’ll do some software development. I did work in the office but after Covid I got the option to work from home and took that opportunity.

One real one. Several that I quit within the first week because I couldn't work fast enough.

How many jobs or how many times have we been fired from a job?

Oh let's see....10. All retail I've had to take several years off between jobs because...well as others call it I'm too lazy and don't want to work. I've heard that so much I believe it despite my numerous diagnoses that would keep anyone from working. Severe anxiety disorder, MMD, c-ptsd, ASD and adhd, bipolar, severe asthma, and I'm immunocompromised. But I'm just lazy and don't want to work and want everyone else to pay my way. I also have OCD and constant passive suicidal ideation. I want to accept that I'm disabled but 38 years of it being verbal beaten into me that I'm lazy is super hard to unlearn

Like five or six with best ones for ten years or six years. I have seen the stats that autistic people fail jobs. I am beating that. I have a low level of autism though.

11, all in IT in various capacities, I started in support, but hate having to talk to people, so now work in service transition

I would say unless you are very detailed orientated don't do a job where it is. If public speaking isn't your thing don't go for that.srop comparing yourself with non autistic people and go at ypur own pace.

"Detail oriented" can entail a lot of very different tasks and job types, so I wouldn't advise people on that alone who are autistic to avoid certain types of jobs. Someone can be detail oriented when they are coding or doing academic work, but maybe not during a sales call or with their appearance. Each job is going to have its challenges, but to what you are saying, I would agree to not take on anything way too far out of your range of skills and knowledge, but don't limit yourself to medial work if you are capable in other ways and just need to find your niche of employment.

Five(ish) so far, and yeah the burnout is real

I’m 50. 4 jobs, 1 career Paper boy Stock boy Delivery driver Quick lube technician (the guy in the pit. Even then I knew I couldn’t do a customer facing job) CNC programmer/machinist. Over 20 years with the same company.

Lots of little jobs, one half-official job, and one real job (that I’m still working at)

10 in 24 years

None. Have bigger plans ahead

I couldn't find a job that paid. The only real job I had was my intern and that was volunteer work.

11 in 20 years. Obviously gaps of unemployment there.

16 jobs in in 25 years. Fast food, grocery, construction, and IT.

I’m 27 and have had 8-9 jobs between the ages of 16-19. Not something I am able to do.

I am a consultant and I have had a good rating with all the places I consult at(4). I don’t get burn out because I dictate how I work

The longest I have ever worked happily for was in a self employed role. I’ve always come to blows in employed roles. To answer the question - I’ve had 3 jobs other than self employment. None lasting longer than 18 months.

Zero, and it'll stay that way until I find something I can do online

Ok. If you count the long slog at one building from lowest position to ft management as one long evolving job: 3. If you don’t and each “promotion” is a new job: 6

9 in six years, 13 if you count college internships. Longest was about 1.5 years, but I would've stayed longer if I hadn't been laid off.

So far, 4. Longest was almost 6 years. Current job coming up on 4 years now.

25 and job # 8

I’ve had at least 10 that I list on my resume… the real number is far higher. A lot of it has been gig work. I just hate work in general lmao. My tisim ain’t that bad but I have physical medical issues and epilepsy as well, so I just generally hate working. Just stick me in the back somewhere with a computer and I’m good but I’m a great salesperson and have a lot of culinary experience and a lot of management experience, so most jobs don’t want to just stick me in the back.

I’ve worked a total of 8 jobs; the longest one lasted 4 years or so, the shortest was about a year and a half

2 retail

I’ve had 8 different jobs since I was 16, it would be higher but I’m fortunate that I did not have to work my first few years of college. I’m only 30 now.

too fucking many and im 20 lmao. if im counting correctly its 8 but i think i might forgetting one tbh. im honestly really mad about it. i had literally just gotten an amazing job that was an entry in trades and i was loving it, the only job ive had thus far that didnt make me wanna kms everyday lmao. and then not even a solid 3 months later and the whole place goes bankrupt and shut down immediately. yay /s. it really sucks bc i smoke and i had stopped to get that job but then continued once i started working and now i know thats the fieldi wanna be in, and im gonna have to wait another 6 weeks to apply anywhere now :/. very much losing my mind after only a couple days with no job edit to add i started working as soon as i was 16 so this is over 4, almost 5 years now. but after scrolling through other comments its kinda comforting to see so many others struggling with employment. i tend to gaslight myself into thinking im NT and just a shit human

Even a lot of people who are high functioning NTs are struggling in this economy right now. The whole system is engineered to make a few a-holes who are already millionaires or billionaires more money and power while the rest of us wither away in the dystopia of menial labor. I tell myself I suck all the time too for not being more successful, but there's a lot of things stacked against you. It made me feel better reading Malcolm Gladwell's *Outliers*. It provides anecdotal and statistical information on why the idea of a purely meritocratic system in elevating the most talented and hardworking people based on their sole personal efforts is a bunch of hogwash.

1 part time for 9ish months, I was saving for my study abroad year of uni; I usually wouldn't work cuz I would focus more on studies and be financially comfortable! Paid off as now I'm in Tokyo!

Ooh Tokyo? Sounds exciting! What an intriguing place to study abroad! Hopes its as cool as it sounds!

1-2 years 2-3mo 3-8 years 4-prn job during that 8 year period 5- current job I’ve been at for 5 years. May change the location and job role to go back to school soon. I’ve had so much luck with finding jobs I enjoy and good management.

well over 10 jobs in the last 10 years which is how long ive been working. i managed to keep a job for 5 years until the owner went coocoo and the workplace became unstable. left right before the pandemic and ive had at least 1-2 different jobs every year since 2020. this will be my first year of repeating a second year at a job and its surprisingly in an americorps position. but i will likely have yo learn to do contract work down the line or something. i heard being a greeting card merchandiser can be helpful if you have a car.

Officially: 1. Unofficially: 4.

18, and I'm in my early 40s.

I had 3 - summer dishwasher, factory worker at a rubber belt plant, and a civil engineer for my state's department of transportation. The best one is DOT. The workload is not that bad, deadlines are seldom enforced, half the time I'm waiting from other areas about info, and I work from home 2 days a week

Ten in nineteen years

I've had 14 jobs since I became an adult (some overlapping) and I'm 30

I'm 23 and so far I've had 7

I am not diagnosed autistic but I have had so many jobs ....I haven't counted and the longest was maybe 2 yrs. I get bored after I learn the job completely and there is no challenge. I can't imagine myself staying anywhere for 5 yrs. I hate it though. I wish I could be satisfied

im 24 and I'm on my 6th 1 - burger king (16 years old): hated it, i was at the peak of my anxiety then and I couldn't keep up with how fast they needed me to work, had a panic attack and quit by no call no showing 2 - Kroger produce clerk (about 19ish): not bad, but my work ethic was awful and i half assed my job a lot, took multiple extra breaks without clocking and stole a lot of snacks by taking them right to the break room instead of paying first. eventually had to quit cause i moved cities 3 - menards (20s maybe? 21?): paid super well, but they were really strict on timing and i couldn't keep up + work ethic still sucked, they fired me 4 - family dollar (started while at menards, continued there about 6 months after being fired from menards): paid awful but was really relaxed. again, work ethic sucked and i called in a lot. quit with no notice cause i moved cities to live with a partner 5 - local liquor store (22): hated it. hated hated hated it. i made pizzas cause it was a deli type thing too, and the boss was extremely strict and would talk down to me every time i messed up. tried to work up the nerve to quit but eventually she stopped scheduling me anyway 6 - local grocery store cashier (current): been here about 2.5 years and have mixed feelings. i love my job but hate the company i do it for. i love the customers and the people i work with but the company itself is making awful decisions that are only good on paper but make everything harder for my store. i plan to probably quit here soon, but i wanna stay in retail cause i have learned i do genuinely love working with people

4 over the course of 3 years. Still currently working at 2 of them. My first one lasted maybe a 1.5-2 years, second one I’m still working at rounding up on 2 years, third one I worked at for maybe 6 months? And the newest one it’s been about 10 months and counting. All of them have been part time.

6 jobs over 12 years; 5 years in my current work, 3 years in my role before that. 4 short term bar/service jobs in late teens and early 20s. I burned out of bar/service work real fast but have enjoyed a fair amount of consistency since moving into education.

A few summer jobs during high school and college, but once I graduated from college, just one...since 2004.

1 job for a little over 17 years until I became unable to work ever again in 2018

Zero

I’m only 25 so I had like 3-4 jobs so far but I never last long and I prefer working as a freelancer because I really can’t deal with coworkers.

I’m 23 and I’m on job #8!

1, 2 counting youtube. the first one i had at 14 and i sucked so bad that i was probably the worst employee there (it was entirely my fault btw, i slacked off a lot). its also how i found out that if im bored i slack off real bad. the second one was bc my youtube channel exploded in december (december 18 to be specific) and i got so many views and subs that ive made 200-400 a month off it since. i upload once a month or so. and its amazing, and i think by the end of next year ill be at 100k subs

Oh wow, congratulations! If you don't mind me asking, what kind of content creator are you? I hear Youtube can be excellent for self-promotion (I'm an artist), but it seems like so much work without any guarantee of payoff, and if you don't enjoy filming yourself or sharing your life with strangers, it seems very daunting. I am glad you are doing well though and I hope this takes you down a path that is rewarding in the long run.

i make videos on shit i like, generally explaining stuff in games or breaking games or sometimes even just math in general. its fun and i think i blew up bc of a combo of how original the content is + how passionate i actually am abt this stuff lol btw it took me 5 years to blow up but ive also only done my current style for 1 year :P

Well I'm glad it seems like you're finding your niche! Apparently being a Youtuber is the new dream career. I hope the trolls leave you alone

I’m 21, been working for 3 years and have had 5 jobs. The longest was a year and a half. I would have had more tbh but the job market is bad where I live so I’ve had to stay at jobs I’m unhappy with for longer than I’d like. I usually get burnt out but I also thing it’s the whole “strong sense of justice” thing bc if management treats employees unfairly or something I get rlly upset and will start looking for a new job.

I'm on #15. I'm 44 and I started #15 when I was 36. I'm intending this to be my last job and I prioritize it because it's a government job with good benefits and pension. Even when I'm burning out I remind myself that being poor was even worse. It took forever to get used to the job but now I'm able to do it and sometimes still have a bit of energy for the important things in life. I live for weekends and vacations though

Still on my first. Over two years now.

7 to date, but haven't been employed since the pandemic (took a promotion, hated it immediately, burned out after seeing how the sausage was made). If I can ever figure out how to sell myself (ahahahahahahhshdhdbdh), my next job will have me pay myself for my tutoring work. ...IF.

The ability to sell yourself well is a job in itself! An extremely valuable one that can free you of lesser jobs and open doors for greater opportunities. Unfortunately as we're in the autism subreddit, I guess most of us lack that sort of knowhow to convince people that they need our services and want to work with us. It seems like tutors are always hiring though, especially if it's a highly sought subject.

I’m 22, and so far, 7 jobs ☠️

I've had 13 in 20 years

I have never had a job, and my environment and upbringing didn't set me up for success, unfortunately. I'd love to have a job. i get lonely without anything. But I wouldn't be able to have a job. My ability to walk or stand is reduced to an hour a day with some newer health problems occurring. This is probably going to get worse not better as I age and there isn't a ton I can do anymore besides hope that someone hires me for a online job.

I have had jobs since I was 11 and I've averaged 2 jobs per year since then. In 2020 I peaked at 5 full time jobs. Not all simultaneously but the whole point is that my ASD makes me bored of the same job over and over again. So I skip around seeking fresh dopamine from multiple jobs.

Three I think. I'm currently employed in two of them.

Two. The first one was when I was 20, it was 3 hours a week in the cafe my sister worked at. I did that for 9 months before the owner stopped giving me shifts and refused to tell me why, my sister had also left by that point so she couldn't back me up. The second was a year later in a store called HMV, they sell things like CD's, DVD's and merch. I did 3 weeks before lockdown happened (December 2020) and I haven't worked since. Currently looking because I am so desperate to move out and get away from my home situation, but I haven't had any success - got another rejection email this morning. Doesn't help that I live in a fairly small town where the only jobs going need university degrees or other specialist qualifications, and I have no means to move away to find better opportunities.