My, hasn't he grown!

I don't usually blog family stuff so feel free to skip this bit if you'd rather just do knitting. Sometimes I'd rather do knitting too!



My little boy has just left the house for his first job interview. He's 17.



I can't begin to tell you how this makes me feel. A mixture of surprise and hope and worry, I guess, is a start, but that's only the beginning.


My, hasn't the time flown!



Will they 'like' him?



Can he do it if he gets it?



Will their prejudice about Asperger's Syndrome stop him at the first hurdle? The interview will be so hard for him?




A million questions, and we'll have to wait for the answers.



Tom's being interviewed for the BT Technician Apprenticeship and he is capable of doing the work, no worries, it's the people who might be the problem.

He's been taking electrical things apart since he was 2. When he was little I used to joke that if i slammed the front room door everything in the house would fall to bits. He was forever with a screwdriver in his hands. I found screws all over the place and never knew where they'd come from. One summer we went to a playscheme for disabled kids where they had loads of craft activities that Tom wasn't remotely interested in. But a very switched on Youth Worker got him a tv to take to pieces and he was as happy as Larry. In fact friends used to knock on the door and we'd 'recycle' their old video players and radios.



More recently he's become the computer geek kid of the Aspie stereotype. The job he's applied for also involves designing communication networks (broadband, wi-fi, and so forth). Right up his street. If he can get past this first extremely high hurdle.



So there he was this morning, all dressed up and looking smart with the first shirt and tie he's ever worn (we lost the school one within days as it was either be strangled all day or try to do school - couldn't do both). Proper shoes too (slip on ones) He can't do laces. Brain the size of a planet, teacher at college says he's the best computing 'A' level student he's ever taught, got 100% in his AS modular exam , but he can't do shoelaces! Mainly, I suspect, because he never wanted to do them enough to put the effort in to learn how. He can do most things that he wants to do. It's getting the motivation that's the big battle.



Jackie, from Connexions (careers service to you and me) has gone to the interview with him. Well, it's a bit lame to take your Mum! The woman at the recruitment people had obviously never been asked if a candidate could have someone go into an interview with them before. She was completely confused and had to ring me back to double check that that was what i was actually asking for before ringing the interviewer to ask him if it was ok and then letting me know. It would have been funny, if I hadn't been worrying that I'd done the wrong thing in getting him support. Well, they said they'd make adjustments for disabled applicants! ?



In ten minutes time he'll be meeting the Line Manager who is doing the interview and then ... oh my, I think I need to go put the kettle on, hoover, load the washing machine. It must be bad if I'm doing housework!

Think positive thoughts for my special boy. Fingers crossed!

BTW Tom's website is http://www.ericmushroomwilson.co.uk