Career change advice needed: taking up a trade?

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I have a first class Bachelor of Arts (English) degree, and I'm doing office work 16 hours a week for minimum wage. I'm having trouble handling it. Interpersonal skills or lack thereof, interpreting verbal instructions fired at me in a hurry, and simply overload - the boss has two grandchildren, something like three and two years old, and they're there quite often and when they're running around screaming I just shut down. Hell, being given two tasks in the same sentence will shut me down. I have workarounds like keeping a notepad so I can grab it and write down what I'm being told (as well as doing phone scripts when I'm told to make a call), but it must make me look VERY odd. With that and executive dysfunction to deal with (when given a task I complete it too fast with my aspie super-concetration skills, then twiddle my thumbs for the rest of the day), he's not getting his worth out of me even for min. wage, and I suspect I'm only tolerated because I cost them so little. I have had very few public meltdowns in my life, and none in this job, but it is SO HARD to keep control sometimes. I've taken to secretly biting my hand as hard as I can when I feel overload coming on - the shock of pain clears my sensory cache, so to speak, and I can continue to function, but then I'm confused and can't remember what I was doing beforehand I get home after only a six hour day feeling like I've gone three rounds mentally with Mike Tyson. Immense frustration of the "God, it shouldn't be THIS DAMN HARD to do a job THIS DAMN SIMPLE" variety...

Anyway I'm going to need a livelihood I can tolerate because I can't keep living rent-free and bills-free with my parents, someday they're gonna die! So I've been thinking, what about a trade? My mother is appalled at the idea of me with my degree becoming an electrician or something, but certain aspects really appeal to me:

* Understanding the job scientifically from the ground up (something you never get pushing paper, because it's all ephemeral)
* Having specific concrete tasks to complete ("rewire this fuse box")
* Once you have the skills and the knowledge, you have them for life
* Transferability: a trade once learned is useful anywhere, and you can work for yourself and build your own business around the trade if you'd rather be self-employed
* Judged, potentially, on how well the work is performed RATHER than how well you kiss corporate butt!

I've a feeling I could be a damn good tradesman (tradeswoman?), with my aspie attention to detail and my secret love of discovering how things work. My mother's strenuous objections haven't yet convinced me. Repetitive? Dull? Doesn't use the brain or the degree? Hey, some of my happiest times have been when I was told to spend an entire afternoon sorting receipts by date or removing staples from leaflets.

On the other hand... the idea of going into a trade is a totally unknown quantity. The points above are only my logical surmises. Nobody in my middle-class family has ever worked in a trade. All I know for sure is that I DON'T want to spend any more time behind a desk looking at papers. I've already spent four fifths of my life behind one desk or another, given that I entered school at the age of four...

In the UK there's a lack of skilled tradespeople in various core occupations, which makes it more appealing to me: I could potentially be subsidised by the Government if I decided to train up as a plumber or gasfitter or electrician.

Am I just being daft?

If anyone else has gone down this road, I'd very much like to hear from them.

What are the working conditions for a trade? Construction would be too noisy? In somebody's house, their screaming kids would be all over the place, and then they themselves would be screaming over the bill. You'd be on the phone a lot, too. My only idea of a good aspie job would be librarian, the one that I wish I'd chosen for myself. Here, you can get a librarian degree. Two of my friends did that, I'm so jealous.

I graduated from college in 1987 with a BA in Psych.At 43,I have had alot of different jobs,some of them in the "trades".Here is my take on them.

Painting....I loved doing the detail trim work(but I was a perfectionist and speed counts more then accurecy), but hated useing a roller and most is done with sprayers and you have to wear really uncomfortable masks.The smell is strong but I love oil based products.

Sheetrock taper....Fun,but the same problem of wanting it to be perfect and time is money.

Landscape......Mindless and out doors.I like to dig in the dirt and someone else tells you what to do and where.They dont care what you look like and the clothes are comfortable.


You can get some work entry level(if they have a female quota)but you can also go to trade school,join the union and make a lot of money(unless these jobs are filled with cheaper foreign labor).

The only thing I found intolerable...working with a bunch of sexist males.I was the ONLY female and got a lot of grief.I usually get along well with guys,being tomboyish,but these guys could be brutal,not just to me but each other.

I think the trades can be good for aspies, but check to see what the local economy is like,who is filling the jobs and how easy for a female to get into(You can try and meet some women who work there and ask them what it is like?I had a friend who was an electrician and it was pretty easy to get into a shop and do free-lancing.But use your aspie focus and research the job specifics.

you shouldn't be doing a minimum wage job if you have a degree
that just doesn't make sense!

a liberal arts bachelor's is next to worthless, now, in this time of too little government funding, without the addition of significant 'soft' skills. get a two-year associate's degree in something techie like auto tech, dentist's assistant, or electronics and you'll have jobs...

I didn't read your whole post because it was too long, but yes, trades are awesome. There is a shortage of tradespeople where I live too, and there is a lot of money to be made in them. Also, you can be the stupidest guy in your trade, and you will still get to work every day and make good money. That's how desperate companies are for tradespeople. I am getting a degree right now, but if that fails I would go into a trade in a second.

Claradoon: I find it very difficult to explain just what's wrong with me regarding the grandchildren I don't mind NOISE, in general. Perhaps it's that I'm expected to interact with them: the boss's wife seems to enjoy sending them into the office, "Go and say hello to Freawaru...". She knows I have difficulty around small children because I've said so, but I can't well ask them to go away after that can I? All I can do is freeze and hope they get bored of me and go away again. I can't decide whether she does it without thinking, simply doesn't understand the depth of my distress, or actively likes upsetting me because she thinks it's funny. Possibly it's all three.

krex: thank you for the very informative post.

Yeah, I want a job where people don't care what I look like - that's another one I HATE having to get dressed in smart womanly clothes for office work - I feel like a dog in a dress, TOTALLY inappropriate - and in any case I can't wear make-up because I can't stand the feel of it on my face. Dirt I like, but not stickiness or make-up... so bizarre. I would LOVE to be able turn up for work in jeans or a boiler suit

The potential sexism does worry me. I think it's about my biggest worry.

alex: Yes. It doesn't make sense. And it's simply because I can't handle the office environment. Nobody has teased or bothered me in this job, the boss could not be kinder (he has often given me lifts home to save me the bus fare!), and yet I'm barely coping.

xon: I'm going to look into associate degrees for things like electronics. Thank you for the heads-up.

Space: Sorry, I have a habit of making "too long; didn't read" posts. Will try to be more succinct in future.



Thanks, all. I don't want to jump into anything without understanding the ramifications (despite my mother's insistence that I should join this management training scheme NOW NOW NOW BEFORE THE DEADLINE GOES!!) I'm going to get an appointment with the job center and possibly Careers Cymru to talk about my options, in the context of AS. They might be able to advise me of some of the realities of a trade.

I don't understand the negative associations people have with working in the trades. There are thousands of freshly minted college graduated competing for a select few low paying jobs, and that's supposed to be good. Meanwhile, with a good union, it's possible to make close to six figures if one puts in some overtime and works hard in a decent trade. Trust me. Yet that's considered a horrible fate by most parents.

There's drawbacks of course, many of the people are a bit ignorant or bigoted, and they aren't the kindest to each other (or Aspies) but nothing violent or mean. There's jerks in every walk of life. And you'd be surprised at some of the people you meet, I've met quite a few characters, and none of them have had that "corporate" brainwashing yet, which was refreshing.

I started out unloading trucks, then got an entry level job in a power plant. They paid for more training, and I increased my qualifications. Now I'm in school for finance, and I'll have nearly unlimited options in a year or so.

Don't get caught up in pre-conceived notions. If approached correctly, trades offer a lot more. Most people can't get over the idea of getting dirty, I can't believe I get paid to have so much fun!

Electrician is quite interesting, you can specialise as well in mending machines like vending machines or elevators. Then you have renovation and of new build. And lots of thread and pipe and definitely lots more pay. You can even go into the computer business. If you can read a circuit of orders on paper you can become an electrician.

Zombie thread, resurrected after over 32 months of inactivity.


M.