Hello, I think this is my first post but I wanted to share my experience. I am 32, male, and I have ASD (Aspergers). Luckily through a variety of coincidences of my life experience and how Aspergers effects me I am fairly employable. I have a high IQ, having "passed" the Mensa test. I have after many years learned to dress myself. Wearing a formal business suit everyday as a "uniform" is helpful. Growing up I learned to be quite when people who I don't know say stupid things or stretch facts. Learning is extremely easy if I am interested in the subject. I can learn almost through osmosis, simply exposing myself to the information I need to learn. I'm an avid DIYer with skills in computers, auto mechanics, investing, carpentry, woodworking (ie building furniture), and a smattering of other things. The single most important event though was marrying a social genius who works with ASD as a para-professional in a school setting. She is a wonderful woman who diagnosed me with ADD and Aspergers. I have an official ADD diagnosis which I got at the age of 27 iirc. My ASD is not yet diagnosed professionally but I intend to in the next month so that my insurance will cover speech therapy. The most noticeable symptoms I have are; a seriously delayed auditory processing issue, the inability to "read" others, a giant apathy towards other people, social anxiety with strangers especially when making calls to strangers, and an inability to understand sarcasm. I lack emotional responses of a NT and I haven't the foggiest how to respond to emotional outpouring. I'm horrible at math though I understand mathematical concepts fairly well. I have been a programmer/IT support, an automotive "helper", worked in retail, and a FEDEX driver prior to my current career.
I graduated from college in 2007 with a BS in Business admin with a focus in finance. The genius thing really didn't help me much as I did not yet know I was ADD and ASD. I never studied and had a hell of a time doing homework. I managed to graduate with a 3.0 after 7 years, 3 schools and 2 different majors. It ended up taking almost a year to find work in my current career. I work for one of the largest asset management company in the US. They do 401k's, 403b's, retail investing etc etc etc... They are one of the big ones. Anyways in Oct 2008, right in the middle of of the crash. I started in the call center answering 401k and then 403b calls. I was pretty good at this because I was genuinely interested in the work for awhile and I have always been good at my word with excellent follow through. My co-workers ranged from shaved monkey's to other reasonably intelligent folks. My managers were generally pretty bad. I'm not sure it was their fault but it seemed like everyone was being managed to the lowest common denominator so that they could hire the most brain dead people they could. After 1.5 years answering calls I moved over to the retail investing side (IRA's and brokerage accounts).
It was in this role that I started my journey to understanding myself. After having several tiny errors in a few months my wife insisted that I get diagnosed for ADD. What a godsend that was. Adderall is a miracle drug!! ! My career took off like a rocket. I was promoted to a very prestigious position working with clients on our international trading desk. It was a marvelous positions other than the pay. Trading on markets around the world was exhilarating and incredibly interesting. At the 3 year mark I moved out to our branch network wanting to become a financial advisor! I had fallen in love with the concepts of investing and risk management in college and couldn't wait to bring my brain to the everyman to help them invest sensibly. Hahaha, I was so naive.
So in the branch network I initially excelled. I have excellent customer service skills. When I learned in college that I was smarter than most, at least measured by IQ, I had taught myself to coddle and not hate ineptness. In any case I was promoted in 4 months to a sales support role. Luckily I found a nitch in the role that allowed me to avoid my true job, which was endlessly calling clients trying to set appointments. This gave me anxiety to such a degree I would just sit, anxiously trying to force myself to make calls but instead my brain found every possible way to avoid my job. I spent my time scrubbing through books of business looking for opportunity and doing cost basis projects for clients. This was suffecient enough to mask my issues making calls. I was able to support sales activities using my abilities to work with massive amounts of data and through top notch customer service. 8 months later I was promoted to an advisor role. I was ELATED!! I was there!! ! I had doubled my income every year since I started with this company and been promoted 7 times in 4 years. I seemed destined to rocketing off to a huge 6 figure income with a book of clients who adored me. Unfortunately that was not really the case.
What you must understand about most "financial advisors" is that they are really simply salesman. I work with people who have no degree and hardly understand what they are selling. I supposed this is common anywhere you find sales jobs. You are supposed to connect emotionally with clients, ask them questions to help them "self-discover" why they want to buy what you are selling. LOL! Really!! I had no idea what I had been striving for all these years since college. I started finding issues in my inability to small chat, my seeming inability to communicate in a way that leads clients to the goal. I was able to make it into the top 20% ranking for about a year and a half through being a subject matter expert. I also come across to people as an incredibly trustworthy individual, highly professional, and exceptionally intelligent. However this is NOT enough in the sales world when many of your clients are quite, well.... dumb about finances.
Over time the role has seriously dragged on me. There are many negatives, and some positives. On the downside the constant acting it takes to communicate with people is totally exhausting. If I have 4 or 5 appointments in a day I am totally exhausted. I often misread what people say and I'm constantly running into people who use sarcasm or make jokes that I don't catch on to. The worst is probably watching people make the worst possible decisions when investing their money. I have found that many people will trust a neighbor, friend, or family member above a professional.... Ohh yah, my brother, a plumber, says I should just buy company X, Y, and Z. They will take advice from people who have NO CLUE how to invest in a "correct" way. This is pretty hard to manage because I HATE confrontation which is absolutely necessary for these types of people. They also asked for what I have termed a purple unicorn. You know, all they want is 10% per year, with no risk, no loss of liquidity, no lock up (ie CDs), and absolutely 0 effort on their part. This simply does not exist... Many clients will become overwhelmed when I try to get them to understand the most basic of concepts like covariance. Rather than asking for an opinion or just making a decision they do nothing, always to their own detriment. Many investors are incredulous towards me (and other brokers) or are just totally fine with the dumb/stupid/dangerous/laughable strategy they think they are deploying. It's all very tiresome and I am currently looking to combine my IT and finance skills in a new career of project/product management. Unfortunately due to my very nature I've never taken the time to seek out roles where I manage others or lead projects so this may prove very difficult.
To make a very long story short, sales in no place for an Aspie. However I have advanced an incredible amount in my ability to socialize with strangers, especially for someone who struck up his first ever conversation with a stranger at the age of 18. My communication skills outside of work have improved to the point that I can completely mask my negative aspie traits, even in front of people who understand what ASD/Aspergers is. I am incredibly thankful I took the road less traveled for an Aspie as I feel that I have developed some of the social skills that are required to make it big in the business world, or perhaps fake them well enough to get by.
I am happy to answer questions if you have any. My writing style is normally very stream of consciousness and I find editing my own writing literally impossible so hopefully if you took the time to read this your head doesn't hurt.
14 Jun 2014, 9:56 pm
for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.
