What's everybody's career?

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I'll let you know when I find one.

I fell into retail and stayed there for quite a while; I was good at merchandising and not so good at selling. I was also a clerk in a federal office, a quality control person in a telephone sales center, a dreadfully bad insurance salesman, a self-employed calligrapher, and a hotel night auditor.

My dream is to find a career in which I can use my history and language skills, or run a profitable calligraphy business, but I'll probably wind up in a factory; there are not a lot of options around here.

I hold a degree in English Language and Literature. I tutored freshman college students in writing skills for one year. I sold Tupperware at the "executive manager" level for one year. I did child care in my home for two years.
I'm much happier with what I'm doing now: homeschooling my kids... this is our 11th year.

A few things I have done though: waiter (very short period), cook, landscaping, maintainence, dishwasher, retail customer service engineer and adding machine operator, laundryman, print shop clerk and designer, tshirt photo print assembly lineman, visual designer, salesman, photographer, program tester, dishwasher, cook, door to door sales (another short run, very short), forklift driver (not very long either), creature in a halloween haunting (not long either), and thats about all I can remember for now.

I'm NT, but find social interaction very hard, and display some other AS typical behaviours - not enough to be considered AS though.

I've found a complete inability to stay in regular employement - tried being a hospital pharmacy receptionist, hospital porter (scared of germs, bad place to work!) I learn about medication and stuff really easily so I thought I could be a pharmacy technician. I've also been a cleaner, bar-staff, postman, fork-lift driver + shop assistant at B+Q. The list goes on.

I'm currently studying countryside management - there can be a lot of autonomy with the job, and I'll get left alone by people to just get on with the job. I enjoy trees and wildlife, and the peace and quiet. There's also a lot of scope for creativity and practical work - building fences, planting trees, building bird-boxes and stuff.

I was in high school when home computers first came out onto the market. I used to go to the local Radio Shack every day after class and bought one of their books and taught myself how to program. After a while the store manager asked if he could leave my programs running all day to show the customers. People also used to ask me questions even though I wasn't an employee. Finally the manager asked me if I'd work there as a salesman.

Later I went into computer programming full time working for a company that did business systems for grocery stores. I did a lot of work writing device drivers for bar code scanners and printers for Unix systems.

Then I went back to school to learn electronics and got hired as a PC assembly/repair/delivery guy. Then I was back to writing software for Unix again.

{Portions deleted on account of Google.}

I took my experience there and cross-trained into the air traffic control data-systems section, where I now spend most of my time working behind the scenes. I help develop highly-specialized software used by controllers, as well as processing map data and aviation systems data to produce the visual displays used by controllers. It pays the bills and then some!

Last edited by Jetson on 24 Jan 2006, 11:47 pm, edited 5 times in total.

Domestic engineer and homeschool teacher.

(The D.E. Role is kind of obligatory, but the teacher part I am really good at.)

Hehehe... Me too!

That sounds like one of the coolest jobs. What did you do for college? What kind of training did you need?

(soon to be) physicist.

When I was in my "little professor" stage (up to grade 9) my all-consuming obsession was aviation. I was convinced I would grow up and be an airline pilot, if not an astronaut. When I discovered computers in grade 10 they displaced (but did not kill) my aviation obsession. Now I had two areas in which to allow my highly-focussed interests to roam.

Computers in 1980 were very simple and not very powerful, and for someone who had the time and desire it was quite easy to learn essentially everything worth knowing about them -- what each chip on the board did, how every program instruction affected the state of the microprocessor, etc. I started doing "fun" tasks like replacing sections of the operating system with stuff I designed myself. As time went by and more computers started to show up on the market I was eventually forced to de-specialize a bit, but knowing how simple computers work makes it much easier to deal with more complicated versions.

When I was in grade 12 ('82/83) I managed to talk an ex-schoolmate who was a year ahead of me into giving me the password to his computer account at university. On the weekends I would walk about 12km to the university, sneak past security at the computer science center and then pretend to be a student once inside. Over the space of a few months I taught myself how to write software for Unix.

By the time I graduated from high school I was emotionally incapable of further education in a classroom setting due to the bullying and social problems that persisted until the very last day of school. Even if I had wanted to go to university, my family couldn't afford it and my marks in school were a disaster.

I had a few non-computer jobs over the next few years, but lost them for social-deficit reasons. One day I got a call from the ex-schoolmate asking if I'd like to write software for money. His boss didn't seem to mind that I had no formal education since I had more than adequate programming skills and had been personally reccommended for the position by an insider. I liked the fact that I wouldn't have to deal with the public any more. Unfortunately that company went bankrupt. A new owner bought the software rights and hired most of the staff except me.

By this time I had been out of school for a little more than 3 years and thought I could handle it again. I decided to apply to the government for assistance and enrolled in an adult vocational school electronics design and repair program, where I excelled. The instructor at the school reccommended me to a company that was building and repairing computers. I worked there for four years before again losing my job for social reasons.

{I don't want the rest to be indexed by Google. Suffice it to say I was hired by the government and then progressed/transferred to where I am today.}

Last edited by Jetson on 24 Jan 2006, 11:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have to confess that I feel a bit guilty over how well things have turned out. I just got lucky (after years and years of pure hell) and found a perfect match for my specialized talents where my limitations wouldn't get in the way.

That is wonderful! I wish everyone could find their place in life like that.

I feel I am in that place, as a work-at-home (homeschooling) mom. I can't imagine a more perfect job, that uses my education and talents yet accomodates my limitations. Yet, I feel that it is only "at the mercy", if you will, of my NT husband being willing to work at a job that pays the bills for all of us. I love my job, but I don't feel secure or in control, especially when he starts complaining about work. I can never tell if he's serious or just unloading momentary frustration.

I truly panic at the prospect of my husband somehow and suddenly losing his job or deciding he's had enough of the job he has despite the excellent paycheck, and it becoming necessary for me to find a job outside the home to help make ends meet.

Don't have a carerr yet, but I'm laying out the paths of my choosing. I'm probably going to end up becoming a correctional officer, funeral director, or nuclear-radioactive physics scientist.

I used to work as a projectionnist in a theater and it was pretty cool, I'd say it's a great job for aspies.

Right now I'm trying to be a writer/filmmaker and also looking to start a small company with one or two of my friends since I don't really like to have to work "supervised".

A cross between a self-employed software engineer and a school bus driver.

Self-employment is not too bad except I have to be a book keeper too