I moved to Middleville with the hopes of getting on with my life and meeting people— to get away from the town that I call Smallville, a place that dispite all my attempts I do not fit in. It is not that I am so large that I can't fit in the town but rather that the ideas of the people in the town limit me and the chances of finding others like me is equally diminished. That was the problem. I like working where I worked, even if it was for only seven to eight months of the year.
So I moved.
I moved and went looking for a job and found a job working retail. Not a job for the faint of heart and apparently not a job for me. Not a job for most. You have to be on your toes and be very aware of every social implication with every customer.
What got me fired. It was a customer. It was a very busy day and we were implementing a new sales procedure company wide and there were problems, so the two most senior sales people were unavailable. The store I was working in had sales quotas for each employee but had each employee insist to customers that there was no quota, because we were no pressure sales technique. But we weren't. There was no commission for me until I hit $18k sales for any month, before taxes, but at the same time there was pressure that I get close to that every month. I did not care about quota, I had decided that the entire point of the quota was to push you into making more sales, but if you served a customer that dealt with another sales associate before, they were the previous sales person's customer. So as the new person on the floor, I knew that three out of four customers were other people's sales even if I helped them and sold them the entire store, I would get nothing. Great system, it is like a pyramid scheme, the people there the longest have more customers and have to work less to make a quota that does not actually exist, except it does.
So when a customer asks for your name, your response is to tell them we don't have commission, even though we do, and so names do not mean anything. If they ask again, you are thinking that they want to make sure you get credit and you comply, secretly happy because it might actually mean you might make quota this month. That day I had worked hard, the two senior sales people working on equipment malfunctions and Sunday being a very busy day, this one more than usual. I had just spent an hour and a half with two customers being the respectful and honest no pressure sales person that I was supposed to be and told them not to make a purchase unless they were really sure and their partners were on side, which theoretically makes them believe that you want what is best for them, which since I was not likely to meet quota ever, I took solace in. Then a couple came in with two children in tow. They had just purchased a large monster house with rooms that had odd dimensions and they were looking for ideas and options.
I had been working there for a full month then and I was starting to understand what we had in our store and what we offered but was not present. A store three times the size could not contain everything that we offered, ten times the size maybe. The customer came in and liked what we had and after a half an hour looked like she was going to want to purchase about ten thousand dollars worth of product. It also seemed like she did not know the true dimensions of her house. I did what I could do for her, used all the start ages that I had been learning, I offered her a complimentary measuring tape to measure out her home and because her children were becoming restless and need something to do. She cut her eyes at me and told me that she had a tape measure at home and did not need one. Her husband came up about a minute later and saw the tape measures and exclaimed in delight that they were free and took one, rewarding me with another cutting glare from his wife. I wrote them off as a non sale and allowed them to shop quietly on their own. A few minutes later she came up to me and asked me my name, saying that I was very helpful and wanted to make sure I got recognition. I gave her my thanks, but it was not necessary, as we receive no commission. She insisted and I complied.
The next day I was off and I got an email from the jobs board that I subscribed to that told me my company was again looking for me sales people. I came into work and I was informed that I was fired. Apparently, a woman went into another store and told them that I had intimidated her and upper management fired me on the spot. No recourse.
Such is retail life I am told. The entire structure of policy of the store is such that they will do anything to any customer as long as they don't complain, but will do everything in to not get a complaint after it has been issued. Ass backwards if you ask me. Get the best employees with the most experience treat them right and treat them fairly and you will have a stronger store and business.
The problem was that I had not seen it coming, except in retrospect and what I saw told me that there was a lot more that I did not see as well. Autism is funny. You don't necessarily understand all the body language that you are seeing and context does not help unless you understand the context, which requires an deep understanding of body language. The sales associate that seemed to be avoiding me and did not talk to me for a week prior, who was also not scheduled to work with me for that week too; was she avoiding me, was the pretext for my dismissal a lie, was it her? I asked the manager, after he told me I was fired, but he insisted that it was the reason given, but then if it wasn't would he have said anything different to avoid a scene?
You see not understanding body language and knowing that I did not understand body language, turned me around and around. There was tension at home too. I moved here because they asked me to, three times. I made sure they understood that. I love my friends, I love their children, I did not move because they suggested it, it was no light commitment and I wanted to be sure. I had been drifting. I drifted without direction, not because I wanted to drift but because I was waiting. Waiting for one or two things to happen. I did not see a point, to life. I want to see a point, but experience had showed me there was no happiness for me in life. I strive to prove myself wrong, but I continually fail to prove my assumptions. I am waiting for the ones I love to die, so I won't hurt them when I die. Until that time I seek to prove that I am wrong and I don't want to die. So I drift.
My friends think I have no direction and that I need direction. I have a direction, just not one that they approve of, that they can see. They tell me I am focussing on the wrong things. That if I want a girlfriend, I need to focus on gaining wealth. For my friend that was his route, he got the woman who thought that was the thing that she wanted too. So for them that was their route. I don't want to be wealthy, I just want to be happy. For me happiness and wealth is not the same and any woman that wanted me for wealth that I had accumulated would not be a woman that I would be happy with. They do not understand that because that is all they know. They are materialists and I am not materialist at all.
So I was not achieving ground in a goal that they thought I would want if I were them and it was creating conflict with them and me, that I was feeling but interpreting as something else. I was considering moving back to Smallville, so that I did not destroy my friendships that I treasure. My old boss did not know that I had moved and was expecting that I was still at his beck and call. I could have moved back and he would never have known. Instead, I decided to pursue the goals that my friend's thought that I wanted. They think that I want to be a teacher. I do, but they don't know that it will not happen. They don't understand why and I don't want to tell them why.
I went to Teacher's College before I knew I had Autism. I was in school when I began to realize it. Being a teacher is all about classroom management and about teaching second; you can't do one without the other. Classroom management requires an in-depth understanding of non-verbal language and Autistic people are deaf and blind to non-verbal communication. When I was doing my practicum, teaching element of school, I was struggling with this realization and it was affecting my performance. If I had been oblivious, I would have failed equally, but not known why. The teacher that was marking me, did not know this, and would not care. I was acceptable as a teacher, but not very good. This review will impede any chance I have of becoming a teacher, unless they are desperate need of teachers, and they have been graduating three times the number of teachers that are needed. How do I tell my friends that as soon as they see this review any application I make will be dismissed?
So I pretend, that I am working my way to become a teacher. If I did. Get accepted, I would be a great teacher. I have been think of teaching techniques and ways to overcome my autism for nearly a decade and I have been thinking up strategies to get children to learn better and make school exciting, but the truth is they, employers, can't know that, but they can see the bad review. I signed up to learn an Additional Basic Qualification that would make me a Science Teacher as well as a Geography Teacher, next I could get the qualification to be a History Teacher, but that wont stop me from ever succeeding. I will be an overqualified teacher who can't teach, according to prospective employers.
My parents are another story. My dad called to tell me that I should have tried harder to fit in in Smallville where he lives. I should have got my D license to drive dump trucks and with my university degree I would then have the advantage over the high-school drop outs that are getting those jobs. Really? Smallville was all about who you know and not what you knew. Moreover, if I had the D license, they would see the university degree and conclude that I would be gone if a better opportunity arose. They would see the Teaching Qualifications, but not see the review that would disqualify me at the same time. My father went on and on and I hung up. I waited and after a moment I called him back to see if he was done running me down. He said he was done, and then changed his mind and I hung up again. My friends saw this as me taking another step to take control of my life and they approved, but did not see the futility.
You see the depression is strong in me. It is not a chemical imbalance, it is reality. When I am teaching and working with children, I am happy. When I am in love with someone who professes their love for me, I am happy and nothing else matters. If either or both were in my life I would not see death as my necessary end. With teaching gone, I seek love. I came to Middleville because I love my friends and I love their children. When I am around their children I don't see a bad personal end.
I was informed that nothing lasts forever. They invited me to stay with them and they did not mention an end. One thought I could be there for two years, the other thought I would be there six months. I thought they were inviting me to stay. I stayed quiet about what I think or thought— six months of potential happiness at times is better than the greater depression in Smallville. When I do these useless things, it is placate my friend, to make her believe that I am heading to a goal she thinks that will improve my life, because I love her children and I am happy around them. And me making headway in her goals for me keeps her happy. Her happy means that I am happy.
Except for that, I may have made another mistake. It feels like EVERY-TIME I make a decision, it is the wrong one, in retrospect. Go to teacher's college or complete my Educational Assistant time (I had them more months to go to complete my twenty-four). Leave Smallville and head back to Big Smoke. Not heed the call to Fuck MPTR, when she asked me too. Head back to Smallville to follow love. I feel that when ever I make an important decision I should think long and hard and clinically about each choice, decide and then do the opposite.
April 4th
I have a new job, landscaping. I have a 26km round trip commute everyday at a time when transit does not run and to a place where there is no transit. Every morning I wake at 4:30 to be there at 6am. I was told that it would be a 7am start, but that changed. 7am would mean I could take transit half way if I had to. Last day I woke up and found I had a flat in my bike tire and had to take my alternate. The alternate I found out was damaged too but I made it there. With two minutes to spare. The work is physically demanding and I am old. I feel it and I tell people, warn them that they have to take care or they won't have much of a body when they get to my age, but I have to push myself because I have to keep up with them. The last day I worked, we were pushin bricks up a hill in a wheelbarrows and the foreman mistook how I placed my bricks in the wheelbarrow for doing less work. At the end of the day he commented that I had come down for another nine bricks, while the others were taking more than me. I looked at him and showed him that I was taking sixteen bricks each time. I stacked them wisely over the wheel, made the work easier on me and more gently on my body. The younger people stacked them over the whole surface, their loads looked bigger, but they had to exert themselves to lift the barrow, and I did not. I had to push hard going up the hills but the younger people had to push twice as hard for the same amount of work. But this job is about perceptions, all work is. In his mind I was doing less work and he had thought I was lazier than the rest for a long time. Damage done.
I am working, but because I am leaving while everyone is asleep I have to be extra quiet in the mornings, the slightest noises wake them up and that makes them unhappy. They sleep with their doors open and the open concept of the house exaggerates sound. I know, because I hear everything in the house when I am trying to sleep. I am wrong they are right. I am just a guest in their house, I will ask to leave if I don't comply. I know this, so I comply. I showed their four year old daughter how to vacuum yesterday. Her laughs so infectious. Her brother was out playing with his friends and she wanted to play. She like all children like getting vacuumed. So I vacuumed her. Giggles and laughter. She wanted to do the vacuuming. It took three times as long, but I showed her how and stood over her while she did it. She wanted to vacuum her room. I told her she had to pick up everything off her floor or it would be gone forever. She complied, something her parents wanted her to do for weeks and she vacuumed her room, once herself and once with me, because she is four. She had a lot of fun and I was very happy.
So happy that I have changed my plans for today, I was going to engage in some self destructive activities to seek the happiness I feel I never have, that I never get from those activities, but always promises will be there. So I will just do the other stuff, do tasks that need being done and buy food that I don't really need to eat, because it too promises happiness that it never for-fills, but is cheaper than the other.
