Showing posts with label Autobiography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Autobiography. Show all posts

Tuesday, 27 October 2020

My experience as a "Computer Analyst Programmer": hard labor for the brain

Note:found this as a draft: Only published it 25/11/2024 but the published on date is correct. Its' probably incomplete 


More jobs mostly for the boys?

We'll never know unless these companies give actual intersectional statistics in their Annual Reports
Havent seen too many jobs advertised for autistic women's traditional specialties... all forms of writing, quiet achievement, acute outsider observation of group dynamics.

i speak as someone who, it is true, penetrated the IT world, because I'm "brainy" but actually hated it to the point where I was mired in depression for over 20 years, in a succession of jobs that were both infinitely boring and required immense concentration. I often wondered if I wouldnt be better off in production line of Queensland"s Golden Circle Pineapply Factory, the traditional hell that wannabe Uni DropOuts like me were threatened with ending up in. True I'd be on my feet all day with red raw hands, unable to talk to anyone, and up to the ankles in acid pineapple juice, but at least my mind could be free. Writing Cobol programs was actually a production line for the brain. 

In my early day in IT, so early that I wrote programs on punched cards, i remember a major insurance company, whose entire renewals program was written in a couple of weeks at the most, a long messy snakelike thing that curled in on itself, hideous to maintain, and, total hell for me as the poor sod that had to maintain it.

Then came modularization, ... production line stuff ...security modules, I/O modules, snapped together like Lego blocks, yet months long projects to implement. Full of Classical male aspies (undiagnosed, of course, in those days, but the sources of much gossip, mockery, at best, kindly speculation about what childhood trauma caused their odd behaviour). Anecdotally, in pretty much the same proportion as AS in the general population. Aspie women, I dont remember, but it was one of the first professions, apart from Medicine and Dentistry in which women had an opportunity to earn good money beyond office work. Although we could be teachers and nurses etc of course. But good money? Some things still havent changed. Most of the women were NT, very bright, and generally team leaders, systems analysts, and socially adept, initially Anglo, then increasingly Asian as we became a more multicultural society. I was a fish out of water. My interests were socio-political, I was left-wing in world of mostly liberal voters who drove me crazy with their complacent WASPIsh attitudes. I was, however, popular at work. I have AS obsessive traits from my mother, easygoing NT and ADHD "lad" traits from my father. I knew how to shoot the breezewith the men with my "masculine" brain.

Meanwhile, my nights were hell. at night, insomnia, in anguish, terrified that I could not survive another day in an atmosphere devoid of stimulation, pretending to look busy hour after hour, when there was nothing to do, going to long lunches with a bunch of unconscious people who didnt even know they were so alienated at work that the whole industry was fuelled by alcohol(ism). While i endured, sober... well semi-sober...And yet, without any family support, financial or emotional, a total inability to "Sell myself", i was terrified of ending up on the streets, if I didnt. How i did survive is another story.
So, my mind wonders... i havent written a lot about myself, bu

Tuesday, 25 February 2020

Confession: My neurodivergent hyperfocus comes at a price

Surely, the most crazy-making double-bind question a job interviewer can throw at us, is “What is your greatest weakness?”.

It should be made illegal. After all, the law requires that even criminals caught in the act must be warned not to incriminate themselves.

Fortunately our intrepid employment agents have figured out the most effective retort...  “ Just tell them you're a perfectionist”.

I figured that one out for myself decades ago, simply because I am a perfectionist... once I stop procrastinating...

And perfectionism happens to be one of my greatest weaknesses

Perfectionism, hyperfocus, contrarianism, my superpowers, my flaws, the makers of my power and misery at the same time.

Current case in point: Luckily no one remembers anything on social media for more than 3 days. So no one is hanging by the fingernails waiting for my promised new binary coinages to lighten up the neurotypical vs neurodivergent debate, which I announced with great fanfare about 4 months ago. Ditto my rewrite of my “What is Neurodiversity” tab on this blog, designed to sort out the confusions, misunderstandings, misappropriations and pollyannisation of the concept,

Both these pieces were written in a week, but then I got it into my head that no one reads these days, so we need colorful infographics in bright kindergarten colours,  including a few intersecting circles, some umbrellas, a rainbow and no hints of jigsaws.  How hard can that be?

Several months later, it's still... “I’ll just try one more tweak, and then I’ll be done”. Minutes have  turned into hours, days, weeks, months... I have taught myself Photoshop, Powerpoint, Canva, and Pubisher in the process,  yet each tweak just creates an opening wedge for more tweaks...

And now the price: I've injured my back with all that sitting like a frozen statue in front of the screen.

I have ignored my stated priority of trying to earn some income, am stony broke, and cant afford the operation, were it not for, thank Science and Socialism, Australia's Medicare System/

I am tormented by Guilt and Remorse

And I still cant get those two intersecting circles to bloody well defringe

Anyway, as we used to say in IT, those promised articles are 98% complete... Watch this space, but first, I'm just going to try one more thing with those damn circles...