Five fields an Aspie should NEVER work in

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I shall add to the previous poster.

I currently work sales, and it's both awful for us, and great for us.

Let me explain.

Retail sales is actually useful for learning a few social skills and boost self-confidence. I've been doing it four years and am a lot better then I was when I started. The previous poster also explains in greater detail how it works with us and why it can be enjoyable.

High pressure sales, however, I think are -terribly- bad for us.

When I started in my job, the sales focus was on helping people. They would come in, looking for something, or just browsing. I'd offer to help. If they wanted help, I'd be very happy to assist, and was thrilled to be able to use my knowledge of the products to make someone's day and make informed purchasing decisions. I work electronic sales by the way, in a more focused store then Bestbuy, so I was required to learn almost all major electronics.

I learned how to talk to people, how to listen to people, and how to interact with people better in general. Sure there were mishaps, but I am lucky and have a laidback boss who was willing to overlook mistakes, because he knew I generally learned from them. Nothing quite like accidentally insulting someone! In that way, I was lucky to have a boss like that.

However, in the last few years, the company focus has shifted. Previously cell phone sales, while part of our offerings, were only one of many focuses. When the company was bought by a major cell phone company, the focus shifted to selling cell phones... and I -hate- it.

Why?

When someone comes in to the store with a desire to buy something, I love helping them. It was fun to utilize logic and problem solving to sell something that would provide a solution to the customer's problem. With high pressure sales, (such as travel agencies, car sales, and cell phone contracts,) your job is to -make- a problem for the customer, convince them they need what you are offering, and then happily supply it.

I can't do that. I cannot manipulate someone to buy something they may not have been here to get, may not be happy with, and will regret it. I don't have a problem if they are unhappy accidentally or due to a bad decision on their part, but to be the active agent of force that potentially makes them make that choice? I tried... and I -cannot- morally do it. My Asperger brain won't let me.

I don't mind if they come in -looking- for the darn things, (aka, 'you want a cell phone?' 'Yeah!' 'Okay great, lets help you get the phone and a plan that works for you!') But I do mind trying to convince them to get it because my company wants to sell them, (aka 'you want a cell phone?' 'Not really no.' 'okay, well let me tell you why I think you should get one anyway.')

It's manipulative, false, slimy, and requires the willingness to bend truth, read people -very- well, and spin things so that the mundane sounds appealing. All things that we're -terrible- at.

They can't fire me over not selling cell phones, but I know they want me gone. I personally feel with what I learned from regular retail sales however, that I would do very well in customer service. I like to help people, and the thicker skin I got means I can deal with angry people like nobody's business, simply sticking to rationalism and protocol.

I seem to have found my niche... I do tech support for a big electronics company over the phone. Most of my customers just love my helpfulness, technical knowledge and ability to give clear, concise instructions in plain, simple English. I have one of the highest tallies of "kudos" and fewest complaints. (This fact saved my butt when my social failures and Aspie/depression "shutdowns" resulted in some tardiness.)

I would never have done this well in person...

Fortunately, "hooking things up, making them work, troubleshooting and fixing them when they don't" is one of my Aspie skills/passions.

Peons are veeeerrrry expendable in this place though. I'll need to rise a rank or two if I'm going to even consider myself somewhat "secure".

I've worked in 1 and 2 and it was an utter nightmare

haven't tried 3, and it does seem stressful,

as for 4, working WITH someone in management, depending on the kind of person, can be very good, by finding someone you can be loyal to, and assessing them on their behaviours, one can find what quirks make them tick and go along with those, providing insight that they wouldn't be able to get perhaps, or doing strategic/tactical descriptions for them on complex issues, as a way of double checking their own intuitions and setting the field for play for them

what this does is put one into the advisor role for the king, basically, and eventually you'll be able to fill in temporarily/fill the gap for a bit should they have to go off somewhere, and because you're most likely naturally going to want to avoid being in that position, you will do quite well for a short time and be glad when they get back, and they will appreciate this - understanding and being okay with an individual's quirks is important here though, nobody is perfect, the trick is to find the person who's likeable in a variety of ways, and tolerable where they're not likeable, and generally, you will also want predictable


as for 5, carpentry is bad

architecture might be god tier for aspies though, or engineering, and is closely related to construction/engineering

"TEACHER: I believe most aspies should become teacher barring those who are average I.Q. because while NTs with average I.Q. can and do become teachers and even become "researchers" because of their faking ability, we aspies have to be of at least slightly above intelligence to have such jobs. And I guess this rule applies even in other fields, it is often seen that an aspie because of lack of social skills doing a job whose requirement is far below his/her qualification. Highly intelligent aspies can, and they do, become theoretical scientists/researcher. A very good reason to become a teacher is that in free time you can go to the library and do not need to socialize and also you need not figure out complex social relationship among people like you will have to in other jobs to keep the job. The point is that being an outcast would be much easily ignored in a school, college and university. Therefore I believe that aspies should receive an affirmative action for teaching jobs."

I am a teacher. I am a special education teacher. Being a teacher for me has been a nightmare . I am not sure about free time to go to a library and libraries, at least where I am from, are no longer the quiet places they once were. As a preschool teacher, you are required to team-teach, deal with difficult co-workers, staff, parents and children and yes, you will have to socialize. Sorry teaching is a poor choice, unless you are in some non-teaching aspect of education, such as a textbook writer, tester or evaluator, an advisor or counselor working 1:1, a SETTS teacher where you have a small group of students to work with without the responsibilities of a large classroom, a therapist (speech, occupational or physical therapist) where it is task focused, or a specialist teacher (language, art, dance, music, nutrition) where you come to visit different schools throughout the day but again only for an hour or less. Researching jobs are rare. Running your own daycare sounds like a good idea but for me it is not. "Teacherpreneur" jobs may be okay if one can just communicate with customers through the website you sell from. I like the idea of becoming a parental specialist or a trainer. The problem is the pay may not be as good, the competition for these jobs are fierce and the turnover is rare. Plus you may need more education and certifications and that costs money. The age of the students may make a difference as I am finding out. I apparently do better with older children than preschool, although it can be fun. I love project-oriented work myself. The environment of the workspace is more important as well as the ability to have consistent, meaningful work we can do well with management that isn't overwhelming and where the directions and deadlines are visual and clear. I need quiet and do not want to feel pressured to socialize at work.

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Education-Traini ... icians.htm I think works well so would http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologist but thats just me.

I woud have to disagree about carpentry. Sure it is stressful and requires a lot of troubleshooting and some teamwork, but at the end of the day it is the most interesting job i've ever had. I've been working carpentry over a year now for a big real estate management firm and i feel very useful. Even on my time off I work on my own place and build things for fun and help others with their repairs.

I recommend this job to any aspie who finds it intruiging. It is hard for an aspie to run his own company but you can certainly work as a handyman, carpenter, plumber, or electrician and still make a living wage. (I do electrical and plumbing work as well and i'm quite good at it).

The camaraderie is a very interesting aspect of it. the guys I work with all have wacky personalities and we feel a sense of brotherhood that i've never felt with coworkers when i worked in sales. The competitiveness is there, but it gets overwhelmed by the need we have to work together to complete a job and watch out for each other's safety

Any job takes some getting used to... but carpentry I think works well for some aspies. The trick is to think of a job as a video game. some early levels are annoying and repetitive but you have to keep trying and continuing until you get up to the interesting levels of the "game" until you get used to the new gaming style and environment and start kicking butt and seeing interesting new things.

Hi. I'm undiagnosed but am 99% certain I am an aspie. I've just started reading into this and have taken a few evaluations and it has hit home real hard. I feel like Im finding the missing pieces to explain so many things about myself. Just so you know whos talking.

I actually found sales to be excellent for me. I started doing sales in 2001 for a credit counseling agency on the phones. It was awesome for me because we had a script and were forbidden to get off of it. It made things so easy because it was spelled out. We also received alot of coaching about speaking in general. The office was filled with people faking empathy. I learned so much about small talk, how to properly respond to all sorts of conversation and how to appear confident when I speak. It was such an extremely valuable experience.

There were many drawbacks too though. Making call after call got really boring. Being in a loud, fast paced office with younger, partyer type people was very hard at times, but I got in cool with the "outcast"group who'd rather talk fantasy baseball than going to bars.

I also tried sales later and the rampant dishonesty caused me to quit. But if you are aspie and can find a sales job or customer service on the phone where you have a script, it can be an AWESOME instructional instrument, even if you can only do it for a short time. Before I did sales I was alot more shy, never knew how to respond to people, had no confidence, spoke with a very dead demeanor, and as a result stayed in my shell alot more.

I still have those issues but a lot less severe. If you heard me speak, I am quite articulate now (probably too much) and I can blend with people way easier cause I know the BS to spout out during useless small talk. It's fake, but we live in a fake world.... Just my two cents...

Jayo you are broad brushing that one Aspie is every Aspie.

I have been successful in both sales AND management (upper management of a retail sales store, actually!) and I can tell you that except for my own dunderheadedness forgetting to lock the front door one night, it's easy sailing for me.

Some of us are extroverted. So some of us can really get into people. And sales. And management.

That's funny, I spent my first several working years in hospitality. I quit my job every four months or so because I couldn't take the stress and the dumb people

I'm in sales now, but not the kind of sales that requires me to talk to customers all day. I write proposals and support business development. This requires lots of technical knowledge, research, and writing ability, so it suits me perfectly. I'm looking for a new job now, though (should have an offer by next week--cross your fingers), and interviewing for a job is UNBELIEVABLY nerve-racking for someone like me.

-MM-

I have NLD, not so much AS, so my skills are different - language and different languages is my big asset. I used to be an English teacher and I did great. Nowadays I'm an international hitech sales support / customer service. I love my job, even though relations with co-workers are a nightmare for me, of course. My best skills are research and writing.

I'm a computer technician and IT consultant by trade, though I'm currently between jobs. My last job was split roughly down the middle: ~50% actual computer repair and the like, and ~50% customer service and support. This was interacting directly with the customer, sometimes working while they're standing right there "breathing down my neck," although they were (almost) always nice about it!

Thing is, I guess this isn't particularly realistic, as I was working while a student at a college and this repair office was specifically for the college's students, meaning my co-workers and I interacted with people who were essentially our peers (or classmates) as opposed to the general public. In fact, we never dealt with "strangers."

Still not sure if that was more or less stressful to me. I never got too anxious with customers, answering their questions and whatnot, since that's basically cue for me to start reciting technical stuff and give advice based on what I know well already (i.e "run regular malware scans" and "don't move or drop the laptop while it's on.")

I think that for many Aspies, dealing with co-workers ANYWHERE is going to be tough and perhaps indeed one of the biggest on-the-job challenges. I didn't really have "strained" relationships with my co-workers (also all students,) but they all seemed to get along better amongst each other compared to me; some or several of them would hang out on weekends and such, from what I gathered, but I was never invited to anything. This, of course, applies to any event at college! I don't do stuff socially, I just don't.

The way I see it, if my relationship with my five immediate family members can get strained and tense at times, my relationships with co-workers will likely suffer the same setbacks. The difference, of course, is that my family has a vested interest in my well-being whilst co-workers (and superiors) are thinking of the bigger picture (the company) rather than the individuals making it tick.

I'm good at working in teams - as long as I agree with the way in which we're tackling a problem! Preferably, it'd have been my idea.

It's a rather broad swath of jobs and careers, but anything that involves working cohesively and co-operatively with others in a team in a setting that is both quality- and deadline-oriented can and probably will be overly stressful for most Aspies out there.

My experience with this is rather limited, since at my college job my co-workers knew about as much as I did and we worked together pretty efficiently. The exception was Macs - they'd usually just assume I'd work on any Apple machine that came into the office, because that's my specialty and in fact I would fix 80% of them without any co-workers' help or input. Thing is, that doesn't really fit in the real world, from what I understand, and I certainly wouldn't want to seem selfish!

It's like working on a group project or presentation in school. I have some great ideas about stuff we can do, but there are three other people in the group and we'd all get lower grades if it seemed as though one person had done all the work. As an Aspie, I guess I find it difficult to find balance in the division of labor. If I think or know I can do something, I simply must, or else I feel like I'm neglecting my responsibilities or else wasting my talent and energy in some way. I don't think NT people would see it that way for themselves, however.

Hmm. In any case, dealing with people (even potentially) in any position in any field can seem very intimidating regardless of your confidence or experience in doing so. I'm trying not to think about it too hard, myself, since for now I just want to see how things go with my own job pursuit...