20 Years Later...

I can't help but recall that it was 20 years ago today that I joined the Internal  Revenue Service as a telephone representative.  It was the most frustrating and stressful experience of my life.  I was stuck there for 12 1/2 years.

I went to a therapist in August 1989 two years after I joined the IRS because I was having severe meltdowns and temper tantrums on the telephone.  Believe it or not, going to a therapist was my idea, not my employer's.  They didn't think for a minute that I was suffering from depression. 

The bigger problem was that neither the IRS or my therapist suspected that I really was a person with Asperger's Syndrome.  In the 1980s no one knew what Asperger's was.  When I started seeing a therapist in 1989, she and another doctor misdiagnosed me with Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED).  Asperger's wasn't in the medical books at the time. 

It was until 1994 when Asperger's Syndrome was in the medical books for the first time ever in the United States.  However, no one suspected that I had Asperger's Syndrome.

The previous job I had before IRS was a cashier's job at Filene's Basement at Downtown Crossing.  It was very stressful and draining to me.  I was crying a lot at that job and couldn't get through the day there.  I got sick often with bad colds.  I was only there for eight months (January-August 1987).  I was so glad to join the IRS at that time.

The IRS job nearly killed me.  I was getting sick often and couldn't last a week without feeling too sick to work.  I was only working two or three days a week in the final months of my job.  My sick leave time dwindled to almost nothing.  I was getting constipated and suffered from insomnia.   During the whole time I was there, they would never move me to another job.  I sometimes did details (temporary job assignments) in other IRS offices, but I always ended up back at the phone site.

I was glad to leave the IRS in April 2000.  I jumped for joy when I called my mean manager up and told him that I was quitting.

Now, in 2007, the IRS phone site is no more.  It closed down at the end of September 2005.  The phone site is now in Cincinnatti, Ohio.  My former co-workers work in different parts of the IRS.

Filene's Basement is closing after Labor Day for renovations.  It will re-open in 2009.