What work do you do?

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I'm not professional by any means, but gaining initial commission takes a lot of hard work.

Either networking (ironically made easier in this day and age through online calls) and putting your work out there in the right places for the right people to find it. It does happen.



And hopefully, you'll fulfil this aspiration.

I totally get that. Out of high school, I had no desire to go to college, and no career ambitions. I'm fascinated by people who know what career they want in college and ambitiously go for it. I just want enough money to support myself. I don't need a fancy career or the status from a career.

I use "factotum" to describe myself, its like being good at lots of things, but not being a master in any of them. As with many ASD people, I get heavily focused on one subject, but then quickly lose interest, and move onto something else.... Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

1. I know ABSOLUTELY nothing about programming. How does someone (almost 50 y.o.) get started? I don't even have a computer.

2. For me, I have no interests, period. Not to be confused with "no interest in a career." I want to work, and have tried many different types of jobs, but nothing piques my interest. I'd like to get a degree, but how to pick a subject to study when nothing interests me? I have no idea what direction to go, lol. I took a career test, and everything I should be good at, is of zero interest.

3. I understand your "get over myself" statement. That's how I've had over a 120 jobs, lol. I just take any job to pay the bills, but it always ends the same. I get blamed for "not getting along with others" when the reality is THEY have no tolerance for autistic people being slightly different from them. In my lifetime I've learned, people hate others for being different, they only want to be with others who are exactly like themselves.

I get hated for being detailed, working hard, being less talkative, learning quickly, working efficiently, etc.

If you can afford one, get one. It doesn't have to be the latest and greatest; programming principles have been around for decades and you're just starting out. Even something ten years old will be fine for commencing with.

Read basic programming books and online references. Not necessarily ones which are based around learning specific languages (although most are), but ones which focus on the concepts. The majority of modern programming languages use all the same concepts - just with different keywords and syntaxes. Once you learn the underlying concepts, new languages are next to trivial to pick up, because they're all saying/doing the same thing, just with different 'accents', as it were. Basic computer science texts are fairly good for this, too, as are online "Programming 101" resources.

Try a number of different sources and see what works best for you. Learn about IF-THEN-ELSE, loops, linked lists, functions and subroutines, all that stuff. They're all just fancy ways of controlling how the program code chooses, at any given point, to do *this* instead of *that*. It's the 'logic' behind programming-logic. Everything about computer programs breaks down into progressively finer and finer detail about when to do things, when not to do things, and what actually gets done for each of those options.

Once you have a grasp on how a given program will 'flow' from decision to decision, you can *already write* psuedocode. Psuedocode isn't in any particular real language, it can be plain English for instance; it's just you describing how a program goes from A to B to C. A programmer would be able to turn it into a real program, as long as the underlying logic was there. At this point you already have the programmer *mindset* - the fundamentals, as it were.

At this point, you can pick a language to do some first-steps programming in. I'd suggest one of the lighter, popular ones to start with, as they tend to have an enormous amount of people on the internet, going back years, discussing how to do things in that language. The C language, for example, is a classic, but a bit old and clunky by modern standards. You can use [references like this](https://www.fullstackacademy.com/blog/n ... s-to-learn) or similar to pick a language if you like. If it was me, I might choose Python - it has an incredible amount of applications - or Ruby, or Javascript (which also has a lot of existing reference material to work with).

Effectively, though, it does not matter what you start with - the principles of logic flow apply everywhere. Learn one language and you'll have 80% of what you need to at least dabble in the others.

On your computer, download a development-environment program (usually called an Integrated Development Environment, or IDE) for your chosen language. It's not strictly necessary, but it tends to make tracing through your code and finding errors a lot easier. Depending on the language, you may also want a compiler (some IDE packages come with one) if your language is one which gets compiled in order to run.

Then... start playing around. Maybe look up some tutorials for the language; there are thousands around the internet and most of them will walk you through achieving various things in the language - and, more importantly, showing you how to hook such achievements together so you can start creating your own programs. You can think of a couple of things you want to do with programs, or computers in general, and go looking for ways to do that. Or look at the code of the other millions of programmers out there and see how they did it - including other people who are learning, like you, not just the super-wizard-hacker-deep-guru types who have been programming for eleventy billion years. Even they started somewhere, though.

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My current slave plantation and the one before that kept emphasizing that they value diversity, but they said nothing about Myers Briggs personality inventory

Almost everyone that works in my current job comes from the same Myers Briggs personality type:. Extrovert, emotional

Then it appears to them that I am too curt or not social enough, and that I do not " get along with others". Just because they outnumber me, they overpowered me

But the solar system contains more defendants convicted of murder, than Nobel prize winners in literature

The activity with more participants not always morally superior to the activity with fewer participants

My rambunctious lil coworkers frequently make so much noise, they give me headaches. But I have never told them about it, because I am afraid they might successfully plot revenge against my worthless corpse and get me made redundant

"At will" employer

There is just one of me and plenty of them

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I am not good at anything and I don't like anything or anyone. Zero job skills, friends or hobbies


But plenty of people in my company, and other companies, have zero job skills and a bad personality and they earn enough cash for a house, car, children, retirement, college, smoking, gym,


So whatever


______________


A couple of years ago someone correctly told me:. No matter how many job skills you get, someone with a better personality will always get the job (limiting reagent)


Thus there is no point in trying to get job skills (even if successfully)

I'm an Artist, Art teacher, writer and I homeschool my almost 14yo son who has ADHD, ASD, and dysgraphia. I also give consulataions for people struggling to make any sort of color decisions, so far mostly home interior.

I am a computer software engineer. Like nursing there are many more specific things I could say about my actual work, but for most people "computer guy" is all they will get out of it.

I get along with computers better than people in many respects. I discovered I was better at computer programming than my teachers at high school and most people I knew, and even did well ad the small local college I went to at first. I transferred to a bigger college and discovered I was no longer the best/smartest kid in most of my classes. Things got harder then.

My job experiences have been mixed - in some way I am often far beyond my peers and in others far behind. I went into computers to avoid people - but there have been people in every job I job ever held. Also I am the kind of person who feels he knows nothing about a subject unless he knows everything about a subject. At work this can be a blessing or a curse depending on the exact situation. Time management, Project management and budgeting (and related topics and skills) have always been hard for me and I think the always will. I keep trying to learn about and grow in them, but I definitely do better on projects that have a good project manager - or a boss who happens to be good at that stuff (really - not all engineers are).

I used to love the puzzles and problem solving but after decades of troubleshooting and problem solving all problems start to look alike - it takes work and even ingenuity to solve them but they just are not as fun any more.

I have been kicked up to management a few times with disastrous results. Instead of moving up the ladder I plan to save as much money as I can and retire when I am too old to work - which often seems to be right around the corner but usually is not.

Hi. Dial1194 has answered your query about how to get into programming far better than I ever could so I'll leave the specifics on that one. All I can say is that at its heart is logic, and being older does not have to be a barrier.

OK I understand better now the dilemma you find yourself in. Hmm, it's certainly tricky if you have no interests, because my normal 'trick' would be to say to find something you like, find something you are good at, and try to find the intersection for a job. But without something you like that intersection doesn't exist. A degree is a big commitment anyway, so if you are worried you will lose interest and possibly drop out then that does seem risky. That is also why a career that how low(er) entry barriers may be a more fruitful avenue, and the programming thing does meet that criteria in principle. How does a 'portfolio career' sound like to you, as in do e.g. 2-3 days of one job per week, 1-2 of another, and so on? That might be a bit more exciting than what you are presently doing? I have to admit I am stuck if you really have no interests, full stop. I don't know if there are idea generators online to check that, but then again you have been around long enough to have worked this out I suppose Maybe writing a list of things will help, who knows.

On point 3, I get it and totally agree. Solo working can be good I suppose but does have its drawbacks if hard to self organise and structure day. I hope things work out better for you with your next move.

I work as an assistant in public library services at an HQ store/distribution centre. A lot of sorting of books and other materials, a lot of routine tasks, very little noise or interaction, part of my work from home since the pandemic and also going forwards. It’s perfect for me and I love it. Not paid that well though.

im a bus driver and usually drive a bus to the airport and back

i love driving and i love my job

I very much relate to this as well. Never had a career ambition, kind of wish i did. So i just do different things, and like you just want to be ok and support myself and husband. I also bounce around interests, getting very focused then dropping it for something else. Jack of some trades master of none. It gets frustrating.

Currently work in a mailroom, looking for another job cause boss is not good.

Solve problems, sign language interpreting for deaf CEO, change everything as fast as possible to crank up his money making machine, hire people, coach people, make business decisions to capitalize on our biggest opportunities, facilitate inter company communications & generally make sure the place has a good vibe and employees stoked on working cooperatively towards goals etc.

Design original systems, adapt off-the-shelf systems to our products, draft schematics and blueprints, write technical manuals, specify components, trouble-shoot other people's mistakes, monitor operations, screen potential employees, and drink coffee.

Oooh, I forgot: I also bbq lunch for ~everyone in the office almost every single day and then wash their dishes for them so they can get back to work making the company money.

I am oilman with my dad and a. Financial planner and preacher and ceo and I am a fracker I am also a oil and gas land speculator and stock market investor and entrepreneur I am also working on organizing my own church of Christ. I am also semi retired because of my trust fund sorry on another device I accidentally bumped it I work in the reality tv biz I am also working on starting intententional Christian community as a church planter

Office employee. It is hell for me