I never fitted in

Giles’s Story

Giles’s story takes us through 20 years of employment, 7 years self-employment, 4 redundancies and a tour of the cities of the East Midlands and the North. And it is a story of a one-size fits all culture letting him down.

Looking back on the 20 years in employment, he feels he was miserable for at least 15 of those. “I had one good year where things were good at home and at work, but the rest of the time I was miserable, stressed-out and irritable. I had relationship issues in my personal life as well as issues in my professional life, so I was unhappy all-round.” It got to the point that he went to his GP and asked to be put on anti-depressants. They didn’t help. He’s since realised undiagnosed Aspergers was a large contributory factor.

“I have Aspergers, but it’s never been formally diagnosed and so no employer ever made any ‘reasonable adjustments’ to take it into account as a result. I have had some great employers, and some roles that I really enjoyed in great settings, but mostly my experiences were negative.”

Giles struggled with the noisy, open plan offices with air conditioning that made it freezing in summer and boiling in winter, plus the whole traditional, inflexible 9 to 5 regime and a commute on top. He never really felt like he fitted in. He explains, “I always felt like a square peg being forced into a round hole, and getting hammered down when I still couldn’t make it work. I struggled with overload and having to adapt to a working environment and hours that I blatantly wasn’t suited to. I was often in trouble for “under-performing” or the first to be let go when redundancies were in the offing.”

He struggled on, staying in jobs for between a few months to a few years, but was soon burnt-out. “I realise now that I had a fully-fledged nervous breakdown back in mid-2005 due to the pressures that my employer at the time put me under. I might even have had a case for taking them to tribunal for Constructive Dismissal, but I found another job instead.” This is all too common an occurrence, when employees are left feeling too fragile to fight anymore.

Other physical health issues caused by stress at work started to manifest due to the stress Giles was under, plus the effects started to be felt at home. Relationships ended due to working too hard and his partner feeling neglected. Though he says work wasn’t the only factor, it certainly contributed to relationships breaking down.

After 2010, he moved around the country to be with ‘one new partner after another’ and taking on new job roles each time, only to move on again to somewhere new after a few years. He struggled to put down roots which made it hard to maintain existing friendships and stay in touch with extended family members and cultivate meaningful new friendships.

After experiencing another round of burnout and the breakdown of a relationship in 2014, Giles went for another full-time job with an agency, but they offered him freelance work with them instead of a permanent position. It paved the way for launching his own business.

He was lucky to be given enough work to get him through the first 12 months of being out there on his own. Over the years there have been fallow periods where the amount of work coming in dropped and at the worst point, he worried that the business wasn’t viable, but thankfully things picked up quickly after that and he has a refreshing view on the familiar feast or famine cycle, “Client churn is inevitable, but I take the view that your next client is never more than two weeks away.”

So, as someone with Asperger’s how has Giles had to work on his mindset and overcome challenges to thrive in self-employment?

“Aspergers is more widely appreciated and understood than it was, but there is still a certain long-established attitude prevalent in business about how you should look and act, although this has loosened up since the pandemic disrupted the old attitudes and ways of working. There’s more diversity in business now than there used to be, which is great.”

He has also had to throw himself into networking to generate new contacts, and bring the work in - going outside his comfort zone to meet new people and network with people from all over the UK. The rise of virtual networking has been a bonus as he finds it much less demanding and draining than face-to-face meetings, both in terms of the logistics, time and effort involved, and the drain on his mental and physical resources.

Recognising when he needs to take time out to recharge his batteries has been another mindset adjustment, having come from an always on, work hard play hard corporate culture in Leeds. He advises that you need to make time – and take time – to look after your own mental health and well-being so that you can keep all your plates spinning. “Pushing yourself until you drop, or being pushed by the corporate machinery of your employer until you’re burnt-out and have a nervous breakdown, isn’t a badge of honour or something to be proud of. It’s negative and harmful. As a self-employed freelancer you have to look after yourself, cos no one else will.”

His business has grown organically and at a sustainable pace. He has taken the challenges of self-employment in his stride and has been lucky enough to have good people around him to support him in his business journey.

“I absolutely love working for myself and being my own boss. I don’t miss the rat race at all. I always struggled with that corporate culture and I’m much better off out of it in terms of my health and well-being. The freedom of largely being able to work the hours I want when I want is great. I certainly don’t miss performance reviews, office outings, team building events, conferences and having to be positive all the time.”

“There are pros and cons to being freelance self-employed, but I wouldn’t ever want to go back to working for someone else again. I have my business logo (a stylised bull’s head) tattooed on my left inner forearm as a commitment and reminder to myself to never work for anyone else again. Doing so would be a massive backward step.”