My autistic boyfriend (32) works 60+ hours a week in construction and might pull 700-800 after taxes. I make more doing Uber Eats, and he’s been with them for years. Hard, tiring labor. He just got a raise of a whopping 2 dollars last month after two years, and now his boomer boss is constantly threatening to fire him. He’s extremely anxious about losing his job at any given day. He’s being taken completely mentally advantage of by his boss and coworkers. He’s terrified of losing his job because he was charged as an adult for a life long felony at 17 years old and won’t apply to companies who do a background check.
He is brilliant. While working he used his AirPods for the longest time to listen to audible. He has a visual processing disorder so he’s been using that since Audible came out before Amazon bought it out. 1000’s of books. It’s one of those staples in his life that mentally stimulates him. He can’t go a day without it. His boss told him it looks bad to the supervisor, so he instead uses Bluetooth ear buds designed to look like PPE. He doesn’t tell anyone he’s autistic, and even if he did, people are still completed uneducated. There is also no HR, and if he said anything, he’d get fired. He cannot read social cues, which at times can make people feel uncomfortable. You have to be direct with him, and he will follow instructions perfectly if he’s given a list. He’s always taking this abuse and blaming himself, when really his boss’s only way of communicating with him is “do this or get fired”.
So much talent and brilliance is being wasted because he thinks he can’t do anything other than what he’s doing because of his felony charge.
And here we are in this god awful system. He’s the last thing from lazy. He also needs a consistent routine. Are there any fucking places at ALL that don’t require a background check that pays money?
I’m beginning to believe that the system is permanently fucked. That, or at least until boomers and the old greedy politicians they elect retire after they bankrupted their own social security. They’re getting to their 70’s. When will they fuck off already?
Please – any advice is helpful. I get so sad when he says “it’s only this unless we win the lottery.