For those who do actually make a living at your talent...

Post Reply New Topic

I am terrible at networking, so can't offer any magic solutions for that, but what has helped me enormously in my work is having mentors. Do you know or could you find one person in your field who could offer help, advice, even work opportunities? It may be easier than building a whole network yourself if, like me, you're much better at communicating with one person than making relatively superficial connections with large numbers of people.

OK, how to MAKE things happen. You need to be in the physical area where the type of work you want exists, e.g. country music would imply Nashville, etc. Cheyenne, WY. would not be a good choice for example, so relocation may be a necessity. This is what I had to do. Next it is a necessity to have "contacts" and to force yourself to socialize. This helps to get info on prospective jobs. I pounded the pavement plenty looking for a job, but two of my best previous jobs came directly from information provided by friends and acquaintances. Boredom and other problems do arise after being in one job too long, so I was always on the lookout for other opportunities, but in my case it was within the same company. One can change departments, go to other sites, etc. The thing is to keep looking and moving until you find that right place for you. No, it isn't always the perfect fit and some compromise is needed. The hardest part is realizing what you actually can do and can't do in reality. Yea, we all can't always do and achieve what we would like to.

The maintenance of personal relations and networking over the long term is a real problem for me too. I typically lose these connections after a couple of years, due to a lot of reasons. There are only two people that I now count as friends who go back more than two years, but it is hard to keep that going. Why? Simple, me and AS. It is almost always my fault. A social or personal or work problem occurs and I dive into my hole and play hermit. THAT is my problem. The bad news is that I've never overcome it completely. But sometimes that luxury isn't possible. As you said, "Just pull up your bootstraps and do it. Autism's got nothing to do with it. Toughen up." This is something that I have had to do - many times. Sorry for this response, but it is the brutal truth. As the Duke (John Wayne) once said, "Life's tough. And it's tougher if you're stupid." Sometimes we just HAVE to do something regardless of how hard it is for us to do it.
And otherwise? Relationships are just plain difficult to do. I have found that avoiding close relationships helps, as does keeping in contact with people on an infrequent basis, say for weeks to months. Too, keeping things on an impersonal, more business like, level seems to help. Since many of us are perceived as "eccentric characters", humor seems to work well to cover a lot of the rough edges. For example, I often respond to complaints by grinning and commenting that I'm just a typical engineer, so what do I know about relationships and social issues? Humor can cover a multitude of perceived sins!

Success depends on not bogging yourself down with NT protocols

I retired before my mid twenties, and smoked a lot of weed since 17 years old

My talent was long hours in construction, saving everything and investing everything.....kinda, too simple really

I could go to China and make a killing with design, but I'm not hungry for money anymore, and as you say, networking and business is a strain for me

Some NTs seem to dislike eccentric people because they're afraid we will embarrass them. I don't know this for sure, but I know it is true of my NT sister--I used to embarrass her quite a fair bit and she disliked me when we were teenagers, though we would still have defended each other just because we are sisters. In her case, she was worried much more than I what other people thought of her, and that meant that if I were around and doing odd things that embarrassed her but not me, then she would worry about having my eccentricity transferred to her by association. Nowadays, we have grown distant but still consider each other friends; we just don't have much in common anymore.

In my experience, there's not much you can do when the NT in question is afraid you'll embarrass them. Sure, you can stay away from doing things that you know they won't like, but when it comes down to it, you probably won't enjoy their company, and they won't really enjoy yours--either you'll get neurotic trying to please them, or they'll start to resent you. You have to seek out NTs who are okay with oddity in general. They don't have to be eccentric themselves (though it helps)--they just have to not feel threatened by associating with someone who's odd.

You know what's really surprising? Other than the NTs who are nerdy, eccentric, or social minorities themselves, there's one category of NT who can relate best to autistics--the NTs with unusually good social skills! I call them "super-NTs" because they are unusually good at everything that a typical NT is good at, and then some. They tend to be perceptive and flexible, socially, and they are much more likely to be able to connect with someone different from themselves. In a high school, they are the person who can fit comfortably into any social group, find something in common with anyone, talk to anybody. They are comfortable with themselves and undaunted by others, and are often good negotiators and group leaders. The eccentric people connect with autistics because of a shared perspective; the super-NT can connect with an autistic person because they're just plain good at connecting with anybody. You don't have to be worried about embarrassing them--they'll shake it off, tell you to cut it out, and go on with their lives. I've known a couple of these unusually socially gifted people, and it's remarkable--kind of like the social version of talking to a renowned scientist about your biology course.

My special interest was ballet for 20 years. I got some employments because I was very very hard working (I don't feel coordination, but it was my special interest, I would have done everything for it), but still I was way too shy, couldn't socialize as one should do, don't have enough self-esteem and have big social anxieties as well. So I started to make my own work (two years ago). In my last piece I connected 500 characters of Pi to movement. I can do some performances of it in theaters, because people are interested in it, because it's "new". But: All contacts to theaters my husband does, he does the "networking"-part.

I also tried to teach ballet for a while, but it didn't work out, because of sensory overload and when I gave class, I got way too fixed on details (like I did on myself) so I got "lost in time" and in big stress. After a while - though the students seemed to like me - I had to stop, because I couldn't function anymore (in life in general, before I got diagnosed). In a way it's a pity...

Well, I enjoy now working on myself and though I cannot life from it, from time to time I can add to it.

When music is your life, maybe you can compose for TV, like commercials or film? I know someone who does it, but you need a manager for this.

per·se·ver·ance (n): continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition : the action or condition or an instance of persevering : steadfastness

Never give up.

Exactly. And if you befriend them they can be some pretty good mentors to you in social skills, as well.
Those that I've known are really unbelievable in the way that they can detect your behaviour and even predict it....like you said, real scientists of the social sphere.

I don't make a living at it yet, but past sales indicate I should be able to. I designed my "job" precisely to solve the problems you outline. It's taking a while, but I'm solving each aspie problem:

1. networking: I'm bad at networking or taking orders, so I found something that only needs one person (me). I make simple games.

2. competition: networkers will always beat me, so I found something they don't do and never will do. I make simple, thoughtful games. Not like casual games, and not like big box games. They are so easy to make that there are no barriers to entry. So no big business will compete (they have no protection) and I can compete purely on my talent (or lack thereof).

3. advertising. I HATE HATE HATE promoting my stuff. So, starting with my next game, everything is playable online with no delay, no download, no Flash, etc., and I will add new content every day, The product becomes its own advertising.

In summary, I identified my weaknesses, identified my strengths (the games are like the best comics I read as a kid), and worked out how to make money on it. (By selling carefully selected ads and by people downloading the back catalog for a small price). Fingers crossed...

I instinctively went for a backroom job as a science worker, safely out of the way of pressure to look pretty for anybody. I just didn't want the humiliation of having to dress up for the boss man. I didn't know I had AS, but at school I'd learned a lot about what to avoid. It was more luck than anything......I'd done a careers guidance questionnaire which told me I wanted an outdoor artistic job, and I went fot an indoor scientce job. I didn't have any great aspirations beyond getting enough money to live on and staying reasonably comfortable. I never defined myself according to my job, it was very much a necessary evil. I suppose my Aspie geekiness and ability to focus on tiny details allowed me to prove that I was well worth my salary.

I came under attack from people I couldn't get away form. Sometimes it was probably down to my Aspie traits, other times they were just being a**holes. It was upsetting me enough to make me quit after 16 years or so. The expectations had been cranked up as I'd gone gradually up the pay scales. I was getting more left-wing and suspicious of management, and they started this game where they wanted me to screw more work out of the other staff. I just don't do that, it's an ethical thing as well as the practical difficulty of an Aspie trying to profoundly influence others. People didn't openly challenge the management though, so I just dragged my feet......the situation felt completely wrong, knowing that they were disappointed in me yet never being able to resolve it. I was safely encumbent, but became more and more anxious that I might get into bad trouble or lose the job. Then they started bringing new people in and changing the work and the whole environment. The need for the kind of work I'd been doing so efficiently for years, was coming to an end. I didn't feel confident of stayng afloat in such a changing environment, didn't like the leader-in-waiting (he was an alcoholic and something of a poser, and we hadn't really hit it off). So I left and hid in an alternative lifestyle project for a couple of years.

That was never really economically viable, so I returned to a similar kind of work after the funding dried up. Conditions were in many ways worse, but I was more experienced and hardened. Mostly it's been tolerable, with the occasional burst of acute anxiety. There always seems to be downward pressure on my professional development....if you relax your guard, they'll have you doing nothing but menial work like cleaning up other people's mess, delivering parcels, sending faxes, minding the stores, putting glassware away. I've experienced bullying and I've seen others getting bullied. Management have lied, dropped the ball, left us to rot, forced us to do loads of stupid things that we never signed up to do. Since getting my DX and handing it in, the bullying and most of the other nonsense has stopped., They still leave me to rot, but I'm not too unhappy with that. The core of my work is a job that most people couldn't focus strongly enough to do, so there's some sort of pride in it. I still don't get enough privacy from all these noisy people, and the turnover of staff is short, so as an Aspie I keep losing the people I manage to relate to, and it's just too tiring to keep making new friends every year or two.

Therefore, I'll probably quit in a year or two, when I'm economically secure. I just never really got into the world of work. But I've tolerated it very well. If I'd gone for music, it might have been very different. I can imagine being able to define myself as a musician, to take a real pride in it. Just that I never saw any openings, and I didn't want to risk complete poverty.

Aye.

Again, I appreciate everyone's responses, and I do not mean any offense toward any of you at all when I say this, but it appears that either most are either just not "getting" what I'm looking for, or I'm having a lot of difficulty making as clear as you all seem to need it.

It's probably some of both, which shouldn't be surprising considering we all have communication difficulties.

"Perseverance" doesn't really tell me anything. Perseverance at what specifically? I live by a particular philosophy I call "PPT," which stands for "Patience, Perseverance and Tenacity. So I know what perseverance is, I just don't know what I should persevere AT. I'm not talking about choice of profession here. I'm talking about what, specifically related to Aspie traits that might be interfering with what I need to do to accomplish what I want to do (whatever that may be).

I'm not asking which specific traits I have that I need to work on either. I know no one here could know what my AS profile really looks like. I'm the only one that can do that, and I'm well aware of that.

I may not have been clear enough about one thing. I KNOW how to play the "job search" game. I know how to ace interviews. Though I may settle for a "job" in the interim, that isn't what I'm looking for. Jobs last about three years for me. I can't handle much more than three years. It's about at that time that I get sick to death of the routine. Breaks at the same time every single day. At some jobs, not even being able to use the freaking bathroom when I need to (a huge health problem for me ~ I have IBS that gets much worse working at traditional jobs, and has been the cause of my losing several jobs over the past fifteen years). I really, REALLY need to find a way to make a living freelancing certain skills I have. Preferably working at home, but some local travel is okay too.

I'm not looking for advice as to what to choose for a profession, and I think so far everyone is getting that. I can make that choice just fine.

Some of the answers here are from those who've done what they want to, but don't really know how they did it, which to me amounts to &^%$ luck. Others have answered who are not even making a living at their chosen profession or special interests, which to me means they haven't gotten past the point I'm already at myself. Not really very helpful. I need to hear from those of you are already successfully pursuing your special interests, and making MONEY at it enough to make do, or more.

Specifically, NETWORKING. Making contacts and forming professional relationships with actual human beings in the real world. This kind of networking can begin with Internet contacts, but becomes real once personal contact is made and maintained. It doesn't necessarily mean I meet everyone on a contact list face to face, but does mean I know who they are, where they live, what they do for a living, and they know all the same about me. In other words, goes beyond avatars and usernames, to relationships with real people by phone, email, IM, and face to face depending on geography and what's possible.

Networking is a key component to working for oneself. You've may have a product, or a service or both, but without contacts, and people to help you get the job done and the word out, forget working for yourself. Without the network, it AIN'T gonna happen. That's the part I've never been good at. I can make the initial contacts, but it's after that that things fizzle out. I don't know what to DO with the contacts once I've made them.

That kind of networking requires special communication skills. Skills that most of us are not very good at. I know there are some of us out there that have managed to build people networks in spite of our limitations, by overcoming some, if not all of those limitations.

That's who and what I am looking for here. Those that have built networks of people that help them accomplish what they do. Those that have overcome Autistic traits and limitations to do it.

For those that HAVE, what were some of your limitations, and how did you manage to overcome them in building your network?

My hope is that in the process of hearing your stories, I might "see" similar traits and limitations in myself, and strategies the may work for me to overcome them.


Note to self: I think I will post a little history soon with one story about one project I tried to get going. That might help as a starting point with some real examples of the kind of problems I'm referring to. I just need to think of a good example.

Me, too – except full-time the longest I lasted was two – with a major meltdown en route. The last time I crashed and burned in full-time work, the penny finally dropped and I realised I needed a stop-gap while building up to my – as yet unidentified – next career move.

My story does contain some – quite a lot, actually – of the ingredients you have asked for, but it will unravel at my optimum speed and so I hope you are able to be patient. (You have asked a big question, and the response, having taken ages to compile, is not short.) The freelance work I do doesn’t particularly scratch my creative itch, but it’s a way of earning a living that is bearable and sufficient, touching on several areas of special interest, allowing me to work at my own pace and during my chosen hours with nobody checking on me.

To get here was a process. And, please note, never at any stage did I have the slightest inkling of aspieness; I was just driven to make something fit me instead of me always having to fit the wrong shaped hole. This 'job' evolved around me, because of that ... drive? instinct? need to earn a living without crashing and burning? It's just astonishing now, looking back now through my aspie filter, how absolutely textbook an example this would seem to a diagnostician. If only I had understood all those years ago, *sigh*.

So, to your questions:
I think I may have done just that. It came about without any coherent sense of where I was pushing it to (because I didn't know about my aspieness at the time), but where it now sits is very satisfactory indeed and I'm thinking it is possible to reverse-engineer and distil quite a few guiding principles out of it. My field is no doubt very different from yours, and may seem pedestrian, but the nature of the work does in fact have extemely special qualities (I won't go into them here). Most importantly, in terms of how it is arranged, I am happier in this work and have lasted longer in it than in any other job in my life. For what it's worth, I think you are on the right track.

Some of my particular aspie qualities which work better outside a standard 'employment' scenario can be summarised as:

ROUTINE. I cannot handle routine, especially someone else’s, especially when it is structured arbitrarily around the hands of a clock rather than very good reasons. So I simply do not thrive in office environments, nor do I usually succeed at observing strict timetables (i.e. irritating punctuality issues).
Workaround = going freelance.
Qualification = it is absolutely necessary to deliver on time – so make sure you agree on a workable deadline (and any other applicable expectations) and then make absolutely sure you meet it.

FACE-TO-FACE COMMUNICATIONS. I tend to put people’s backs up fairly quickly when dealing with them all day every day in a workplace environment. I can play the game in short bursts, but soon enough people pick up on that ‘one wrong note’ and I’m toast. So it is better for me to be at arm’s length in a situation where constant face-to-face communication is not required.
Workaround = working online and conducting almost all communications by way of the written word. They think I am really nice that way, because I can take all the time I need to strike the right tone in what I say. You would not believe how many drafts I take on some of those emails. But it pays off.
Qualification = obviously there has to be some successful communication medium. If you can’t do any of this yourself you will need a trusted intermediary to do it for you.

UNSCHEDULED PERSONAL CONTACT. I become very absorbed in whatever I am doing and usually have a personal timetable in mind for the next few hours. It is seldom I can adapt to an unexpected phone call without risking giving offence (because I feel ‘interrupted’) or giving the wrong response (because there has been no opportunity to marshal my thoughts).
Workaround = subscribing to a VOIP service that sends their recorded audio message directly to me via email. This gives me choice about how to handle the contact, while still enabling a prompt response, either by email or telephone – at my initiative – once I have been able to gather my wits and turn them on the appropriate focus. Sometimes I make an appointment for a future telephone call. I suppose this could seem a bit odd from the other side, but it doesn’t usually drive people away!

SINGULAR FOCUS. I can handle one task at a time, and everything else is in disarray until its turn comes. (Some might call it 'chaos', but I don't.)
Workaround = choose your work to suit the mood of the moment!!
Qualification = Just make sure you meet those deadlines. Also I think it fair to regard some less-enjoyable tasks as 'paying dues' and just do 'em. Honourable, and acceptable, since I am calling more shots than I ever could before.

INABILITY TO TAKE DIRECTION. It is really hard for me to accept being told what to do. I have already internalised the task, figured out how to do it, and why it is better for me to do it that way.
Workaround = develop acknowledged expertise so that more often people are asking you how best to go about things.
Qualification = be prepared to adapt your product to suit the client's preferred formula. This is not hard to do as long as they are clear about what they want. It can be internalised as a source of pride and need not feel like being pushed around. Once again, do it all in writing.

[Narrative 1]
My story starts with a piece of luck, but I think the crystallising event is replicable for your purposes, Mr Xxx. The stop-gap was to telephone a previous casual employer and ask if she had anything for me. I had formerly worked for her, producing a specialised type of transcript, and knew the company had been pleased with my work. As it happened, they had just the thing: having recently tendered successfully to provide transcript for a major client, they had discovered to their alarm that the dedicated staff member poised to do the work couldn’t stand it! So they asked me if I would be interested in coming in to do this work on an as-needs basis. I said yes. This tided me over part-time for a year or two before the organisation decided this was not ‘core business’ and handed me the files with permission to take over the major client with their blessing and at no charge. Thus a small freelance business was born, entirely unlooked-for. This was my start, but not my finish. I am still doing it (though very differently now), over 12 years later, and now the clients come to me ... but only online, or through snail mail. Most of them I have never met in person and, frankly, that suits me just fine.

[Comment 1]
Now, as it happens, and as I now understand much better since gaining aspie-awareness, this realm of work is right up my alley, touching on an array of my special interest areas. I love words, and use them competently alongside polished spelling, grammar and punctuation. I am also a musician and, at some level, have an intuitive grasp of how to replicate the rhythms of someone’s speech on paper. I am an extremely fast and accurate typist, and have sufficient general knowledge and academic background to be able to produce transcript of exceptional quality on many subject areas. In short, I had stumbled into a niche market that is under-serviced at the particular price-point I was able to offer because of very low overheads (working from home, solo). Basically, at this point, I had One Happy Client.

Take note; that is a key. It seems to me that you can manage without the stroke of luck; you are already well ahead of the game, MrXxx, if you know the field in which you wish to succeed; but what you can’t do without is that first One Happy Client. So the tricks I distil out of the story so far are:

• knowing what you are good at
• understanding who wants what you’ve got
• getting them to take your product the first time (sale or gift if necessary – call it a ‘promotional sample’) and
• making sure they are extremely happy with the result - because, if they are, they will tell all their friends. Especially if your service is out of the ordinary run of things.

[Narrative 2]
As it happens, my One Happy Client was in an influential position. People sought advice from OHC, and OHC was delighted (with my permission) to recommend my services. Gradually, the client base grew, almost entirely by word of mouth. Importantly, most new clients brought repeat business. I somehow developed a reputation for providing top-quality services at competitive (but not cut-price) rates. One client returned after trying a cheaper provider because my superior quality saved her time and money despite the higher fee. For a while I diversified into higher-end product, after producing a small promotional brochure for single-site distribution by a friend/satisfied customer, and again achieved commissions and snowballing word-of-mouth recommendations. I later withdrew emphasis from this second activity, as I found it too taxing and stressful for ongoing sustainability.

After some years I felt, with some justification, that I had become somewhat expert in my particular field. I therefore developed a website that would provide general information about my services, as well as hints on ways clients might improve their own inputs before calling on me. The purpose of the website was to establish a resource of repeatable information that I could refer people to. This cut down on my direct communication and repetition load. Without any further effort on my part, I did find over time that people started finding their way to the site without having been referred to me by a third party. This was never the purpose (I don’t want the business to grow beyond what I can comfortably handle myself), but it was gratifying. In particular, it led me to infer that the whole Web presence thing confers a certain professional credibility and will certainly give an educated purchaser an impression of whether or not you know your stuff.

[Comment 2]
You are right that But who’s to say you must do all that yourself? It’s not very clever for aspies like me to build this in to my daily responsibilities: too stressful, and I’m not good at it. So – again, although to me it happened almost ‘by accident’ – I can draw a few pointers from my own experience, because they are basically what I did, and they worked:

• Who is to say you have to build and maintain the network yourself? Why not piggyback on the already existing networks of your One Happy Client?
• Your NT friends already have networks. If you are able to sell – or give – your product to your NT friend, and they are pleased with the result, you have Another Happy Client. They will tell their friends. Their friends will email you ... See comments re OHC.
• Develop a Web presence that does a lot of the ‘general information maintenance’ spadework for you. Make sure your existing contacts know about it. Keep it up to date. Get it proofread by a competent editor, each time you update!! ! (Remember your objective is to look professional and make people feel they have been communicated with, without any direct networking maintenance on your part.) Hook in any promotional materials, even leaflets/posters, with the look and feel of your online pages, and try to provide information that will be of actual use to the client/potential client, rather than have it read like an extended self-promotional exercise (aka advertisement) – again, this is where your trusted editor comes in.
• Never develop a contact and leave them dangling. Engage them straight away with your product. If you can’t sell it, then give it away as a special ‘promotional sample’. But make sure they know this is what you would usually be selling, and that they know what your usual rates are.
• Once you have provided product, ask for feedback. Then listen and take notes. Address any negative feedback in your next round. Consider giving them a temporary discount. Ask for permission to reproduce any positive feedback on your Web presence – and make sure you check whether they are okay for their names or titles to be used, or would prefer to be entirely anonymous. Then honour their preferences – but use what you can. Testimonials are valuable.
• Keep checking that what you are providing is what people actually want. Ask (by email) for feedback on your latest delivery. If your product is technology-based, it may necessitate ongoing skills-upgrade – and certainly will if any part of it involves online activity; make sure your clients know (email again) about upgrades to your service/s. If you are anything like me, this will be the least of your aspie-related problems as upskilling definitely helps to keep the process interesting; however, it may require financial investment in legit licensed software products, and this must be budgeted for.

Things I think we have to be prepared to do:

• At the very beginning, do close client liaison to establish that One Happy Client. If you can stay with it for a finite period, the story gets much better. Think of it as a foundation task, a bit like ‘aceing’ an interview. The ripples spread from there.
• Join any association that is particular to the niche area you want to belong to. Turn up occasionally to meetings (you don’t have to say much). Renew your membership. They will appreciate your support and do their best to support you in return by referring people your way. They might want to do a piece on you in the special-interest newsletter: let them.
• Apologise unreservedly if things go wrong and suggest a way of making it up to them. (By email. )
• Communicate, accurately and comprehensively. I do this almost exclusively by email. Make sure you have full contact information for anyone you are dealing with, and make sure they know your timetable. If there are certain times you would prefer them to telephone, make sure they know those times. If people know what to expect, they are comfortable. Silence makes them worry.
• Acquire a reputation for attention to detail. This is not hard for an aspie to do! Just make sure that as well as doing your amazingly thorough job, full of flair, they somehow are made to know you are doing it. Good if it can come from a third party, or convey it yourself if you are able to do it subtly (i.e. not in a bragging way).
• Avoid imparting any sense of alarm, no matter how panic-stricken you find yourself. Never, ever, ever attempt to communicate in the heat of the moment. When you are sure of what has happened, explain it thoroughly but not in a blaming or self-abasing way. It is surprising what people can take in their stride.
• Never accept custody of people’s original materials, unless there is no alternative. If there is no alternative, make sure you have adequate insurance to cover loss, theft, fire, damage and so on.

Things I didn’t do and should have:

• Accept invitations to openings or events to which you have contributed by your work. Grit your teeth, down a couple (but no more) of stiff ones if you have to, and do the glad-handing. Smile a lot. It is an opportunity to accept business cards of other people and hand out your own. Note on theirs what the point of potential connection is, and make sure yours expresses clearly what you do, for their benefit. Not so necessary if you have piggy-backed off your OHC successfully, but something to keep in reserve for when you need to ginger things up a bit.

I think that will do from me for now. Please let me know if any of this has been useful. It sounds like a lot of stuff when written down all together, but really the whole thing can grow pretty organically from that OHC. That slow rate of growth suited me right down to the ground, as I needed comfort rather than speed.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that by now I NEVER NEVER NEVER have to cold-call, and I NEVER NEVER NEVER have to advertise (though very occasionally I might choose to do an information circular if I have upgraded services available). All my clients make initial contact with me, not the other way around, and always by email. Sweet for an aspie. Our technology is all on our side, because it actually IS more efficient, and once people are acclimatised/ educated (sometimes with a little gentle encouragement) it works better for them, too.

Good luck!

Namaste.
HP

Last edited by HighPlateau on 19 Nov 2011, 7:41 am, edited 2 times in total.

Thanks guys. Now that I've had a chance to look at everything here in a different mood, at a different time, I think there's some stuff here I probably missed, and some new too, of course.

Definitely going to have to take a second and third look, if not more. Funny how one day I can't see certain things, and others I can.

Will definitely get back to this within the next few days.

I made a living for 20 years with what started out as a special interest when I was 8 or 9 years old... I was interested in, and liked to fool around with old radios and TV sets. I read a lot of books on theory and engineering and repair of TVs, and I started dragging them home when people would lay them out for the trash. Later (age 13; 1980), I got a part time job with a local TV repair man after school in order to learn some real technique. I wound up doing TV repair all the way until 2005, when the business finally died (because nobody has their TV set or VCR or DVD repaired anymore). I never got rich from it, because I liked it so much that I would fail to charge the going prices. I was a Sony factory-authorized technician for awhile too, which was nice because I worked on good quality equipment for people who appreciated it, and wanted it fixed if at all possible.

Charles

maybe i forgot, but in what kind of sciences are you in?

I ran a small tree service. I could overcome my lack of social skills to talk about treework with clients. I didn't realize then how weird I come accross to people. But lots of customers, landscapers, and other tree guys would vouch for me and helped me stay busy. It was an incredible self esteem boost to be wanted by everyone who hired me. As opposed to all the workplaces where I was the odd man out. I closed the business because I could make more money and have medical/retirement benefits working for someone else. I found the saying that self employment is twice the work for half the money to be true. But...the confidence from self employment and feeling like I was offering something from my scientific/artistic perspective was pretty cool.