Best and Worse Careers

Post Reply New Topic

Hello- my name is Whit.
What is the best and worse careers for ppl who have asperger's. I want to change my career but I don't know what to do. I have a terrible time making decesions. And I have no family and friends to talk to for help:( Right now I clean windows for a living. I don't want to do that any more. I need something more stable:) Any help would be appreshiated.

I think my on-line tutor job is ideal, but my income is just too variable to be dependable.

The worst job is teaching, where you have to interact with other teachers and manage a classroom full of students.

That's just my opinion... oh and therapist is a very bad profession, since we don't read people well and can say off-the-wall things.

This varies wildly for each person, even with ASDs.

For me, the best is in engineering.

The worst would be something that deals with a lot of angry people, like someone that has to deal with complaints at the airports.

What about diesel mechanic? Any one here or knows someone who does this for career that is an aspie? Do you like it?

I think the best, for me, would be something where you can work from home and decide your own hours and stuff, like writing or painting.

best would be something you are passionate about, and care enough about to pursue the career despite the hardships that you encounter along the way. Hopefully in a career that isn't focussed almost exclusively on people skills and communication. Worst would depend on the person, but for me I think teacher and salesman would suck pretty bad.

You could look in a Careers book in your local library or bookshop.

They list all sorts of careers, what is involved in them and how to apply for the jobs.

Try and think about what you like doing and the skills you have and look for jobs where you can use them.

Good luck!

I always thought it would be cool to be in any job where you have to wear hearing protection and use sign language. Like working in a pit crew or the guys who guide airplanes with those light things.

These would also be good for me ADHD and APD-wise.

I'd also like to be a detective - where I could use my observation superpowers, stone-cold stare, and lack of human empathy to shake down a bad guy.

Worst jobs are anywhere you have more than one person asking you questions at a time - like a teacher or bartender.

I rolled into my current career by chance, I studied chemistry but now I am working with computers.

But to give some advice to you:
- Do something you enjoy, if you like engines than working with Diesel engines could be fun
- Some jobs depend on your motor skills (tweaking finer equipment). With enough time and perseverance I can control myself to handle fine things, but I choose to circumvent it when I can.
- Look for a job with room for yourself. Are you able to be alone at the end of your day...

Well it worked for Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Steve Wozniack, Temple Grandin ....
Aspies have higher then average IQs and usually are very good at studying our individual fields of interest to the nth degree. What we usually are not good at is working for others.

Someone said that Aspies are bad at therapy, but I would argue that there is a great need for us in the field, especially at the doctoral level. As you can see in various places around this site, a lot of really bad information about aspergers is disseminated by psychologists who are not on the spectrum. This will unfortunately persist until we begin to frame our own psychology from within the spectrum instead of passivly allowing NTs to define us. I am currently working on getting my MFT licensure specializing in working within the autistic population. I volunteer my time to various communities interested in learning more about the autistic community. This is work that I am uniquely qualified for, have done a ton of research on, and can offer hope to parents, children, and adults struggling to define autism. It is so rewarding. We desperatly need more people with Asperger's to do this work.

I actually liked teaching. But then i got free hands to do as i saw fit and as long as my students learned things everyone was happy.

I concentrated on learning them practical things, i was not the social teacher that wanted to be everyones friend, i treated them like adults and gave them rules to follow and most of them followed the rules. The others were given the direction to the door.

The first time i was a teacher, i was crap at it. i really cannot recommend anyone with lacking social skills to work with it. When you feel confident to talk to people, look them in the eye and all that, then you are a bit more ready to teach. If i had to say a "teaching minimum age", i'd say 25+, maby 30 (looking at myself).

There are so many bad teachers out there that cannot excuse their lack of skills with AS, Autism or anything else - they just suck! So why should anyone with AS that have grown some social skills automatically be worse?

I am a very high functioning person with Asperger's. I taught special education off and on for eight years. I started teaching because I enjoyed working with the student's and their parents. I still do. What I did not enjoy was working with the administration and the other teacher's. First most teachers are linear thinkers with guardian personality types (Myers Briggs). I am neither. Most teachers are teachers because they found a year in school that they have warm memories about and want to preserve it. I started teaching with deep resentments about the educational system from having grown up with a genius level IQ trapped in an abnormal neurology that no one could tell me anything about. This alone put me at a disadvantage when having to engage other teacher's fantasies about what education is and I find it harder to engage socially with people I find distastful. That however was not the worst part about teaching special education. The worst part is that accepted methodologies for working with special needs students come from behavioralism most of which is poorly applied. As a person with autism I found such methodologies abusive. I also frequently found myself the victim of people who believed them to be divine in origin. It lead me to two conclusions. One that my love for working with children with special needs and their parents was best served working from the therapists chair. Second that while working as a therapist I need to push for a new psychological model especially for autism. Thus, I see a very strong need for more high functioning autistics to enter the humanities; anthropology, sociology, psychology etc.

In a nutshell.

Best: working alone with machines and with technology. For example an IT person-behind-the-curtain in a small company so you don't have to interact with the users nor would you work on a 'team'.

Worst: customer service in a large company. Ugh!

Most jobs fall somewhere in between.

First I worked in a small team with little interaction outside the team. Nowadays I am required to talk to other teams and even outside the department. So, my tasks are shifting toward more people interaction. A few weeks I even had to do a presentation for a group of high managers. Me and my team leader made a presentation that had a different focus compared to other presentations. It made me feel good and I did a good presentation, never thought that of myself. So from a safe position I was able to work toward a more 'open' position.


About the psychology...
The psychology can be a problem, but the real problem is the application. Sometimes I get the feeling that professionals do not care about the people they care for. I have seen it in my volunteer work...
A lot of autistic people have a behavioural problem, but also a real drive to do something constructive. It does not have to be intelligence like some people propagate, but auties can be really a positive force.
Professionals have to see past the first problems and look deeper, take the time etc.

Of course not all professionals are like this, I know some really good ones. But the common part is, autism is not part of their official work description.