The joys of employment

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Let's see....

I was a cashier a long time ago... not for very long. Too taxing on my short term memory. It was way anxiety provoking as well.

I did well in research but I found it boring after a while.

Home care worker was okay. It was in a private home and I did more baking and cleaning than conversing.

Teacher's assistant was okay depending on the professor I worked for.

Now I'm a teacher. Not sure if I can handle a regular 30+ students in the classroom or the gym though. The best place for me is the ressource centre. I almost intuitively know how to intervene and help remediate their school issues. Okay maybe it's not intuitive, it's more likely because I've had to muddle through school and figure out strategies for myself to learn. I'm pretty lucky to have a boss who seems to be slightly OCD-ISH so we work well together.

For teaching: You can be happy in that profession if you land the right teaching position.

Against teaching: Long hours, stressful, you can't disclose your dx (not here anyways), dealing with parents, dealing with a too-sociable principal and superficial colleagues (been there done that and burned out doing it).

So is teaching a good profession for an aspie? In my opinion, it depends on the environment and the opportunities that are available.

I have been in situations helping to teach Photoshop to photographers I felt was close to the level of being a tutor. Not teaching a large class but 1 or 2 individuals. I thought it worked okay.

I think I would be a terrible teacher. Too many bad experiences growing up.

I'm a teacher too.
There's ways that being an aspie helps, and ways that it causes me lots of grief. I think it does make a massive difference where you are, who you work with, and (if you choose to disclose), people knowing about AS helps.
I find it much easier to work in Primary than secondary, and also find it easier working with small groups of children.

It's good because...:
- I can do child-like activities all day long
- I have a ready made routine
- the excitement of working with children
- having a captive audience for talking about my interests
- being able to use my "useless" knowledge for something useful!
- Knowing I'm fairly secure in my job
- I do love my job!

It's bad because...:
- relationships with children/parents/other staff
- noise
- flurescent lights in the classroom that I can't turn off
- being told to "socialise more" with other teachers
- talking to parents
- dealing with upset children (I'm in primary)
- being a perfectionist and having really high expectations
- having to be really flexible and cope with changes to routine
- long hours- my job is never finished
- struggling to make friends at work
- bosses can be really hard to work with
- having to do assemblies/talk in meetings= anxiety attacks