I think it’s funny how tired I am today, even though I didn’t overexert myself yesterday. The training didn’t require using any physical force but I was exposed to cold and noise for quite a few hours – I thought yesterday I could cope with it, but now the exhaustion is a result. Even the use of therapy lamp doesn’t touch it.

I said yesterday I would write today about a particular statement the guy who run the training made on the first day and I’d better do it, even though I am so tired that need to make an effort to think properly, but the thing is, if I just post today that I’m really tired (as I try to report on everything that is autism related and this is how being in a sensory challenging environment is affecting me) so I’d write about it in another post, readers could end up expecting it’s something very excited and I don’t think it is, although it’s still interesting to see how quickly my autistic brain can come up with inappropriate things to say, and not just one of them, but the entire set.

So basically, at the end of the day one our trainer said that for people who want to work hard it’s very easy to earn money in that company. He mentioned a guy, who’s Polish, like me, who has trained to drive every single piece of equipment so he’s on the highest warehouse pay rate, but doesn’t want to progress to management or anything. However, he does loads of overtime, works every single day a week and as a result takes home three grands a month.

As I said yesterday, I do hope that is exaggeration, but when the trainer said that, I didn’t see it like that at all, I took it absolutely literally and what came to my mind first was ‘Yes, Polish people often work long hours’ and then I immediately thought I can’t say that because it increases prejudice towards us. Yes, some Polish people work very long hours because they need to earn money quickly, but that doesn’t usually happen for long. As soon as they have money for deposit towards the house they remember they need better work-life balance, the same like everyone else. So stating that Polish people work long hours would not really be true but make us look like slaves, especially that the rest of the people on training and trainer himself, not being Polish, would think that I know more about Polish people than them.

The second thing that came to my mind was ‘I’m pretty sure working every day a week is illegal’. I don’t want to say that to the representative of my prospective employer, do I? I hope that is clear.

The third thing that came to my mind was ‘this money is not worth such a hard work’. That would show that I don’t respect another person’s circumstances, expecially another Polish – not good, is it? If that guy works that hard, possibly he really needs this money and I know nothing about his situation so it would be really rude to say that.

I managed to stop myself from saying every single one of that statements but it’s shocking how my brain can produce one inappropriate thing after the other, isn’t it? I wonder where this is coming from. Possibly from time when I was being prompted by people to ‘say something’ to show off confidence. Well, if anything, the above statements show off arrogance, not confidence. I wonder now, however, if I could be trained the same way to say something that would show off I can see another person perspective.

So far I haven’t been so I ended up just saying ‘oh’. Much better than stating anything of the above, and, does that imply I’m not confident? I don’t think so. I just had nothing to say, that’s two unrelated concepts!

Another funny situation was, when the trainer brought test books with him. He said they have two different test booklets and, raising one stated ‘this is test number two but today I’m going to give you test number three’. That’s strange, I thought, what about test number one? And anyway, if there was test number one, they’d have three different test booklets, not two, so that didn’t make any sense.

I was thinking about it for a bit and then, finally, decided to move on. I then came up with the idea that, possibly, that’s what I should be doing in any situation that doesn’t make sense to me, like sometimes when people are involved.

I don’t know if I mentioned here, but before I realised I’m autistic, I had this, very good coping strategy: if I don’t understand what someone means, I ignore them. It didn’t even come to my mind while speaking with such a person who I didn’t understand, that possibly he/she is deceitful or manipulative, I just ignored them. I’m now sure this way I saved myself a lot of drama.

Since realising I’m autistic I started getting involved in those little games, thinking that I either don’t get something due to my autism and need to give this person another chance or, possibly that there is something going on there and I may benefit from working it out. So far I didn’t.

The above is unfortunately experience of a lot of autistic females diagnosed as adults who either tried to work out other people hidden motives or learn how to make face expression suitable to the situation. I really would like someone to tell them this is not going to work or, possibly, can even put them in troubles.

What I did in the above situation, with two test booklets? Did I go after the trainer two hours later to ask him what he meant as, for a joke it was a bit too strange? No, I did not. I just moved on. Yes, I’m posting about it now as I think it illustrates a certain phenomenon but I wasn’t obsessively thinking about it.

Funny thing, it just came to me that possibly what happened was, the company used to have three test booklets and they later decided the first one was not up to standard so it has been removed but the second and third booklets numbers hasn’t been changed to avoid reprinting them and the trainer was just trying to be sarcastic about it?

It would be really silly if I followed him to ask what he had meant, wouldn’t you agree? If you don’t understand something, move on – that’s a good advice for an autistic person, I hope you can see that now.

I’m still exhausted, but at least I wrote a blog post, and ta da! it’s about communication!