worst jobs for aspies...

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I agree with the above poster, being a waitress would be most likely impossible for me.

Can't speak for anyone else as what works for one aspie doesn't work for another but my list of WORST jobs are:

Waitress: you need good memory for who ordered what and at what table, good social skills and ability to deal with rude customers, be able to multi-task and work under pressure.

Telesales/customer service: Nightmare. Awful job for someone with phone phobia.

Cashier/retail: I have Dyscalculia and social phobia.

Secretary/receptionist: You need an ability to multi-task and an ability to do mind numbing office drone work.

Teaching: How anyone actually WANTS to do this is beyond me! Especially the age range 10 +

Telesales is okay if you have a good script. I did it for 2 months... there are worse things than that. I mean, at least you work with one person at one time and do not have to multitask.

I survived working as a cashier/waitress for nearly three years and will tell you that it's not quite as difficult for aspies as one would expect, considering I am on the low extreme as symptoms go. The regulars were pretty easy going and loved how as soon as I saw them coming I would have everything ready. My boss had explained that serving people was the ultimate goal of my job, so I made it my number one priority to memorize everything; in fact I had over one hundred people's regular orders as well as proper spelling of everyone's name.
The only people I couldn't handle were the snowbirds; a lot of them were jerks. The ones from the south were the worst, because I speak a lot faster than most people from my city and they didn't like that and they loved to make fun of the way I said coffee.

Any fastfood place, like McDonalds or Subway. I worked at Subway in the foodcourt of a busy mall. I never really had social anxiety until after a month of working there, I had a huge meltdown because of all the people, and I just ended up not showing up the next day, and called and told them I wasn't coming back.

For me the worst are:
1. Counselor, I about lost it doing that, the social skills caused me lots of trouble
2. Customer Service, same thing.
3. anything that has vague expectations
4. any job with some one constantly looking over my shoulder.
5 Bouncer, only due to noise, smell, and other over stimulation that sends my nervous system into shut down mode.
6. Air Traffic Controller, too much stress.
7. Factory worker, over stimulation.
8.Telemarketing, I just couldn't do what I hate being done to me unto others.

That is all I can think of right now.

Surprisingly I'm a good teacher, and enjoy it. I did Toast Masters for a while, that helped me out with speaking in public enormously. I also was in the military before I was diagnosed, I did very well until I was deemed unfit for service after being horribly injured by a enemy attack.
I teach Hunters Safety now to try and help people to not be like Mr. Bush's V.P. and shoot their friend, or others.


Good positions:
1. Biologist
2. Chemist
3. Engineer
4. Data Entry
5. IT
6. Repair Person
7. Professor
8. One of those people on Myth Busters

Worst Jobs:

Waiter/Waitress
Police Officer
Sales
Retail Management
Nurse
Teacher (except for a college professor or trade school instructor where you teach your area of interest to motivated adults)
Modeling/Acting
Pastor

Best Jobs:

Any job where you work mostly alone and focus on your area of obsession
For the wordsmiths maybe freelance writing
For artists, freelance illustration or graphic design
For computer buffs; programming
For math analysis types; maybe finance or accounting
For science types- maybe biologist, chemist, etc

I am still trying to find my calling as I'm not strong in the sciences and suck with computers but I think I have okay writing and math skills.
I'm considering paralegal studies with a focus on writing and research.

Allie Kat
http://www.myaspergerslifestory.com/


http://www.myaspergerslifestory.com/

One of the non-ideal jobs is a taxi driver, because you feel obliged to make conversation whilst driving.

An ideal job for me (don't know about other Aspies) is a bus-driver, because they're not allowed to talk to passengers unless they're asking them something, and the questions aren't always hard what the passengers ask. And it's a repetitive job because you drive back and forth on the same route (that is, if you go into a company where their contracts stay the same. In bigger companies their contracts change every day, which isn't ideal for an Aspie.)

My nightmare job would be to have a base-plus-commission sales job in a women's clothing store, surrounded by snotty women who talked about boring crap and people's appearances. The store would stink of sizing, have flourescent lights, have nowhere to sit down, and you'd have to stand around all day harassing each customer and telling them that every piece of overpriced, cheaply-made crap they tried on looked FABULOUS on them! You'd have to ask permission to go to the bathroom, and stand outside on a stripmall sidewalk for your "break."

Oh, and the (younger, prettier, shallow) boss would be a real PITA and get on me for "not being a team player," and I'd get written up for it. Now THAT job would really be the ninth circle of hell for me!

One other terrible job: Be one of those women running a shopping-mall kiosk who smear Dead Sea mud on your face to pitch $80 facemasks! The racket, the hard floor, no sunlight, no peace and quiet, commission-only pay, hard-sell techniques...arghh. How do those people DO that job?! Some of them really excel at it. My ex-husband was one of the greatest salesmen I've ever seen, and I'm the worst saleswoman around...my current husband will confirm that!

I honestly hope your name isn't "Al Bundy", then...

Just got around to reading this thread and a couple comments...

I agree about sales, BUT an Aspy may be good at selling whatever his particular interest is. I've always felt I would be good at selling books, but I can't get any of the stores to hire me. They want high school dropouts and not my overeducated ass.

I would think any job where ones uses their hands a lot would be bad for Aspies. I'm inclined to think Aspies prefer working with their mind, but then again not all Aspies have NVLD like me.

Agree about customer service....that's got to be WORST for Aspies. You have to lie, exaggerate, empathize with the customer, ugh.

Regarding the Vector knife salesman, I was ALMOST going to do it until I found out you had to find clients on your own. Originally, I thought they would send me to peoples' houses.

Door to door salesman would be the worst. I've interviewed for jobs like that, and you have to be a couple steps away from being a sociopath in order to do that job. I think that's how those people are created, doing that type of thing over and over again. Another one would be escort. But easily the worst one of all would be politician or lawyer. (Not that they aren't the same thing really, 70% of politicians are lawyers) How can you consistently convince people to let you stay in office, or keep the jury at bay for hours at a time? Talk about social skills. That's it man! That's what social skills are; the ability to lie on a consistent enough basis so people don't know the difference.