Karma Police - Addendum

I gave Karma a prod in my last post and bemoaned the consequences, but it turns out my little stash of validity has been looking after itself very well thank you, while my confidence has taken a dive.

Not long after sending my email withdrawing from the application process, I received an email from the prospective employer seeking a meeting to make sure there were no misunderstandings about the nature of the role that might have wrongly influenced my decision.  I considered replying to say I couldn't attend, but remembered another occasion when I had been asked back for a meeting and the outcome had been surprisingly positive.  I had enjoyed much of the experience yesterday, despite the pressure associated with the tasks and interviews - the staff were all lovely and I saw many familiar faces, so I thought I owed an explanation at least.  So I agreed to a meeting.

I don't know quite what I was expecting to hear, but the genuine warmth and understanding with which I was greeted was entirely unexpected, as was the fact that this person had clearly read my application in detail and had understood how my Asperger's actually enhances my ability in many ways.  They also seemed to appreciate my enthusiasm for learning and capacity for retaining factual knowledge, and even recognised it's value, and respected my honesty and openness in talking about my limitations and difficulties.  It also turns out that the hours for this role will allow me to keep up my commitments to a student group I run at my present school, which had been of some concern to me.

I have the weekend to mull things over, but I feel I have been handed a polite and eloquently worded invitation, and I am inclined to accept.

At Glastonbury this year, Karma Police was the last song played in Radiohead's set.  Even after they had left the stage the huge crowd continued to sing chorus after chorus...
"Phew, for a minute there,
I lost myself,
For a minute there,
I lost myself..."

Karma Police

What an odd title I have chosen for this post.  And yet I can think of nothing better to encompass the feelings I have at recent events.  Perhaps this is the first sign of my sense of validity starting to fracture...  (I wouldn't be surprised, what with illness and issues at work catching up with me.)
My confidence is crashing.

I have just sent an email eloquently backing out of the post-interview process for a job that represented the best chance at alternative employment I have seen in seven years.  And I don't really know why.  I think I may be scared of change, scared of failing, scared of succeeding, scared of taking on too much... but one thing is for sure:  I was told I would be phoned at 4pm yesterday after the interview, and did not receive a call.  It is not unusual for these calls to be delayed, and they would have called if I had been successful or unsuccessful; that is not in question.  But the delay gave me enough time for my terrified mind to talk myself out of accepting it.

At the moment, I feel sad, but relieved.  Tomorrow, I suspect I will be livid with myself.  By the time next term starts, and I am back in the toxic environment I am so desperate to leave, I'm sure I will be seriously questioning my sanity.

Interviews are such dreadful things for Aspies to navigate, and this one was no different in that respect...  A total of 4 hours in which to complete administrative tasks to do with behaviour and attendance tracking, a critique of a 20 slide Powerpoint for a Media lesson, a tour of the premises, a student panel, teaching a lesson (psychology), observing and commenting on a taught lesson (Geography), and of course, the formal interview... So many different tasks in such a short time in unfamiliar surroundings...  But I cannot bring myself to ask for additional time or consideration in these things - the nature of the role means it is pressurised and, naturally, they wanted interviewees to demonstrate they could cope with this kind of pressure.  And it is this kind of rationalisation that makes it so easy for me to stay exactly where I am.

It's odd how a simple delay in notification is enough to open to door to doubts; doubts to certainty, certainty to sabotage.  Of course, there is no guarantee that I would have been offered the post.  No guarantee that it would have been within my capabilities.  (There I go again.)  They asked me an odd question in the interview and, in a single moment, I saw that chasm of difference between me and most other people.  The question was:  "What would you do if you were presented with a challenging situation?"  Clearly, in hindsight, they were imagining the question framed in the sense of a challenging situation in the classroom, and were expecting to hear about some creative strategies for dealing with it.  I, however was flummoxed by it. Where would I start?  Practically everything was a challenging situation to me...  I did a pretty decent impression of a goldfish for a second or two before explaining my confusion, and they asked a more specific version that I was able to answer.

I talked a few posts ago about how my despair had evaporated at my new found validity, but it seems that it's not gone entirely.  It reminds me of a close Aspie friend I heard recently relaying his thoughts about his chances of ever being in a relationship with a partner and his resignation at being alone.  It made me sad, and I felt compelled to make supportive comments, but they would have felt like platitudes, because I myself feel a similar resignation:  A resignation that I will never have a job that shows off my skills or fulfils my potential (or comes anywhere remotely close to it).  People who know me, my work ethic, skills and ability would balk at such a statement, but the odds are stacked against people like us, externally and internally.  Perhaps I'm just too tired after all these years to keep trying.

But there is hope. Maybe it's my little stash of validity fighting back, but there's a little voice in the back of my head telling me that I'm too good for this job, or the new one:  That I am meant for something else, and if no employer can give me a platform for what I can offer, then perhaps I should build one myself.  Maybe it's Karma that I have such a distressing job.  Maybe it's Karma that I am so terrible at interviews.  Maybe Karma is trying to tell me something.  Maybe it's time I listened.

Still from Radiohead's 'Karma Police'

"I've given all I can,
It's not enough,
I've given all I can,
but we're still on the payroll..."

And now for something completely different...

I find myself in a difficult, yet familiar position.  I need to find another job.  My current role is fast becoming untenable, and the situation shows no sign of improving... despite my efforts.  I have been in this position many times:  That moment of recognition...  I cannot change the opinion of the people in my environment, and they have concluded that I will not change mine.  I am abandoned and, to them, have become nothing more than an irksome blockage in the otherwise fluid workings of the organisation.  It is a sad and repetitive cycle that I'm sure many Aspies will recognise.

I do not look forward to the prospect of job hunting.  I will avoid it at all costs - even to the point of staying in a role that is unsuitable enough to be damaging to my health and  home life.  "Why on Earth would anyone do that?!" I hear you cry.  Well, I'm tenacious. I don't like to admit defeat.  I always to do my job to the very best of my ability, which is not inconsiderable.  I do find it difficult to 'let go of the bone', so to speak:  I do not notice the metaphorical marker posts (clear to NTs) that are the clues to when efforts should cease, when it's time to negotiate a sideways move or make a complete break... When I reach the 'tipping point', it is only after I have become ill through stress from the constant mis-communication, the culmination of too many long hours, lack of breaks or exhaustion from high pressure deadlines...

My current role has been a little different in this sense. There are no long hours, no deadlines... just a combination of isolation, unrealistic expectation, management inefficiency and lack of support and recognition:  All things I like to think I am immune to - after all, haven't I dealt with such things on a daily basis for most of my life?

Eric Berne defined the fundamental unit of social action, and called it a 'Stroke'. So, if a 'transaction' is any social interaction, a Stroke is each social action considered individually, and can be positive, neutral or negative. Berne believed that we seek positive Strokes in our transactions. As an Aspie, I live in a world where positive Strokes are rare, and I can fail to recognise them even when they do happen.  But I live in hope.  On my better days, it is hope that gives me my drive, my motivation, my optimism.  But sometimes hope is my enemy, the slave-driver that keeps me scrubbing away at the same spot on the floor until my fingers are bloody and raw.

I am so used to trying to fit into the NT world and living up to NT expectations that I sometimes think I will never be able to stop, and 'be myself'.  The NT world is the only world I have known, until recently.  In order to break the cycle, confidence is key, but my picture of myself is just as skewed and incomplete as the one I am sure NTs have of me, and until I can see myself more clearly, I will surely continue to make the same mistakes.  And this is the thing that makes me dread the process of job hunting.

The complexities of NT world means that making social errors is easy...  Today, on my first outing into job hunting for a few years, I was dismayed to see how, over the last few years, the lists of requirements for prospective employees have lengthened and  become more severe; even for the most menial and poorly paid of jobs...  What confidence I had left immediately plummeted .  Although I am both accomplished and experienced, and a whole raft of other, what I am assured are, employer-pleasing things, I do not have a degree.  Therefore, as an Aspie, I would never apply for a job that states that a 'degree-level qualification' is essential.  I would limit myself to applying for jobs for which I have the stated qualifications, experience and abilities.  Simple, yes?  But, I am reliably informed, these requirements are not necessarily written in stone.

How can I hope to navigate the world of work when even the prospective employers don't necessarily mean what they say?  How will I know what expectations it's okay not to meet?   Am I expected to speculate about my ability to undertake tasks in a situation I have never experienced?  Should I guess about how I would progress, interact with other people I have never met?  Why is it okay to offer my qualification when I don't meet the requirements in the clearly stated language of the advert: Why say it's essential, if you are open to persuasion, why say it's desirable when it's not required in the role? Surely this practice of inflating requirements to raise the quality of the pool of applicants is ill advised at best and discriminatory at worst?

I feel very strongly about this.  How long has this practice been in use?  How many applications have been discounted based on my literal interpretation of the role?  And I always thought the interview was the hardest part....