You know one piece of advice that pisses me off? “Don't tell your potential employer you're autistic”. Maybe that works for some…for me? I'd be extra fucked if I hadn't informed them up front on the application.
I need accomodation. Not much, but some forgiveness and patience.
THis job if I got it, I'd be making probably 6 figures. I'm an autistic truck driver.
I've had no accidents and no tickets. I'm 3 years deep (technically 4 but I've been having a hard time finding a decent employer).
My autism, has caused me tons of hardship in life. I've very guarded ALL OF THE TIME, especially around people I don't know…because a consistent trend is, I don't blend in with the herd, someone more or less figures out I'm autistic, and gets some sick twisted sense of “satisfaction/justice” after laying a massive knife in my back. Over and over and over.
So I'm always a bit guarded, quiet, a wallflower, that alone can make me stick out. If the conversation is light talk about weahter/sports or growing up in a weird region (deep south or Texas for example) I might not partake in the conversation that well. TImes I tried, I've had knives basically laid in my back for trying to be part of the group, I don''t fit in.
Anyways, so I turned down a $32 an hour job, for this company''s orientation. I get there, and this old lady trucker runs the orientation, she's one of those oldskool hardasses. I compare her a bit to Gunnery-Sergeant Hartmann from Full Metal Jacket. I need a private joker to guide me through this. I've had past people in the trucking industry, who were profoundly more accommodating, patient.
She was colder to me than the other 4 truckers. ANd we're set to do the road test. And for one, she gets upset, if i ask for more clarification on the directions. Like she's leaning towards failing me for that alone. She's irate. An atmosphere of hostility. She was nothing but hostile leading up to it.
I been trucking for 3 years, but when you nitpick and have ultimate sway of whether I'm employed or not and look anxious to knife me in the back, it fucks with my psyche, AND YES, my driving. And one small error, leads to more compounding errors in that atmosphere.
SO i figure out, don't ask her to reiterate directions. ANd she says “Make a left on center road”….Ok. She doesn't even tell me where it is or how far away…is 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile, 1 mile? I don't know. I start reading road signs…and then a stale green TURNS YELLOW. I have twe options…SLAM THE BRAKES or RUN THE RED. Neither one looks good. Ultimately I slam the brakes and am out into the intersection.
Later on she takes me down to a rail road crossing, the train is in front of the trucks for a full 40 minutes, before we decide to leave. It's at the bottom of a STEEP HILL, 10 degree incline, it is in fact very steep.
She lives in this town, she's ran this route 500+ times. Ive ran it less than once. BTW, they've recently torn up a lot of the roads for contruuction AND its now 3pm and everyone is being let out from their jobs. SO all this shit is going on, and I'm driving a truck I've never driven before. I get to this stop sign up a 10 degree incline, come to a complete stop, as I start to roll forward (you have to floor it to make it happen), she points out on the left there''s no stop sign, it's like I ran it. She is making me so god damn nervous. SHe nitpicks early use of my left turn signal. One moment, due to rush hour traffic, I sit at a stop sign for a full 10 minutes…just waiting for a break in the traffic to make my right.
Ive driven a couple hundred thousand miles in an 18 wheeler with no accidents and no tickets, no major incidents. I told her “Look, i muss things up sometimes, I'm autistic, I need some accomodation”.
And she harshly replied “Well I don't think autistic people SHOULD EVEN BE ALLOWED TO DRIVE”. The fuck??? In our society, you can't drive, you can't get a job, it's effectively arguing I should starve. I love driving, I drive 18 wheelers for a career, and the two cars I own right now are a 94 MR2 GT-S and a 02 Miata SE…that's all the evidence you need that driving has been nothing but my passion in life (As regular car reviews will tell you, if you don't like MR2's, you don't like driving).
That is CRUEL. I drive fine, but a toxic person against me even before I got in the cab can hurt even me as a professional driver and my abilities. No I'm not perfect and yes I need some patience. I don't need a cranky hardass woman who is hostile and rude. She's the face of this company and it doesn't look good.
My driving didn't look good, but I know for a fact I can handle an 18 wheeler. My codriver told me, he doesn't trust anyone BUT me when it comes to driving the 18 wheeler while he sleeps. His life is in my hands, and that's about as strong of an endorsement as one can give me as a truck driver.
I requested a retest, other drivers had gotten them when they flubbed it. She and her superior both denied it, she seemed overly prejudiced and hostile, every interaction I had with her. They sent me back…they got me a THIRTY HOUR busride home, and promptly moved to remove me from their hotel. I uultimately wound up buying an airplane ticket, 30 hour bus rides are cruel. And to think she had this smile on her face…like it was a sense off justice for her I would never work for that company.
Oh by the way, they proudly have an “Autism Awareness” puzzle piece truck as part of their fleet.
I'm the son of an EEOC arbitrator. This lady for me made a hostile atmosphere that ruined my ability to drive or do that test, and she admitted she was hostile against autistic people at the outset. ANd to say that to an autistic truck driver…lady I have had AN EXTREMELY HARD LIFE DUE TO AUTISM, BUT it has never affected my ability to drive any form of vehicle safely. And the other trucker in the truck with me, he confided in me, he thought she was totally out of line, he said the test was needlessly difficult and I just deserved simply a retest, with a different tester.
Frankly, she couldn't have picked a WORSE target to say that to, I've already had a very hard life due to autism to start with that would make me skiddish and nervous around her kind at the outset, so I don't even think it's a fair test to my abilities. PLUS My dad was a GS13 in the Federal Government and would come home, we'd be eating dinner as a family “Oh yea..today i found discrimination in the workplace, I green lighted a lawsuit to happen against thus and so's employer after her boss said this