I'm in my 30s and have been trying to find a steady job because my rent is ridiculous. But I'm wondering if my autism makes people discriminate against me, because it's not severe enough to be really obvious – so people often just think I'm a bit socially awkward and don't present as what they want a typical female to be.
I did a social work degree which typically involves doing TWO UNPAID PLACEMENTS for 6 MONTHS EACH. These placements are fake free labor camps where you don't learn a thing about social work; you just do filing and receptionist work for free. I ended up having to do FOUR placements!
I FAILED my first placement because I apparently didn't look cheerful enough to be doing filing for 6 months. My supervisor even lied and said I had made racist comments that I have never even thought about a particular race! And she made me whiteout my timesheets to say I had arrived 1 minute late. I found a document on her desktop where she had been keeping track of the very minute I walked in. 9am. 9.01. 9.03. Never noted when I was early though.
I nearly failed my second placement because I took too many toilet breaks and they just assumed I was on my phone. I was humiliated when they called an entire organisation meeting to confront me about it, and I had to publicly explain that I have bowel disease and need to shit constantly. Fun right? As punishment anyway, they tried to get me to do an extra month of free labor for them to “make up for lost time”!
I was assigned to a third placement, but the interviewer didn't think I was good enough to do free labor for them! She said that I didn't look cheerful enough and smiling at the interview. Even though I spent the whole interview saying I was excited for the damn placement! As punishment, she made me come in for A SECOND INTERVIEW for me to repeat the exact same questions, in a more fake smiley way!! Even after I started there, she kept having meetings with me saying I was too quiet and didn't smile enough on the job and I didn't look happy!
Then my fourth placement was a total rort. The boss just took on students so she would get paid by the uni, however we didn't do anything for her. She didn't actually have a business. It was a weird shell corp. But none of us wanted to speak out, because we desperately just wanted to finish the degree. In the end, she refused to sign off on my hours because she couldn't stand me. We were in a standoff for weeks; she had no reason to not sign me off; but she kept faking a bunch of meetings and punitively asking me to do some unrelated busy work for her shell company, or saying she was too busy. Plenty of time to hold two hour meetings with me about the signoff, yet no time to sign one piece of paper?
Anyway. I finally finished the degree. I decide to apply for a graduate social work job, like a paid internship thing. I needed a reference. The only placement that hadn't totally excommunicated me was the second one. But the supervisor said she wouldn't be a reference because it had been over a year since I'd been there….? How can I get a job within a year when I'm doing a FOUR YEAR DEGREE?
I had to use a teacher as a reference. Thankfully I got the internship. It involved rotating across 3 different departments. My first two bosses hated me. They had a meeting with me and said they wouldn't recommend me to be hired there. I asked for feedback, given I had completed every task they'd given me; and they literally said “there's just something about you, I don't quite know” e.g you're autistic and a bit awkward and you don't want to have lunch with the team I guess.
The 3rd boss there took pity on me. However, the first two bosses write a recommendation for me to not be hired at the end of the internship. They even faked a statement by my third boss on the document, saying that I was chronically late. I approached the third boss, who denied ever saying this, and that she said I was always on time. She kicked up a stink to get those statements removed from their lying document, and I couldn't believe the lengths those people went through to fuck me out of a job.
She ended up recommending me for the job, but it was two against one, so I couldn't be automatically considered. I interviewed externally for the role, with her reference.
The recruiters were aware of the situation and only offered me a 5 month contract in the future when a position opened up. After this, they lost my application and I had to interview again when I followed up a year later asking why I hadn't heard back from them!
So I was finally slotted into a role. This area is chronically understaffed and people leave all the time. I wanted to stay, so I thought it was guaranteed I'd be a permanent employee. My clients liked me, I was good at my job, and I got along well with the team.
No. They wouldn't renew my 5 month contract. They claimed there were budget cuts. There wasn't. HR confirmed this. They hired a dozen new staff the week I left.
My boss and team leader both offered to be a reference, but I found out their references were less than positive after I had kept being knocked back on my social work job interviews. I reapplied there, and HR told me my boss had said I “didn't get along with the team”, which was a total shock, because I actually objectively liked my team – I'm assuming I'm just a bit awkward and introverted and autistic?
I approached my boss, who denied saying that, and said she would happily glam up any future references. They both ended up giving me a positive reference for…. Get ready…. A shitty filing job where I'm just stuffing papers into boxes.
I can't stand this. I have a university degree. I don't want to be filing boxes for minimum wage. I secretly applied for another social work job, but my old boss said “I do not consent to being your referee any further”. No explanation why. And only a month after saying she would give me a glowing reference? Wtf?
I tried approaching the previous boss, who also refused because “I haven't worked with you in over a year”, like that changes the objective fact that I worked for her; also implying it's easy to immediately find a new job within a year; also implying it's easy to have MULTIPLE references that are required to apply for jobs, if you're gonna refuse to be one!
Anyway now I'm stuck. I have no references. All of the social work jobs I apply for are extremely strict and verify all my references through official email addresses, so I can't use a fake reference. I've tried to offer volunteer references and coworkers, but they just reject it – I've even been rejected from roles where I was the top candidate at the interview, just because I didn't have a previous boss as a reference. I also don't have any friends who are willing to be a fake reference.
Am I the most unlucky person in the reference game? I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I don't even want to stay at this filing job because I'm positive I'll just end up wasting my time there for another bad fucking reference. And my boss insists on having lunch with me every day, which is really draining – but I know when I start saying no, I'll come off as “not bubbly and social and feminine enough”.
Also, I have told every single one of these workplaces that I'm autistic and different. It has made no difference. And I've tried to prove discrimination, but nothing has come of it – because they just claim I “wasn't a good fit” and don't specifically reference the autism.
Any ideas what to do? I live in Australia. Would anyone be willing to be a fake reference? I'm losing my mind here. I can't understand why everyone hates me, even though I always do my job, and the feedback is always vague snipes at the fact that I'm autistic or don't want to have team lunches every day – something I can't fucking change and I shouldn't need to spend time with the boss on my fucking lunch break.