You sound autistic. Many of your experiences feel similar to mine.
Here's what happens to autistic people in general:
- They get ghosted a LOT because NT people generally don't know how to deal with them (and social training only goes so far).
- They get fired / laid off / pushed out / excluded a lot with no real reason given, and nobody will care if it's just/legal or not because "something about him is just ... wrong".
- They tend to have very small networks or none at all.
- The less "crazy" you behave, the worse it is because you fall into the uncanny valley. The more "crazy" you behave, the more tolerant people are of your quirks, but the less they take you seriously.
I was even ghosted by a 7-11 store when I applied as a clerk in my late teens, and wondered why the sign remained up for another month when he didn't even get back to me.
Computer jobs were easy for autistics in the old days because nobody expected much of you other than to get the thing working. Only managers and software architects needed people skills. That's no longer the case in the modern highschool-like software house. People are a LOT judgier and intolerant. You need to do whatever you can to bridge the ever-increasing divide, even faking if you have to, or risk getting pushed out. I've had mixed results saying up front that I'm autistic. Discrimination is a huge problem here.
One piece of advice I can definitely give is: Don't do any crazy stuff like bypassing access controls. That only works if you also have the panache to wow the person within 10 seconds of the intrusion.
Here's what happens to autistic people in general:
- They get ghosted a LOT because NT people generally don't know how to deal with them (and social training only goes so far).
- They get fired / laid off / pushed out / excluded a lot with no real reason given, and nobody will care if it's just/legal or not because "something about him is just ... wrong".
- They tend to have very small networks or none at all.
- The less "crazy" you behave, the worse it is because you fall into the uncanny valley. The more "crazy" you behave, the more tolerant people are of your quirks, but the less they take you seriously.
I was even ghosted by a 7-11 store when I applied as a clerk in my late teens, and wondered why the sign remained up for another month when he didn't even get back to me.
Computer jobs were easy for autistics in the old days because nobody expected much of you other than to get the thing working. Only managers and software architects needed people skills. That's no longer the case in the modern highschool-like software house. People are a LOT judgier and intolerant. You need to do whatever you can to bridge the ever-increasing divide, even faking if you have to, or risk getting pushed out. I've had mixed results saying up front that I'm autistic. Discrimination is a huge problem here.
One piece of advice I can definitely give is: Don't do any crazy stuff like bypassing access controls. That only works if you also have the panache to wow the person within 10 seconds of the intrusion.