Is it a society/systemic problem or an individual’s problem?

[AlertCat]

Just heard on R4 about the problems facing (particularly) young people with neurodivergence in finding work, and I completely agree. But then the young man who was speaking went on to say that he had been pushed by the job centre towards working for MacDonalds or somewhere like that, and he said ‘nobody wants to work just to earn money. We want to do something we’re passionate about.’ And went on to say that he would like to sail, and he wanted the training and qualifications to be offered so that he could follow his dream.

AIBU to think that the second part of this is nothing to do with being ND, is a problem faced by all of us, and that all young people (ND and NT) really need to take work that they can get and can do, just like anyone else has to, while maybe working towards something they would prefer? Albeit with the support they need around their neurodivergence to do this.

Obviously in an ideal world we’d all have access to unlimited training and learning opportunities, but we don’t. Very few people are lucky enough to follow their passion.

YABU- ND young (and older) people should get more support to find work they’re passionate about, and not be forced into jobs they don’t want to do.

YANBU- this isn’t an issue of being ND, it’s a societal problem/a fact of life that just has to be accepted or worked around.

There are few pathways for bright ND youngsters( even those with EHCPs)endlessly waiting for mental health treatment, missing so much school.

I heard the piece and had similar thoughts, although more about how we are misleading our young people if we tell them that they should expect to have a job in an area they feel passionate about.

Why lie? The vast majority of people do not work in their area of passion, they work to earn money to pay bills. We shouldn’t be pretending that “sailing” or similar passions are a career option open to any but the lucky few (there was a later piece about an inner city teen who had been given amazing opportunities in sailing, but one of the struggles was funding/living costs).

I’d have loved to be a dancer but I have no natural talent for it and am not the right personality to put up with constant rejection and the harshness of the industry. This is often the problem too. I can’t blame society for that. YANBU OP. People getting jobs they are passionate about is down to a combination of determination and natural talent and the right personality for that sector.

This has very little to do with why ND young people aren’t in work.

Only 29% of autistic people are in full time work. Many of the 71% out of work could work and most likely want to but have so many barriers preventing them from doing so. Some profoundly affected individuals obviously cannot work and never will.

Most working environments are set up for neurotypical people and actively work against autistic people. There is huge resistance to doing things differently or even just trying different things. It is incredibly difficult. There’s still a huge lack of awareness and understanding around autism out there and it permeates every single corner of society.

There should be more support and flexibility given to autistic employees to enable them to work in the first place but also to harness and play to their strengths. In the right environment, with the right support, many autistic people will absolutely thrive and reward employers with loyalty and high levels of productivity.

YANBU at all. “You can be anything you want to be” is a nice but unhelpful thing to tell children and can lead to this sort of outcome. Most jobs have good and bad bits, most people don’t get to be too picky.

It's a really tricky area because I think this comes down to the accommodations that should be made for individuals. Where is the line and when does it become unrealistic?

Most of us (NT or ND) would like an interesting and fulfilling job that plays to our strengths and interests? Current stats on job satisfaction would suggest that very few of us have one. The reality is that most jobs are mundane, difficult and stressful. Everyone needs to be realistic that this is what your career will be most likely be like too. It is not a reasonable adjustment to expect society to allocate all the exciting, interesting jobs to ND people whilst everyone else has to do all the other jobs. I think managing expectations with all young people about what careers and working life is actually like would probably save a lot of disappointment.

I work with a lot of young people (MH) and have had a few who are employed at McD. While I hate their food, all my clients have told me that it is a really understanding and supportive place to work. They seem to be very good with ND people.

Most working environments are set up for neurotypical people and actively work against autistic people. There is huge resistance to doing things differently or even just trying different things. It is incredibly difficult. There’s still a huge lack of awareness and understanding around autism out there and it permeates every single corner of society.

I don’t disagree with this at all. I was asking more about the interviewee who thought that funding should be available for him to learn to sail so that he could follow his passion. I’m just not sure it’s reasonable to ask for assistance into areas of work that are popular and challenging- he said sailing, but other people might wish to work in policy development, the music industry, as make-up artists etc because that’s their passion, but they can’t all do that obviously, and where is it reasonable to put the line? Surely the reasonable adjustments should be around the specific issues an individual has to access any suitable employment- meaning a job they can do, whatever it is.

I think people (everyone - not specifically ND people) need a huge amount of drive to get into 'dream careers'. There's definitely too much guff talked at school about following your dreams and 'you can do anything if you want if enough'. Hmmm. Not really.

When I was teaching and trying to urge some of the cheekier, unmotivated boys to put some work in so that they could pass their GCSEs, some of them would tell me they didn't need to because they were going to be footballers. I'm afraid I was a bit of a cow and replied 'Oh - which junior team are you signed to?'. The dopey twits didn't realise that, if you're going to be a professional footballer, you've probably been talent spotted by top primary school.

So many aspects of modern life have put children off everyday jobs - the influence of social media and the horrors of celebrity culture mean that they look down on good careers which actually pay pretty well! Let's face it - copmpetent tradesmen make a very good living indeed.

I think though there has always been specialisms that attract neuro untypical people. I don't want to stereotype people but I've worked with or met quite a lot of tech bros, data specialists, scientists, academics, economists and accountants who were clearly on the spectrum.

As someone who works in horticulture and gardening why on earth is that the go to suggestion here?

I'm not saying it's not a viable option for someone ND; but why is everyone saying it?

Its one of 3 options my LA offers for SEN post 16 'pathway' so you will have to ask them why it's to go to job. I'd love to know what the process was for these specific pathways.

I can only assume people think if you like sailing, you are happy out in all weather's and there are more opportunities in horticulture than sailing?

I’m in the process of qualifying for a not particularly well paid but highly skilled job that I am passionate about. I’ve done shit jobs in the past- I’m quite an anxious person and I spent my days off fretting about my working days. I think if you are someone who can easily separate work and leisure time, doing a job that you are not interested in or even hate, purely for the money, is fine (my DB is like this). Whatever my job, work always becomes my life, so it’s important to me that I enjoy it.

Anyway, I don’t think most young people do multiple degrees to “find their passion”. I think they usually already have a passion/something they know they could be passionate about, and then pursue it, which is slightly different IMO. There are exceptions of course- presumably those people are massively loaded.

My experience is that it's a case of accepting any organisations who are willing to take SEN young people. Often that's more the hands on/physical work type of companies.

The pathway my DS has been on it's been up to the course co-ordinators to scrabble around trying to find placements, a number of which end up falling through. If they do happen it often ends up poorly planned, the start date being much later than it should have been and the hours offered not what was agreed.

It's a bit of mess really despite the college trying their best for the young people and difficult to navigate for a demographic of people who really need clear instruction and consistency but rarely get that.

That makes sense. We have the LA itself maintaining gardens, plus a famous rhs garden, and several national trust gardens locally, so I can imagine they would be open to supporting this type of thing more than other employer.

I know McDonald's also has an excellent reputation for supporting ND and several cafes rin by charities.

The problem with most min wage jobs is that they tend customer facing, fast paced roles, which is generally a nightmare for someone ND. If you’re making burgers all day in maccy’s it’s got to be loud, fast paced and orders are flying in from here there and everywhere, which again could be an ND persons worst nightmare. It can also take ND people much longer to settle into a role and become good at it, longer than typical, and many employers are not that patient. The only other option is for them to become qualified (and good) at something they are actually passionate about. Therein lies the challenge. No the gov shouldn’t fund someone who’s ND something that they would need to fund themselves, ie learning to sail. They would ironically need to get that job making burger in order to save up for it!

Great thread!

I'm with the peeps who say following your passion isn't enough, ND or NT. When I left school, I went to art college to become an artist. (Specifically a pale, poetic, Pre-Raphaelite artist.) Guess what - that's not how I earned my living for the next 30 years. (It was IT.)

Here's an article that expresses it better it than I can: calnewport.com/on-passion-and-its-discontents/

The public and charity sector does account for most of the placements. Occasionally you can get public sector office based placements too but sitting at a desk wouldn't suit DS so we've not pursued those.

I'll add McDonalds to my list of potential future employment. Aldi claims to be ND friendly but I don't know if that's true in practice.

They were awful with my son, the environment is horrendous for neurodiversity on a sensory, social and anxiety level and given their sexual harassment history is not a place I’d want any of my ND young people working in again.

Okay maybe I won't add it then!

The reason I ask is because we have a real problem in horticulture that our wages are supressed by volunteer workers, those training, and charitable opportunities ‘ie. Sen, nd, outreach - you name it’.

Whilst horticultural therapy is great for many people and good for them; we have this as a real problem within the industry.

And it’s a win win for these organisations. Man power at no wages or minimal. Plus they can tick some boxes and say look at us - look how good we are.

But for the industry it’s nothing short of a disaster. We need knowledgable and competent professional people to be able to earn good wages to upkeep our environment. There’s loads of money spent on schemes in public sector to improve people’s lives, environment etc and then they go to shit because there’s not enough skilled professionals to maintain.

DS can be quite sociable, more than people typically imagine for someone with ASD. So I don't think he especially minds working with people, what he finds most difficult is processing information and sudden change.

So he might be okay at somewhere like McDonalds if he had one job e.g cooking the fries, was given an adequate amount of training to be good at that one job then not suddenly be asked to switch mid shift to cooking burgers or another task he wasn't familiar with.

Nobody like working at McDonald's. I enjoyed working at McDonald's. That must make me neuro-divergent. 😀

I wasn’t making a blanket statement as in all ND people would struggle with a job at McDonald’s for example, but more citing the challenges that often crop up. In my years working in retail I worked with some autistic people and there were some obvious struggles, mainly to do with customer facing back and forth interactions. In such a fast paced environment it’s also very much down to having a very understanding employer, and again you’re unlikely to get managers with experience of how to meet the needs of ND employees. Putting someone on making fries on paper sounds doable, but unexpected things crop up in even the simplest tasks. I hate to sound negative about these things, but that’s just coming from my own working experience. I have an autistic son who I have no idea about his working potential but it does worry me how brutal it is out there even for NT people.