Five fields an Aspie should NEVER work in

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Hmm. This thread makes me curious. At Job Corps, I have had an after class job as a receptionist for quite a while. The job is pretty much completely socialization, mostly answering phones, directing visitors, and keeping visitors occupied with conversation while they wait for whatever they came for. I haven't had much trouble on this job, and my boss considers me one of the better workers he has. When it comes to independant problem solving, I don't shut down when I don't know what to do, I figure something out on the spot. I'm slightly detail oriented, but I prefer experimentalism greatly.

People are different, and not all AS people are bad at the jobs being discussed.

This is indeed an interesting thread. After reading what I have, I’ll add my two cents worth. I’ve had 72 jobs in my life; I’m 53 years of age. I’ve always wondered why I could not hold a job or why I kept changing jobs. I never could understand how an individual can hire into a place and stay there for 20 years, 30 years, or even longer. It’s a miracle for me to last 3 months, or just long enough to get through the probation period. Now I understand.

I have done almost everything from being a Military Policeman in the Army to driving a big rig to factory work. For me, the one career I have seemed to maintain is facilities maintenance; however, success has depended on where and what type of facilities maintenance. For instance, I worked in a level 1 trauma center for three years. The stress almost killed me; it’s a miracle I didn’t kill someone by accident since I didn’t know what I was doing and the overload kept me in a constant state of panic.

The job I presently hold is “okay.” I maintain one building as a technician and deal with the same individuals minimally on a daily basis. It’s not as if I am meeting different people constantly. I know where everything is, what to do, etc. I am actually highly skilled, trained, and I do hold three degrees; only one is in my profession. It is a B.S. in Facilities Management. By the way, but I tried being a manager a couple times. It did not work out at all. I have everything needed except that ability to understand and deal with people.

Right now, I am looking for a new job. I have been with the place I’m at for six years, which is a miracle, but recently they hired a new supervisor. The “change” was bad enough, but this guy is abusive, aggressive, and a “know-it-all” that knows nothing. He overcompensates by exercising his perceived authority and coming up with ridiculous ideas. There is not a single person that likes him except the one that wanted him hired in the first place. It got so bad that three of us filed complaints with HR. I disclosed my Asperger’s to them, which I have never done. Oddly enough, it almost threw them into a panic. The guy has backed off with the abuse, but he’s still a menace to the harmony of our department.

Oops, I got a bit longwinded there.

Very interesting thread learning what people on the spectrum can do. I'm a 911 dispatcher in a small town and I've been doing it for years.it seems to suit my limitations in the workplace. It helps that even NTs who do the work are unusual people! After 9 years doing this I seem to have found my work niche, after a lifetime of getting brassed off at work. I feel lucky. Good luck to all of you looking to find your calling.

I'm a nurse working in the NICU. I love my work, but it is very stressful. The events of the shift are constantly in flux. Sometimes my TM will come and pull me away from my team with 5 minutes notice and throw me into another assignment. One night I was calmly going about my assignment, when the TM came and said, "well, we don't have an admit plan, so I'm giving you the next one." I had to give up one of my babies and take a new admit on 20 minutes notice.

I have always felt like I wasn't getting everything about nursing as well as everyone else around me seems to get it. I am wondering now if it comes down to difficulties seeing the big picture. A lot about nursing is taking a set of seemingly unrelated issues and figuring out what is going on. If I have ranges of numbers to memorize, I can tell you when a blood pressure or heart rate is abnormal. However, just knowing it is abnormal is not enough. I have to infer from the data what I should do next. Much of the time I can't. I've been a nurse for 3 years, but I still feel like I'm new a lot of the time.

I am back in school to finish my BSN, but I am not sure what to do next. I have been thinking pretty seriously about becoming a nurse practitioner. However, since I've been learning so much about Asperger's, I've been wondering if that would really be the best choice. I love to work in the lab and do research, so I might do that, but it will require a lot more schooling and my salary after graduation won't be as good as the nurse practitioner salary. But, if it is something I love and am good at, and it doesn't cause me awful stress like my current job, then I guess I would be worth it despite the loss of income.

Tonight was just another example of why nursing (especially in a hospital) is not a good place for me.

At 11:20 pm, my manager came to me and said, "Finish up your charting as quick as you can. You're going to orient downstairs for the rest of the night." They have done this to me several times before - pulling me from one place to another or one assignment to another, sometimes with only 5 minutes notice. It throws me into a tailspin, and I need some time to recover. I apparently have gained a bad reputation for complaining about my assignments. No one gets why it bothers me so much to have my schedule thrown off. I had the rest of my night set and planned, and they came and ripped it away from me for a complete unknown. At least the rest of this night has gone well, but that is usually not the case.

I've been working in a nursing home for about three years for lack of another job, and I hate it so much. The only parts I enjoy are when I have to tend to sores, cuts, emergencies and when I diagnose the patients mentally and compare my conclusions with the doctor's. The actual care taking part is what I hate, dealing with arrogant, rude and stupid family members(don't know why they always treat us like if we were thieves or something), wiping the urine and feces out of practically everywhere all the time, being yelled at, acussed of stealing items, or being insulted or hit by alzheimer's, senile or parkinson patients 13 hours a day, a day in between. Not to mention getting escabiosis every couple of months, intoxications, back ache or allergies from them. This job really brings out the sociopath in me. So I know now I must stay away from jobs that involve dealing with people in a direct way.

Interesting list. I always question what I will be doing years from now. I haven't even had my first job yet. I've been applying to places like crazy, but no one is calling me for an interview! It's frustrating! I'm going to start volunteering at my library.

I agree with some of these, but I have never found very repetitive work enjoyable. I may have trained myself to seek out variety at some point. In high school I worked in the back at Wal-Mart, unloading trucks (which basically amounts to stacking and re-stacking thousands of boxes). I was good at it, but bored out of my mind. In that job, I much preferred helping customers when I got the chance. Likewise, gardening and working in farm fields were always pretty mind-numbing. Heck, I even get bored of paddling a canoe unless it involves maneuvering around. I like exciting things to be happening. Maybe I have above-average motor skills for an aspie, but I've never found construction or mechanics terribly hard. Probably because I grew up in a house that my family was building, so I've had a lot of practice. I was always pretty bad at figuring out exactly people wanted me to do, though. Most of my klutzy moments are due to misreading someone's intentions, and I'm better at working around that now.

I dunno... My only good quality is my empathy to be totally honest. I'm not smart, and my memory and motor skills are horrible.

I work retail, and while I excel at interacting with the clients, I'm horrible at everything else. I would hate to have a job where I wasn't directly helping people and interacting with them. Plus, my Myers Briggs type is ISFJ, which totally explains why I love helping people.

Probably, high pressure jobs that require quick thinking on feet and fast multi-tasking like a dispatcher's job would not be a good one for us Aspies.

In this environment where it is tough for even an NT to get a job, I really hate it how we are so limited in what we can handle. I have not attempted to apply for disability so I don't know how easy it might be to get a job due to Aspergers since so many NTs actually think that not only do we NOT have a disability, but an actual advantage. We are all assumed to be geniuses as many of you know.

I have managed to do well in case management even with a heavy caseload of clients who are on the physical disability Medicaid waiver for home and community-based services. My (four-year) college degree is in Sociology but with a heavy social work emphasis.

Incidently, when I attended a disability caucus event, a disability attorney said that it is very easy to get disability benefits for their clients with Aspergers since they are treated so badly in the workplace. I easily believe that since a good number of my past employers have subjected me to a hostile work environment to try to get me to quit. It is too bad that in this country's corporate structure, anything goes, and bosses are allowed to get away with about any corporate "bad acting" they want to inflict on vulnerable employees without consequence. That is the way it is in Kansas since trying to file a discrimination complaint and have it heard very soon is just not possible. Yes, my most recent position was eliminated, but I was also let go for requesting a reasonable accommodation for my Aspergers and moderate hearing impairment, and I was working for a disability civil rights advocacy agency, so that just makes the boss that much worse. Plus, she lied about me requesting an accommodation when I appealed to get unemployment compensation. The boss was an attorney, but used an attorney in that appeal to cover her lies. She also hated people with Aspergers and actually said so during a staff meeting in front of the agency's whole staff. I originally filed a complaint with the Kansas Human Rights Commission but found out they were never going to get to my case until 2018 because they were so backlogged since job discrimination is RAMPANT in Kansas. No surprise there. Kansas is a very anti-labor-rights state.

I essentially got fired from a job in fast food because I would constantly ask my supervisor what she wanted me to do when I had nothing else to do. This was four years before my NVLD diagnosis and I'm actually glad I don't work at the restaurant anymore because I did not like my boss. I had another job in grocery before that job that I preferred but they never trained me properly for it and I was put on probation due to an incident that I don't remember doing (accidentally putting rat poison in someone's produce bag. I was a bagger). I was also slow
at bagging the groceries and I'm assuming that has something to do with my poor visual-spatial reasoning.

I haven't had a job since then but I'm going to school for criminal justice right now and I'm not sure if it's the right fit for someone with nonverbal learning disability. I'm starting think I need a career that is very structured. Lol.

I was a cashier at a grocery store once 3 years ago, when I was 19. That lasted about 2 weeks. XD I found it impossible. So much pressure in dealing with the public and so many things happening at a relatively fast pace.

Needless to say I've been going to college and haven't had a job ever since. But I'm hoping to get a volunteer position working with the cats at the animal shelter. I'm just waiting to hear back on my application.