Is this an autism thing?

[Stuttermabolur]

A good metaphor would be when I worked on a line in a factory. Most people hated the repetition, but it was great for me. I had a model in my head of the order of things, it felt effortless to keep track of things.

I agree with you here. I used to work in a warehouse, and it was honestly the best job I've ever had. I knew exactly what was expected of me and did the same thing day after day, but I thought it was great. I got all my orders from a machine, I could just listen to podcasts or music all day, and no-one would ever bother me as long as I didn't make a mistake (and even then, nobody cared as long as I cleaned up). When I had two weeks or so left, my boss called me into his office (which he had never done before). I thought I had done something wrong, but it turned out he just wanted to thank me for being a good employee and tell me that I completely surpassed his expectations (which were very low, to be fair), and that I am welcome to come back whenever I want to.

I honestly don't get people who complain about a job being too simple. I'm at a mid-level research job which requires quite a lot of thinking, and though it's interesting at times, and even exciting occasionally, I would still prefer a brainless job which requires no communication. I have purposefully avoided all service jobs to the furthest extent possible, and I'm very thankful to have succeeded thus far. I really feel for people (especially on the spectrum) who can't avoid them.

 

[Gift2humanity]

I think the only way lists are useful to me is if the event or whatever, follows the order of the list. In reality things rarely do. As soon as things go "off script" that's when I will basically have the same problem. I might be making a mental note of something on the list that I need to address, as soon as things start jumping around I will forget something.

A good metaphor would be when I worked on a line in a factory. Most people hated the repetition, but it was great for me. I had a model in my head of the order of things, it felt effortless to keep track of things.

But when they introduced something new into the pattern, I would drop to pieces. I would pick up the wrong parts to assemble, it didn't matter how much I told myself not to. Even though there was a monitor in front of me telling me what was next. I would get really irritated with myself. It was like, even though I was consciously aware, the message wasn't reaching some other necessary part of my brain.

Another way to put it is, imagine you have a conveyor with blue and red objects passing in front of you and you are told to just pick up the blue objects. Then after an hour, you are told to pick up only the red ones. I can tell myself over and over, to pick up the red objects and still end up picking up the blue ones. It even feels like I'm doing it right in the moment. Like I would swear I had picked up the red object. This is all despite really hyper focussing on the task.

Fortunately if I get a few tries at a task, it starts to become second nature again and I rarely make mistakes. But if the situation is a one off, I end up so irritated that I missed things I genuinely wanted not to miss.

It's like some faulty wiring or misfire in my brain.

Sorry if I'm rambling, it feels like I'm not doing a good job of articulating my experience. I hope this post made some sense.

I understand your post.
My problem is that I miss the most important thing off the list, so even if I gave the list to the person I want to speak to, the most important thing gets missed.
I am beginning to think that I am using my autism as an excuse, as this what I do seems beyond a joke.