Article Spotlight: Neurotypical Misunderstanding

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
frozen wave against sunlight

A couple days ago, Mad in America published a good summary piece on the problem of communication between autistics and allistics (neurotypicals). Briefly: there can be significant communication differences between the way neurotypical people communicate and the way autistic people communicate. While autistic people are constantly critiqued and criticized, neurotypical people are assumed to be perfectly fine and left alone. No training is deemed necessary for the majority to learn to get along better with minorities.

There’s an obvious bias there, which the article doesn’t go into much. But it does point out the innate unfairness in explaining the Double Empathy Problem and the Privilege Problem. These ideas suggest that autistic communication difficulties aren’t just “we don’t communicate the way others expect.” There is also, “others don’t make efforts to understand us the way they should.”

To quote a particularly good paragraph:

While autistic people are forced to understand and predict neurotypical behavior, allistics are remarkably bad at empathizing with autistic people. Inability to empathize can translate to a lack of compassion towards autistics and contribute to the pathologization of autistic traits. This pathologization has leadto interventions that focus solely on surpressing behaviors that are considered odd or abberant by neurotypicals. In fact, some commonly used autism interventions, such as Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) have been found to be both ineffective and abusive, inflicting trauma on those subjected to them.

Personal Experience

ABA is staggeringly common. I thankfully missed out on this particular kind of systemic cruelty. But the feedback from the autistic community is pretty clear.

And to be honest, I didn’t need ABA to tell me that my existence was wrong. The rest of the world accomplished that just fine. My life has always included overtones of “what a weird person,” and subtle forms of rejection and alienation. I was bullied for years, starting in elementary school. I was the favorite target. Because of that, I spent most of middle school alone, because that was safer.

It’s a minor miracle other (undiagnosed) autistic people found me in high school. But it took them bodily shoving me across a gymnasium floor and demanding I sign up for a school club to even start the process of reaching out. There is zero exaggeration in that last sentence. That literally happened, heels skidding as they each pushed on a shoulder. It wasn’t a mean action. It was a “this is your for your own good,” action. Typically I don’t take well to those, since it’s rare that others actually understand me better than I do. But they were right. And it was the first community that accepted me in a meaningful way.

It wasn’t a purposeful peer support or mentoring program. No one instructed them to reach out to the obviously alienated weirdo I seemed to be. As a society, we didn’t really understand autism that well then, especially not in people raised female. Their kindness just happened, messily, the way life does. But it helped. I would be a very different, far less compassionate and happy person without it. Even now, part of me still insists I’m obviously defective. But most of me knows better.

Looking Forward

The article is correct that acceptance builds confidence. Properly supported, autistic people can lead happy, healthy lives. Once I had that accepting community in the anime club, I began to reach out and accept alternative philosophies to life that weren’t, “Emotions are stupid, people suck, and I want nothing to do with either one.”

I hope you find this article as helpful as I did. It’s a medium length read. But it does a good job summarizing where things currently stand in communication between allistic and neurodiverse humans. And it includes links to relevant, recent research all throughout, in case you want to follow up on a particular subject. Check it out!

Life Update: Work

Posted on by Realistic Autistic

There’s a triad of things that’ve been going on lately, which have severely impacted how much time I can give to this blog. I don’t like it, but it’s how it is. I explained my health situation last time. Today I’ll talk about my job situation. There will be some context removed, because the major part of the triad of changes is still too painful and difficult for me to talk about.

My financial situation changed in June of this year. I needed to take on a greater share of the costs for the house and food and such.

For context, I hadn’t had a 9-5 job in years at this point. In fact, I was actually in despair about it. Every 9-5 job I had, felt like I’d failed at for one reason or another.

Tries at Employment

Major

For example, I went to college to study Psychology. That was good and interesting, but when it came time to consider grad school, I was pretty much just done with being in school. So I didn’t do that, and that meant I couldn’t become a therapist or do much besides manage people or counsel high schoolers (yeah, figure that one out). Neither of those things really appealed to me, because I hated high school and kind of hated people. So managing them for a living seemed stupid at best.

Minor

Instead, I attempted to make a living in my minor, Information Systems. That’s more or less what you get when you cross a Business Degree with a Computer Science degree. I got an internship job coding a new RFID system for city’s public library. I liked the job and the people. But the internship was never meant to last, and there was no job available for me to move on to in the city proper. I tried to get a job at a local company doing more or less the same thing, and it wasn’t a good fit. They fired me after a while.

I Can Organize Stuff?

After that, I started to really despair. I got a job as a secretary (administrative assistant) at a local special needs service provider. Specifically, an autism clinic. Which was mostly fine, but eventually the bad parts of the job started to get to me. For instance, hauling stinky bags of diapers every day was really revolting. And being on the phone with insurances sparked misanthropy as well as self-hate.

Autism Education

So eventually I left, and did not pick up another full time or even part time job. By that point Chris had found work, and he made enough by himself that it wasn’t necessary to have paying work. So I began to focus on my vocation, which is autism education.

Blog

I’d been doing this blog for a few years at this point, and so I decided to develop that work and share what I’d been learning. Not just to share my thoughts, but also share the best of the education I was giving myself.

Autism, you see, is a very complicated subject. I’d hoped, at one point, to find or make a definition of autism that people could use and rely on. I figured it out a few years later: that is not possible in the current state of things. Autism runs the gamut from people like me, who seem almost normal (but we’re not and have just learned to hide our differences), to people who may never be toilet-trained and probably won’t ever live on their own or go to college.

Autism’s cause is unknown. You cannot point to one thing, like genetics, environmental factors, food allergies, or parenting techniques, and say “yes, this is what causes autism.” The truth is that a lot of things factor into whether someone’s going to meet the diagnostic criteria. And to the average person trying to care for their kid or themselves, what exactly makes them autistic is irrelevant. They need services and support and good information to help with immediate issues, not lengthy scientific explanations that pretty much have to end with, “we think, but we don’t know for sure. Maybe do more research?”

Not a Career (yet?)

In looking back over this blog, I feel I did some valuable work. I read and reviewed over a hundred books, and tried various products to see how they’d work and if they’d be helpful to the community. I summarized and shared a ton of research related to autism and co-occurring conditions. My perspective is valuable, I think, in part because I try to see many perspectives and stay open-minded, but arrive at a single, accurate conclusion.

However. My work did not end up leading to a career (yet?). That’s probably because I didn’t do enough networking. The paradox of a career in autism education is that autistic people struggle with socialization, but it’s mandatory to make the connections needed to find work.

I felt sufficiently overwhelmed by everything that I didn’t reach out enough. And so, while I had occasional jobs, they didn’t make a living.

Making Do

Now my financial situation has changed, and I can’t afford to just do the blog for work. In the months since June, I’ve held four jobs.

I picked up two part time jobs at once, one at UPS, and one at a local church that wanted to hire a sound technician. I have about a decade of experience running sound for a different church, so the second was easy enough.

The UPS job was both good and bad. The hiring process was stunningly fast. I applied and had a start date within an hour. No interview. Just some time spent at the computer. Then there was a week of training, and then I was throwing boxes onto conveyer belts. It was hard work, and my body started to fail after a while.

The bigger problem, though, was that I couldn’t make enough money between those two jobs to make ends meet. It’s not wise to be losing money every month. So I went looking for another job. I found work at a local food factory that mostly does baking mixes. It would make ends meet, at $16/hour for 40 hours a week. There’s a post about that job and why it didn’t work out. Mainly, it didn’t work out because joy goes to die at places like that, and I wasn’t allowed to listen to music or podcasts.

Trial By Inferno

Which leads me to my present job, at the post office. It’s not a career position, it’s a job that can lead to a career position. The work isn’t very hard, or even that physically taxing (besides having to stand for pretty much the entire shift). However, the schedule is volatile, and they may schedule me for up to 84 hours a week. (That’s 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, by the way.)

It will definitely make ends meet. I can even make extra payments on the house and probably buy an entire new wardrobe of clothes if I wanted to. I just have absolutely no idea if I can survive 84 hour weeks.

I’m calling it Trial By Inferno, and hoping I can make it work. If I can, I can get a career position in various parts of the mail system. Including working at my local post office, about 5 minutes away from home.

Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.

Dear Mystery Gift-Giver

Posted on by Realistic Autistic

Hey y’all, this will be a bit unrelated to autism. This is the second time in as many years I’ve received a gift with zero identifying marks. Last year it was an Escala CD I’d really wanted, imported from the UK. I made efforts to track down who it was, but nobody took credit…

This year I’ve received a pair of bluetooth headphones, colored blue (which means somebody probably knows my favorite color). It’s a very kind gift, and will be helpful for my present job.

So hey, whoever you are? Thank you! I’d love to say thank you in person or directly in some other form, so I’ll be asking folks a bit and keeping an ear out. But if this year ends up like last year, I just wanted to make it known that A) I received this kind gift, and B) I appreciate your thoughtfulness! So I’m putting out this post in hopes that whoever it is will see it.

Thank you!

Life Update: Vaccine Side Effect

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
man climbing on rock mountain

Hey y’all. I’m transitioning to a new job (again). And that means precious little time to serve my vocation of educating and learning about autism. There’s a lot of stuff going on in my life, and I thought I’d share some of it as I’m able.

However, the writing of the bigger, more difficult things has been intensely painful and difficult. So I’ve defaulted, this week, to something somewhat smaller: a medical development in my life.

The short version is that after I got the vaccine, my internal organs decided to have a relatively polite hissy fit. Specifically, my female internal organs.

If the idea of monthly periods is disturbing to you, this is your chance to find something else to read. Okay?

Before

Cool. I’m more or less used to bleeding every month, though I definitely resent it. I don’t recall asking to be born female and don’t particularly like much of what comes with it. Mostly I just tolerate it.

For most of my life, my periods were exceptionally heavy and extremely painful. Not “curl up into a miserable ball and wish myself dead” painful, which is the kind that suggests endometriosis. But painful enough that moving around was misery. A menstrual cup and heavy-duty pads were essential. I referred to the first day or so of my period as Hell Day, which was not an unreasonable designation.

This is likely due to some kind of hormonal imbalance. It’s unclear what kind, but at one point I had sufficiently unusual periods that a doctor prescribed me birth control to even things out. I never bothered with it, which turns out to have been a very fortuitous decision for my mental health.

And then…

This all changed when I got the Pfizer vaccine. I got both shots, of course. But the first one was enough to mess up my cycle. The second drove it home, though.

I stopped having predictable periods. And they stopped being heavy. In fact, they barely hurt at all after the vaccine. Which was actually pretty amazing, save that I nearly ruined a pair of underwear due to not noticing I was going on my period. Pretty shortly thereafter, my spouse and I started having pretty significant issues… which distracted me pretty well from my weirdo biology. At least for a while.

Eventually, though, I started realizing I hadn’t stopped bleeding in a while. It still didn’t really hurt, but bleeding for 3-4 weeks straight is… well, unusual. And not really healthy. It was never a lot of blood, but it didn’t stop… and periods are really only supposed to last a week, perhaps a bit more, but sometimes significantly less.

They’re definitely not supposed to last two whole months, which was about the point I finally said, “maybe this is a bad enough problem I should go see my doctor…” So thankfully it was easy to get an appointment with my doctor using a newer online system. I also had to throw together whatever I could to help her figure out what was going on. Which meant reading back through my journal entries to find dates and whatever patterns I could find about my period.

It’s also worth pointing out here that the only reason this didn’t cause serious medical problems is that my daily supplements have a good dose of iron as well as other things essential for building blood. If I wasn’t eating so well and taking my vitamins, I probably would have become faint and collapsed at my job. Bleeding that long is no joke. Your body can only replace lost blood so quickly. I was able to leave the issue alone so long only because my health is very well supported.

Medical tests

My doctor was concerned, suffice it to say. There were a few possibilities. We ruled out pregnancy first, which is how I found myself picking up pregnancy tests after walking out of a hospital (where my doctor works).

Can’t say I’m overfond of peeing on a stick, but at least the stick was obligingly quick to provide results: negative. No kidlet on the way. Which is good. I really can barely manage myself right now. Dragging some poor kid into the mess that is my life would be cruel at best.

So with that ruled out, it was blood test time. I’m actually not sure what we were ruling out with these, but we checked the contents of my blood as well as a few other things. Everything came back normal. I wasn’t even low on red blood cells, which is a mercy given that I’d been bleeding for about two months straight at this point.

I also noticed, by this point, that having an active job, bending at the waist, and singing all made me bleed harder. Which was really depressing. Sing less in church, despite that it’s one of my favorite parts of church. Don’t be so active, despite that movement is key to a happy brain and life. Also, my job required it, so that was not at all optimal.

Finally, when all that came back, my doctor decided it was time to break out the ultrasound. The ultrasound would let us check the physical structure of my parts. It was possible there was a ruptured cyst or some other structural abnormality that was causing problems. This test would show it.

I was able to get a quick appointment in just a couple days. Turns out this kind of ultrasound involves you drinking 24 ounces of water an hour beforehand, and not using the bahtroom until it’s done. That’s so your organs are in the right place, and your bladder is nice and easy to see through with the scan.

Unfortunately, the scan involves the technician digging their scanner into your very full bladder to look at your uterus. This was extremely uncomfortable to say the least. They also did an internal scan for good measure, which I didn’t need a full bladder for, thank God. The results came back at the beginning of the week. Nothing to worry about. So most likely, I am not cancer-ridden or dying of some kind of hideous internal injury.

What’s Left?

So if none of that was it… we’re pretty much left with “hormonal abnormalities.” Most likely, what is happening is that I am constantly on my period for reasons entirely unknown.

There isn’t a lot of data on how the mRNA vaccines affect vagina-havers, since this is a very new technology. And therefore, there isn’t a lot known about how to fix weird side-effects like this. The more common (and thus well-known) period disruptions after these types of vaccines are having worse periods that stabilize and return to normal in a couple months.

It has now been more like 5 months, and my period did kind of the opposite.

So what’s to be done? Well, on the advice of my therapist/nutritionist/main doctor, I’ve begun a supplement called Vitex. There are a number of herbal remedies that support regular monthly cycles and hormone levels for uterus-havers. The chaste tree is one such thing. If I’m very lucky, a couple months of taking it once a day will straighten out my issue and bring me back to only regretting being biologically female for 5 days out of a month.

If I’m not, I may have to try other options. Femmenessnce is a broader-spectrum, far more complex option. I’ve actually tried it once before, and it was helping… but something about it also upset my intestines. Which was mightily disappointing. So I stopped taking it.

Since then my diet has changed to be a lot more healthy, what with the minimizing sugar intake and the eating mainly whole foods. So it’s possible I might have better results if I try it again sometime.

With luck though, I won’t have to.

This is about as resolved as this phenomenon is going to be for a while. Wish me luck in my quest to stop bleeding forever, friends. And rejoice with me, because I don’t have cancer!

A Dream: What Might Be

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
group of people making toast

I had a dream. Last Saturday was my last known weekend for a while. I woke up at like 6am, because apparently my body loves a schedule even while it’s exhausted. But after eating a bit and lying in bed for a couple hours, I made it back to sleep.

I rarely dream, but I tend to pay attention when I do. Sometimes they’re sad. But not always.

Friends, Together

I dreamt of a group of friends, meeting at a restaurant I couldn’t name, but was cozy and dimly lit. Though a couple faces were familiar (Chris, my spouse, and Simon, a person I don’t count as a friend anymore due to his decisions…) most faces I didn’t recognize. Yet each friend (there were at least 7) was familiar and comfortable. We were gathered there to play a tabletop RP game like D&D together.

In this dream, I was DMing (running the game while the others played), and I’d only had minimal time to prepare because of my work. But it didn’t matter, because everyone was having so much fun. Laughter and jokes were frequent. The game got offtrack sometimes but it didn’t matter because everyone was enjoying the experience. There was some drama, but it didn’t bother me for some reason. Perhaps because I knew everyone liked each other and would just get over it. Or perhaps because I’d finally perfected the skill of disengaging and trusting people to be adults about resolving their issues.

A Valued Time

Regardless, we were playing some kind of high fantasy game, but it was a heavily homebrewed thing. I thought D&D, but thinking back on the class names, they’re not from any edition I’m aware of. We played until everyone got hungry, after which we ordered food. There was something for everyone at this restaurant, even me with my incredibly strict no-dairy, no inhumane meat, whole-foods-only thing.

As we were chattering and waiting for food, a couple of the players went off together and did some character development on the side. Because the world and those characters mattered to them and sparked their creativity. After they got back, I offered to run this game every week. I told everyone I had really limited time for prep, so they’d probably only get shallow things like “a quest to kill a particular monstrous pig because a nobleman wanted to eat its bacon.” Somehow, everyone was fine with that. Several jokes were sparked off the bacon idea, and everyone agreed they wanted to do this every week. I felt proud that I was going to be able to help provide this experience for everyone.

A Nation, Known

As we were settling down at the table, I noticed a TV in the corner was playing some kind of video. But instead of an advert for the latest probably-useless product, it was a short piece saluting and depicting immigrants in the US. And acknowledging their importance, and that all of us are descended of immigrants if you trace our ancestries back far enough.

At the beginning, it shunned and called out white supremacy for the lie that it is. But the focus of the movie was really more on the countries from which we all came. There were these little animations with country flags, representing people or populations from those countries. Eventually the shape of the US was formed in the flags of those other countries. This was accompanied by triumphant music.

With my friends, I watched this and put my hand over my heart, acknowledging patriotism and support of this country where differences are strength, and all people have value. I began waking up, but held onto this dream as long as I could. It was perfect and beautiful in ways I may never experience in this life, and I wanted to at least write it down.

What Might Be

This is not the country I live in. It’s the country I wish I lived in. As a nation, we began with immigrants from Europe butchering and displacing the First People nations that lived here. That behavior continues to this day. We begrudgingly allow immigrants into the country (sometimes), but often relegate them to jobs nobody else will take. Such is exactly the case in the job at the food factory, where I find the conditions utterly intolerable. But Spanish is spoken freely and fluently on the floor between most of the line workers. They’ve built a community of sorts, even as the job and the need for money eats away at their lives and souls.

I can’t honestly say whether any of the people in my D&D-esque friend group were black or brown. My focus was less on their faces and identities (save the surprise of the inclusion of one), and more on the atmosphere and interplay between them. For my own sake, I hope so. I didn’t have visible minority friends growing up, and I’m afraid it probably shows in how long it took me to recognize how bad things really are for black and brown people.

Likelihood

I can’t decide if this thing I dreamed is even possible in real life. My sense of reality suggests the first part, with the friends, might be. Maybe not those exact friends, but a friend group like it is a possible thing. It wouldn’t have to be a restaurant. Could be someone’s house, or a park, or whatever. Somewhere everyone could be comfortable.

As for the broader change in the US… well… it’s what I hope for. It’s what I advocate for, when I can. I vote for it when the option is there. I’m old enough to know change typically doesn’t happen quickly. In the dream I felt like I was in my 20s… But at the rate of change I’ve seen…. I’d almost guess I’d’ve had to be at least 60 years old. Maybe even 80.

I won’t rule out real life being able to deliver this dream, if I worked hard for it. I’d need to make friends actively, which is really hard now that I’m working full time. Learn how to improv, so I could run a game off-the-cuff like that. Both of these things are possible, but would have been quite difficult for me in the past.

Are they possible now? I’m not sure.

I also can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been shown a small portion of heaven. That perhaps this dream is not truly achievable in this life.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was, though?

Autism at Food Factory Work

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
black ship on body of water screenshot

For the last two weeks, I (an adult with autism) have been doing factory work at a local factory that makes baking mixes, breads, and sweets. I thought it might be interesting to give an overview of my experience and tell you whether this kind of work is suitable for autistic people. The workers at the factory have a union. Which I’ve found mostly means that they have their own rules that may or may not make sense or be helpful.

I won’t name the company here because I like avoiding being sued. The job was titled General Labor, which effectively means they’re paying me to pick things up and put them down. It’s a skillset I have, though admittedly not my most valuable skillset. I got this job because I needed work that was full time, quickly. My bills need paying, and at the moment I can’t make part time work pay them.

First Impression

My first and second impressions of the company were not favorable. The online reviews on the job site I applied on were, um… not complimentary in the slightest. That was the first impression. I still applied and interviewed, but I asked some very pointed questions about their conflict and management practices. The answers were somewhat satisfactory. They suggested the management (at least of this section) listens and was reasonably adult about their crap, so I accepted the job.

Second Impression

I formed my second impression on what was supposed to be my first day. I’d been told to arrive a little early to turn in a piece of paperwork for joining the union. Which I did. I arrived about 12 minutes early, and promptly couldn’t get in or reach anyone to let me in. I wasted 5 minutes just trying to get someone to answer a phone so I could turn in this paperwork. Then the lady at the desk took several minutes just to print me a map (which didn’t end up being helpful anyway) and tell me where to go for orientation.

I arrived at 9:02am, two minutes late. The door was closed and locked. There was no built-in way to phone for help. I knocked, and nobody answered. I waited around hoping someone would go through the door, but nobody did. Eventually, in desperation, I called the main line for the company and asked what was going on. The desk jockey told me they would send someone. After another 10 minutes or so, someone did arrive… but she looked me up and down and told me I couldn’t start that day, for two reasons. One, I was late. Two, I was wearing jeans, which weren’t allowed. And there was management in the building, so she didn’t want to risk their displeasure. And thus, because they only do orientation on Mondays, I was sent home and had an entire week off.

Disrupted Schedule

Needless to say, I was not impressed. It was mainly their fault I was late, and punishing me for their failure is not a great way to start a business relationship. It also struck me as astoundingly irresponsible and uncaring of their employees’ time. The start time was 9am. Was I supposed to know, despite not being told, that I should show up at 8:45? Apparently.

Autistic people can be very good at sticking to a schedule and obeying the rules. But we have to know what the rules are. This was not a very autism-friendly start to this factory work job. I’m fortunately fairly graceful about handling sudden changes like this in the moment, but I still cried all the way home and spent much of the day in bed. It was really frustrating to have tried my best to start well, only to have them spit on my efforts and then have to go home for the entire week.

First Day

So, at the appointed time the next week, I arrived 15 minutes early. This time the door was standing open. They checked my documentation at the door and escorted me up to… basically a lecture hall. I had my picture taken for my ID before I’d even chosen a desk.

The ensuing lecture was unpleasantly reminiscent of 8am lectures in college. I came to the lecture tired and somewhat dazed. And just like those lectures, they threw too much information at you to possibly memorize it all. A pen was provided for taking notes, but paper was not. So I took notes on the back of my insurance information folder.

The lectures were with a live presenter, a la the 80s or even the 90s, I guess. Most places I’ve worked simply have training videos, but not here. Like 8am lectures, it was “sit down and listen until we’re done with you.” They then fitted us for uniforms and sent us home. Still not a particularly autism-friendly start to this factory work, in my opinion.

Subjects

We began with training about their onsite freezer chemical (which apparently stinks long before it can harm you, so you really do have to try to hurt yourself with it). Then there was a lecture on Good Manufacturing Practices, which includes a laundry list of things. But it pretty much boils down to “Keep Very Clean,” “Use Proper Clothing and Equipment,” and “Follow the Rules to Ensure Safety.”

After that it was on to Allergens, which is a big deal in food production. You really, really don’t want to accidentally kill someone because somebody had almonds for lunch and a bit got into the waffle mix. I learned here that 90% of food allergies (that are recognized as allergies) are to one of eight things: peanuts, tree nuts (like almonds and cashews), dairy, eggs, soybeans, wheat, fish, and shellfish.

I also learned that there are several additional named categories of foods they need to pay attention to. I’d heard of kosher, organic, gluten-free, and non-GMO. But they also pay attention to halal and pareve designations. All of these mean sourcing only ingredients that meet these standards, so that the final product can also be labeled that way.

After that it was on to various cleaners and chemicals we might use, including the use of protective equipment. And finally, we were taught about how to lock out equipment. And also told we wouldn’t be doing that, but that everyone needed to know it anyway.

There were a couple quizzes about the chemicals and lockout procedures that we needed to fill out and turn in. Thankfully being half-awake was sufficient for that.

Unusual Rules

I’ve never done factory work before this, so a few of their rules struck me as strange. Some are explainable, but others seem just kind of petty.

Rules that Made Sense…

In the explainable category… no one was allowed to have peanuts or tree nuts in their lunch. The exception was peanut butter, but that was it. You couldn’t have candy or gum in the production area. You also weren’t allowed to use any kind of tobacco product, to the point that they’d literally fine you every paycheck if you were. And no strong-smelling perfumes or colognes. Finally, you pretty much couldn’t eat in the production area.

These rules are all meant to limit allergens and contamination of the food products. Perfume and cigarette smoke can make the food product taste like those things. Nobody wants to eat pancakes that taste like cigarette butts or “male musk.” That all made some sense to me.

They also had a rule about not having hair ornaments, like decorative combs, clips, etc. This seems sexist until you remember these things can rip a hole right through your hair net, which then means you’re running the risk of contaminating the food. I have short hair, so I pretty much didn’t care about this rule.

And Rules that Didn’t

But then there were rules that just struck me as pointlessly oppressive or mean. Things that made this factory work job very autism-unfriendly.

No Phones and Internet

My biggest irk: you weren’t to have your phone on the work floor. Not at all, going by the signs on the walls. Absolutely no one paid attention to this when they weren’t being monitored, mind you. There were phones in pockets, phones coming out at moments when no work was immediately necessary, etc. Considering the workplace has no lockers, secure storage, and very limited numbers of clocks, I can’t really blame anyone.

However, my “phone” is a full sized tablet, and no one makes pockets that handle stuff that big. Plus it’d be very obvious. So I ended up having to leave it in the car and bring in an old iPhone I have on long-term loan from a friend. It doesn’t have a data connection, but it has phone games and a clock.

Also? The building has incredibly poor signal for most cellular carriers. The place is saturated with wifi. But when I asked, I was told basic employees weren’t given the wifi passwords on purpose. So during my breaks, I had no Internet unless I went out to my car. Which I believe I was told in my interview is not allowed. (I did it anyway.)

In this modern world, we’re often used to being constantly connected. While I don’t think it’s absurd to expect your employees to work on the clock, I do think it’s unkind to have the expectation that we leave so much of our lives at the door. A rule like this is off-putting, and for autistic people who don’t realize there are two sets of rules (the ones stated and the ones people actually follow), it might be a deal-breaker.

Corollary: No Earbuds, Music, Audiobooks, or Podcasts

I really hated this part. Doing the same thing over and over isn’t the end of the world to me. Some autistic people thrive on repetition, and getting into a rhythm doing the same thing can be exactly what we need. The kicker: some people really need to have music or audiobooks to help keep their focus. Especially people with ADHD, but many autistic people and even neurotypical people as well.

That option is literally nonexistent in this place. You aren’t supposed to have your phone. And even if you do, earbuds and headphones are not allowed. I checked. You can still have earplugs, which helps with the machine noises somewhat, but they’re provided by the company, so I hope you like blue squishy foam earplugs on strings.

This rule made this factory work very not autism-friendly, in my opinion.

Breaks

Speaking of breaks, this factory does not believe in lunch. My state does not mandate any break schedule or lunch after you become an adult. So the union negotiated for two 20 minute breaks. That’s all you get for 8 hours of work. I’m used to two 15 minute breaks and either a half hour paid lunch or an hour unpaid lunch. This rule is very stingy by comparison. Thanks to being at college, I know how to shovel food down my throat quickly. However, it’s a poor practice for enjoying, digesting, and getting the most out of your food.

The shortness of the breaks also means the workers are pretty much limited to bringing food from home. There is no time for, “I’m going to run out for Subway, everyone gimme your orders and money and I’ll bring it back!” Or, “Our team is going to Taco Bell for lunch, see y’all when we get back!” and everyone companionably piling in someone’s car.

On one hand, this means the autistic person’s diet can be catered to as much or as little as they want. If you’re always packing your own lunch, it’s up to you what you put in there. Fast food doesn’t really do dairy-free, gluten-free, low-sugar stuff at the moment. On the other hand, you’re missing the possibility of coworkers and bosses getting to know us as people, rather than just as workers. So those rules for this factory work are kind of a mixed bag in terms of autism-friendliness.

Sitting Down

This is an informal rule I learned while on the job. You are not to sit down. There are basically no places to sit down in the factory. You’re to stay on your feet for your entire shift except for breaks. Management gets upset if they see you sitting.

As someone unused to being on my feet for 8 hours, this was awful. I have two pairs of good shoes suitable for this job. But I’ve never been terribly athletic. Not being allowed to sit to rest my poor, angry feet, strikes me as just cruel. Eventually I’m sure I’d build a tolerance for it, and buying nice padded insoles would probably help. But really, why on Earth would it not be okay to rest your feet when you’ve nothing else to do? That’s stupid, petty, and just mean. If that’s standard for factory work, then factory work is inhumane. Don’t @ me.

The first day I was out on the floor, my legs and feet hurt so badly at the end of my shift that I refused to get out of bed for over 2 hours. Absolutely refused. There were various things I could have been doing that day, but the idea of putting weight onto my feet was so abhorrent that I just couldn’t.

I assume management, had they actually found me resting my feet, would have had a metaphorical heart and let me sit for a bit once I explained my situation. But having a heart is entirely optional. If the person with autism couldn’t explain themselves well and quickly, this factory work might easily become intolerable.

The Actual Work

I’ll now describe the different types of work I did over the course of the weeks. It was never exactly the same work twice over the course of the week, interestingly. I’ve described the first day, which was entirely orientation.

Day 2: Tour and Glaze Packing

The second day I started off with meeting my boss’ boss. He personally gave me and the other two new hires a tour of our area. He also explained his management style, which is aiming for “approachable, open, friendly, and willing to listen.” The tour and explanation probably took an hour or so.

Then we were given our assignments. The other two were assigned to work somewhat like warehouse jobs, where you put together bags of the ingredients needed for recipes going into production. That involves lots of lifting, and they unironically only assign men to that work. It’s insisted that this isn’t sexist. I have my doubts. At UPS, women were fairly evenly assigned to trailers. Here, not so much I guess.

On to the Production Line

I was assigned to a factory line that makes doughnut glaze. Because I was new, I was rotated through exactly two stations: making boxes and filling them with plastic bags of glaze. I was assigned to work with a kindly older Hispanic lady. She A) was clearly very competent and caring, and B) had limited English skills. She would become my Square One for the job. If I didn’t know what I needed to be doing, she was the person to ask. Or in my case, walk over and look confused. That part of the factory work, at least, was autism-friendly. Having a Square One is essential.

Many of my coworkers on this line and elsewhere spoke Spanish more than English. This was more than a little isolating, because I can count to 10 in Spanish and say good morning and thank you, and that’s about it. Learning additional languages is really not my strong point, but it could be a great experience for someone wanting to polish their skills with native speakers.

At any rate, for the rest of the day I taped the bottoms of boxes and lifted bags of icing off the conveyer line and into those boxes. I had concerns about getting a repetitive motion injury, but thankfully that didn’t happen. Fortunately I was only mildly sore, and it went away quickly. I fell into a sort of waking trance during the work, and badly missed my podcasts and music.

It was very much like school. By the last 2 hours or so, I kept checking the clock and willing the hands to move faster. It’s also the most footsore I can remember ever being, which is a big part of why time seemed to move so slowly. When I got home, I took care of a few small things around the house and then got in bed and refused to put weight on my feet for over 2 hours.

Day 3: Glaze Rework

The next day, I was still assigned to the glaze line. However, I also had an appointment to get to at noon, which would turn out to be incredibly fortunate. In this factory (and perhaps elsewhere), when you need to remake a finished product, they call it rework. And that was my job that day.

Literally, there were boxes of icing. We were issued knives, and the job was to cut the bags open and get them emptied down a specific hatch into a heating tub. The knives were not terribly sharp, I’m afraid. But I still had to wear a cut glove, which is basically a tight, knife-resistant cloth glove. That went on my off hand, under the blue gloves we wore to keep the food sanitary.

The machine room was rather warm already, and the hatch in question was up on the second floor. So this was already somewhat unpleasant. Then, despite my mask, I could also smell the icing. And unfortunately, the process of emptying the bags of icing was a messy one. You had to squeeze them with your hands to get all the icing out. Then, when it was sufficiently empty, you’d toss it into a nearby trash can. The icing got everywhere. My shoes, my pants, my shirt, my arms, and apparently even my hair.

I learned later there were plastic aprons I could have been using, but the machine operator and everyone else forgot to mention it (it’s common equipment everyone knows to use, in their defense). I eventually found one and wore it, but by then it was obviously too late to save my clothes. Fortunately, it’s mostly just sugar and liquid. Nothing the washing machine can’t handle.

How to Hate Food in One Easy Step

The real kicker was the smell. I was sweating, my arms hurt, it was hot, and the smell of the icing was all-encompassing. Like most humans, I’m an associative creature. So I began to equate the smell with the experience. Dislike started replacing my immediate “ooh, smells good” reaction to icing and doughnuts.

I strongly suspect, had I not had to leave for my appointment, I would have ended the day with a hatred of the smell of sugar and icing. Which makes me think that working in a food factory might be a spectacular way to ruin your love of food.

Thankfully, I left at noon for my appointment. So I wasn’t particularly footsore that day, and had some time to recover from squeezing all those bags of icing. I did end up with some nice bruising on both forearms from leaning on solid stainless steel equipment while I was working. As of writing this post, those bruises have mostly healed.

Day 4: “Cleaning”

When I came back to work the next morning, I found out that the glaze line had finished their work. There was nothing more to do in production there. Most of the workers went to other lines.

Me, though? I and my Square One got the clean up assignment. This involved wrapping certain pieces of smaller equipment in plastic, to start, so they would be protected from… something. I’m honestly not sure what. Powdered sugar? A pressure washer? Dust? It was never explained.

At any rate, once that was done, the torture began. You see, there was not, in fact, all that much to clean. And there were probably 6 hours to burn after the plastic stuff was done. We got 2 microfiber cloths each, and a bucket with a little water and zero cleaning product. Thus equipped, the Hunt For Anything At All To Clean was on.

I’m actually having trouble recalling precise details of this day, which I think speaks to how miserable it was. It wasn’t just the boredom. It was that there really was nothing that particularly needed the help.

Make Work

I wiped the inside and outside of cabinets, even though they weren’t or were only barely dusty. I cleaned inside phone boxes, at least one of which no longer had a phone. Wiped stainless steel equipment that wasn’t particularly dirty just to make it shine a bit more. And railings that showed no sign at all of needing the care. The water wasn’t disinfectant, so really what was the point?

By the second half of my shift, it was a joy to actually spot dust I could attend to. Even though it was barely there. The once I found some actual glaze spilled down part of a railing, I exclaimed happily out loud. That was how soul-crushing this work was.

I think I took four bathroom breaks that day, and I took zero the days before. I dumped my bucket far more often than was necessary, and took extra long in cleaning it out and refilling it. Sitting down is against the rules, remember. And there was nowhere to hide, really.

Also, it was literally “clean stuff” or “go home,” and I needed the money. I no longer wonder why everyone I’ve ever seen in the factory grimaces when they mention cleaning. It wasn’t hard work. It just made me wish I didn’t exist. At no point can I recommend this kind of factory work to anyone, with or without autism.

Work like this is where motivation and joy go to die. I would quit in a heartbeat if this was going to be my life every day.

Day 5: Waffle Mix Rework

The next day was once again different. With no more cleaning to be done, I was instead assigned to a different production line. This one made waffle and pancake mix. Y’know the self-serve Belgian waffle stations at hotels? The ones with the little cups of batter that you pour into the machine? Yeah, they make that waffle mix at this line.

It was rework again. This time it wasn’t bags of icing, thankfully. It was bags of waffle mix. I was issued a knife and a cut glove to protect my off hand, just like last time. The job was to cut open the bags and empty them into sanitary bins, roughly the size of janitor trash cans.

Once enough boxes had been emptied into the bins, we emptied the bins into the machine. This meant the mix went everywhere and got on everything, basically. Including my shoes and my clothes. After that was done, the machine processed the ingredients for a while. Which meant that after the bins were refilled, you had nothing to do but stand around.

Again, sitting down on the job gets you in trouble. Unlike the other line, though, this line was up high on the third floor. Meaning management doesn’t typically just wander by, and can’t easily spot you. So unlike other days, I did sit down a lot. The other workers mostly didn’t follow suit, but they didn’t give me grief either.

Therefore, this was the only day of factory work that I wasn’t footsore after.

Bonus Day 6: Mandatory Overtime, Just Kidding!

On Friday morning, management told us that there would be mandatory overtime on Saturday. They didn’t name anyone specifically. But when I asked the leadership afterwards, they said this was quite normal and everyone should come in. My local union rep echoed this sentiment. I assumed this meant I was to treat Saturday this like a normal work day.

So bright and early, I showed up as I had each previous day. But when I went to find where I should go, my name wasn’t on the assignment list for a production line. I clocked in anyway and went to where the 8am meeting should have been. There was nothing. No one gathered and waiting. No familiar faces. And of course, no Square One.

A Lack of Answers

I wandered around the facility trying to find someone to ask what I should do. I went to HR, which typically has an open-door policy. They weren’t in. The office was dark. The door was locked. Management wasn’t in. Same deal. I guess it’s all fine and well to demand your workers sacrifice their Saturdays, but doing so yourself is a step too far. (Why yes, I might have Opinions about this.)

Eventually I found a different assignment board that basically said “if your name isn’t on these lists, you’re not working today, go home.” So not only do they expect everyone to show up to work, but also they don’t give you the courtesy of telling you whether you’re going to waste your time and gas getting there.

This deeply displeased me. That kind of schedule disruption and implied disrespect for my time and sleep is really concerning. I can’t imagine most people with autism would handle this mandatory overtime/just kidding facet of factory work well. I really wonder about the union in this place.

At any rate, I clocked out and went home. I couldn’t get back to sleep. That ship had very much sailed. But I was able to do a few things around the house that I hadn’t expected to have time for. I also started writing this post. I felt so annoyed by the situation that I got about 2,500 words down before my brain begged to do something else. I’m kind of proud of that, to be honest.

Pros and Cons

So after all this, what’s the conclusion? Is factory work a good fit for people on the autism spectrum?

Pros

So here’s the thing. Factory work can be really good for people with autism. It’s often steady, predictable work. The hours are fairly regular, particularly with good management and a steady customer base. Autistic people can thrive on repetition, which a factory has plenty of.

The pay was decent enough ($16/hr and up), particularly with the labor shortage. Maybe not enough to pay for house, car, and expenses by yourself, but enough for a good start. And of course there’s advancement, at least ideally. So you might start on the lines, but you could move up to Quality Control or management or being a machine operator.

There’s also limited social interaction expected in factory work, which can be an important factor to keep in mind when job hunting on the autism spectrum. The two production lines I worked on had maybe six people working on them at any given time. Sometimes far less. That’s not too many people to juggle. In my case, I didn’t even need to differentiate that much. All I really needed was to recognize my boss and recognize my Square One. The others mainly kept to themselves and chattered in Spanish.

Finally, this factory was pretty clean. Sanitation is extremely important in food production, of course. Tainted product becomes sick customers and lawsuits and tons of lost money. But some food factories, I’m told, are better than others. This place had a lot of precautions in place, from washing your hands before entering work and after breaks, to shoe brushes and sprays. Hairnets, gloves, and beard nets were mandatory. It was annoying at times, but in all honesty, I’m glad for the concern.

Cons

That said… I’m going to assume success for work like this is a matter of finding a good fit. Policies and rules vary by the company and the type of work. Food production, like the place I worked, likely has more stringent sanitary requirements than other types of production. You probably don’t need to wear a hair net (and a beard net if applicable) and pay very careful attention to which color gloves you’re wearing at some types of factories. You might not need to sanitize your feet every time you leave the break room.

I, for one, found the incredibly limited breaks and the no headphones policy rather intolerable. I like to take my time eating my food. And if I’m going to be doing the same thing over and over, I want to be learning about autism or listening to music or hearing about myths and legends from around the world. Also, anyone should have the option to sit down if they need to. I don’t know what purpose that rule serves, other than to purposely make workers miserable.

Racism and Sexism

Also, the leadership in this factory is pretty white and male. Usually both those things, especially as you move into positions off the factory floor. Whereas the workers in the lines are more often black or brown, and many are female. As a white apparently-female line worker, I’m an oddity. I dislike this state of affairs, as it strongly suggests glass ceilings are in effect. The leadership of the factory doesn’t seem to be drawn from the pool of line workers… or if it is, it strongly favors cis white male workers.

Finally, there’s some fairly strong evidence for a culture of (usually) subtle sexism in the factory. Women aren’t typically assigned to parts of the line where lifting stuff is required. When I talked to a couple people about that, they said something along the lines of “oh, men are better suited for that.” In contrast, when I worked at UPS, I got assigned to trailers of whatever happened to be on hand… If it was heavy, sucked to be me. And all the women who’d worked at UPS longer could have snapped my spine in half, even if they looked tiny and fragile.

I don’t think this food factory is a good fit for me in the long run. That doesn’t mean other factories couldn’t be. Factory work in general seems like it might suit a lot of autistic people. In fact, I recently met an autistic guy that loves his factory job. So there’s definite potential there.

Would I recommend this particular factory to other autistic people? No. No I would not. I’ll be taking a new job elsewhere soon, with no regrets.