Life in the Comfort Zone
A common theme among the ‘advice’ I have been offered with respect to employment over the years is that the problem of unemployment is caused by the existence of the unemployed. The unemployed are without a job not because of a lack of jobs but because of a lack of compromise, will, attitude, character, and commitment on their part. I was told this by my careers adviser at the age of fifteen as I prepared to leave school. In my mid-forties, seeking teaching hours to finalise the MA Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, I was told that the unemployed needed to put aside their qualifications, lower their expectations, and take whatever work was available. Which was a big help. Far from helping me find teaching hours, the agency did everything they could to steer me away. I noted a pattern in all this ‘advice’ over the years – an automatic naysaying of every goal and ambition you had. Whatever it was that you, the unemployed, had in mind, it was by definition wrong, on account of the fact that you were unemployed. The lesson delivered was simply this: you are a beggar and beggars can’t be chooses.
One phrase that cropped up on more than a few occasions was that the unemployed tend to take refuge in their own ‘comfort zones.’ Whatever it was that the unemployed wanted, had done in the past, had trained and qualified in, it was all thrown to one side. You were being stripped of your identity and made to know that you were of no account. There was never, ever, any attempt to take my own ideas and ambitions seriously, no matter the extent to which I had backed them up with high achievement. I told one adviser that if she thought I was living in a ‘comfort zone,’ then she should see if she had what it took in terms of time, effort, and talent to attain that level. The words of a colleague continue to amuse me a decade on. She was asked by this ‘advisor’ what her ambitions were. ‘I’ve achieved all my ambitions,’ she replied, ‘what are yours.’ This colleague had had a successful career in banking and finance in the City and was rather cruelly making the point that an employment ‘advisor’ haranguing rather than helping the unemployed was hardly occupying the elevated heights of achievement. To be fair, said advisor knew this, confiding in me that if she could get a job doing something else somewhere else, she would take it in an instance.
So let’s be clear, people are occupying a function and performing a role within ‘the system.’ The individual standing for personal integrity, conscience, and freedom against ‘the system’ is a perennial theme in history. In the short run, ‘the system’ and its servants tend to win, with the effects of personal stands percolating outwards only in the long run, usually long after the miserable demise of the rebel standing up for authenticity.
In 2010, I dealt with a group of high achieving and/or highly qualified long term unemployed. They were told, effectively, that they were unmotivated and stuck, seeking refuge in their comfort zones and refusing to come out and turn their hand to something new. They were being stripped down to size in order to have to make the attempt to rebuild from scratch. They took the approach, rightly, as an assault on their lives, history, and interests. Bear in mind that we are talking about people who had been project managers, engineers, teachers, people who had earned good money in Saudi, the odd computer programmer, mathematician, biochemist. They really needed to build on where they already were, their experience, and their achievements. Instead, they were effectively being labelled ‘failures’ in order to induce them to start again from scratch. They were told ‘to clean toilets if need be.’ They were the new Untouchables and they knew it and resented it. This was precisely the way to demotivate people who were already down.
A4E was a political disgrace, a waste of people’s time and energy as well as of taxpayers’ money. But the views I heard expressed there were views I have heard expressed many times before and since. Basically, it’s approach entailed pushing people into whatever jobs were available, regardless of their interests and qualifications, and being paid by government (taxpayers) in the process.
It was bad, it was miserable, it was hopeless, it was useless and beside the point. It was a
cashing in on need and distress.
I want you now to imagine the situation of autistic people, most of whom are outside of paid employment and, seemingly, consigned to a lifetime of unemployment. That’s not merely bad, it is the abomination of desolation. I don’t need to be told that people with a disability can work: WE KNOW! Work is the very thing people are after, so long as it takes note of people’s needs and requirements. My alarm bells ring as soon as I see the speed with which people claim that disability is used as an excuse not to work – because everyone can work. The haste of judgement here gives the game away – there is zero concern with disability. It took me until well into my fifties before seeking help and advice with respect to my ongoing struggles with life and work. Even after the doctor’s suggestion of autism and Aspergers, it took me more than six months to ask for a referral. And even now, over a year on, with problems mounting rather than being resolved, I haven’t pursued the possibility of disability. I make this point to underline the speed with which those concerned with employment issues are not merely reluctant to consider the possibility of disability but positively hostile towards the idea. To be told that disability is used as an excuse not to work is revealing. Of course most everyone can work. But that possibility also depends on knowing people and adjusting to their needs and abilities. The attitude of employment agencies and advisers seems to be that the world of work is unchanging and unaccommodating and that you are not entitled to ask for special adaptations, however reasonable (and legal). And seeking disability is an excuse. I turned the clock back a couple of years there and imagined this conversation taking place with respect to the diagnosis of autism. I was being told, effectively, that there was no point to seeking referral and obtaining diagnosis, because it changes nothing, employers don’t care, and it’s an option taken by those seeking to avoid work. I’ve heard it more than a few times that ASC or Aspergers’ is the new ME in being a slackers’ excuse to avoid work.
What the Hell. I would accuse such people of ignorance, but the callous attitude goes deeper in being uncaring and wilfully uncomprehending. Do people really think that nearly 80% of autistic people are outside of paid employment of any kind through sheer lack of will? Laziness?
Of course, it makes life easier for employment agencies and advisors to believe this. It is easier to work on the needy, the poor, and the vulnerable than it is to try to change structures and institutions in business and society. But it won’t work and cost a lot of money and cause a lot of misery in the process. That’s not a prediction, that’s recent history. And I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone involved knows this and continue to go down this route because it is easier. There’s the famous story of the person who has lost their keys outdoors and is seen walking round and round in circles under the lamppost. ‘Is this where you last had the keys?’ they are asked. ‘No,’ they replied. ‘Then why are you searching here?’ comes the question back. ‘Because it is easier to look here.’
It’s not the unemployed, notthe disabled, and not the autistic who are living in the comfort zone, it’s the authorities and experts who prefer to ‘nudge’ the weak and the vulnerable in need of help to actually changing anything in the social world.
To put the point bluntly, autistic people are not lazy, demotivated, and stuck. If they seem to lack will, seem to be ‘awkward’ and ‘difficult,’ seem to be living in a world of their own, this is because they are exhausted after having spent a lifetime living their lives in survival mode.
The safe spaces and places that the vulnerable manage to put together to stabilize their existence is a huge creative endeavour and achievement. To dismiss this as living in a ‘comfort zone’ and seek its destruction to force people out onto ‘the market’ risks serious social and mental harm. I have seen enough to be able to consider the ‘nudgers’ at work at various levels to be serious socio-paths. They pay zero attention to the needs that vulnerable people have. To have disability traduced as an ‘excuse not to work’ betrays a lack of concern with the underlying problem which guarantees its continuation. Here we are – just 22% of autistic people are in paid employment of any kind. That’s on ‘the system’ and its servants. That’s on you! Own it. Change your ways. Listen to the advice of the people who know about autism and take heed. We may then, possibly, at last, start to make changes for the better, with a little mutual accommodation and adjustment, a little negotiation on either side.
Autistic people are not lazy and are not in a comfort zone. Certainly, they seek to stabilize their existence and seek refuge and sanity in a safe space. That is essential for mental health and social survival, since living without internal filters, editors, and brakes is exhausting. Remove that space without putting stabilizers in place is not merely destructive and dangerous, it is cruel and inhumane. The defence that people don’t know what they are doing doesn’t work – those people are being told, loudly and clearly, and are refusing to listen. Life is tough and the weak go to the wall. There is a Social Darwinism stalking modern thinking. But I guess, as ecologists continue to tell us, there are too many people on the planet.
It’s that kind of thinking that is an excuse – an excuse for bad politics and lazy politicians and unmotivated place-sitters.
These are the people who lean on you to make all the changes, personally, that they rule out socially, institutionally, and structurally.
