Any Suggestions For A Geography-Related Job For An Aspie?

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Hi, I am about to enter the 2nd and final year of my master's program for a degree in Geography.
I have been trying to concentrate on planning courses and looking to see where I can fit in this field based on my interests and own personal work characteristics.
Performing well in school has not been too hard for me, but it has been more challenging for me in the work place.
I do have Asperger's Syndrome (a mild version) and as such there are some specific characteristics that do and don't work well.
If any of you could provide your thoughts and feedback based on your experience and knowledge, that would be most helpful and appreciative.

I. Interests

1) Environmental -Sustainable and Smart Growth -Preserving and maintaining a rural lifestyle 2) Transportation -Corridor studies -Regional road plans
3) Demographics -Identifying if an area is rural/suburban
4) Maps


II. Characteristics

1) Schedule
-I work much better with a predictable schedule. One were I come in the morning and have a good of what is in store for the day and is consistent, but also has a degree of flexibility.

2) Structure
-I work much better when the job is structured and predictable. One that is task-orientated and has a concrete well defined goal as opposed to being open ended.
-I also am better when the job does not involve a lot of multi-tasking and not a lot of "thinking on your feet."

3) Team Work v Individual
-I work well in team environment but prefer and do much better when I can complete my work independently and interact with people as needed and supplementary.
-Ideally I do well with and 80-20 split, with 80 percent being individual and independent.

4) Environment
-I do much better when there is less of an emphasis on interacting with people and not a high degree of direct customer service interactions.
-An environment that is not overly political or competitive is also much more desirable.
-One were there is not constant deadline pressures and has less pressure in general.

5) Technical
-I am not an overly technical person with a big background in a math of GIS.
-I do work best in a setting which requires more of a cursory knowledge of computers and use of stats for descriptive purposes.
-I really enjoy using maps and using stats but am NOT proficient at technically creating the maps and doing the statistical computations.
-In other words, I AM NOT A QUANTITATIVE PERSON.

6) I am TERRORIFIED of being in a cubicle environment.
-One of the things I like about school is how I am not in one loud, cramped room all day, but in a variety of rooms and often get to do my work quietly.
-I would like to be able to mix field work and office work.

7) I take pride and soothingness in doing well, it is imperative I get a job where I can positive re-inforcement and feedback (like you do in school with grades), one where I can be challenged YET also excel.


I am a bit concerned with planning in that from what I have read it seems this could be a high stress, people-interaction based career with an unpredictable schedule and requires a lot of technical expertise.
I would like to know given my interests in environmental preservation, transportation planning, demographics, and along with the characteristics I work best at, if and were I fit best in planning or a planning-related profession.
I absolutely LOVE looking at and using maps. To me, nothing is better and more fascinating than a map because it so clearly and accurately conveys information in black and white on ONE summarized page.
However...I am NOT a GIS guy.
Any jobs/careers I could use maps daily but not have to be a GIS guru? In my spare time I am constantly taking out road maps and studying them, they just fascinate me.

Thanks!

I forgot to add...I also am VERY concerned about working a full time schedule.
I am 25...and most of my life I am used to the academic student schedule of going to class, doing homework (basically 20-25 hours a week....if that...and at my own choosing) and having a lot of vacation time (winter break/summer break).

I have worked before...but only part time.
Once I had a six month co-op at a corporation...it was very rough.
In particular, working 40 hours a week, every week, even for six months, was a major increase in my workload.

I am VERY concerned about this.
Most jobs give you two weeks for a full year...it freightens me so much about how I will make it.
I am used to having my work spread out, with a lighter load, and many breaks.

I know in the real world 40+ hours a week is what you must do, and I just am really scared about how I can do it.

do yourself a favor and analyze your work patterns. Develop a list to show them how you work in cycles or in bursts and how you need down time between tasks. Write it up in PowerPoint and be able to show them by words, and in diagrams. Make sure they realize that this is how you will give them optimum value for their employment dollar/time.

I am making out just such documentation because I have been working a 38.75 hour week for the last three and a half years and it is killing me. I understand.

I know you said you're not a GIS guy but I'm working in GIS (Local Land and Property Gazetteer), something that I kind of fell into but it has worked out ok. The work is mostly maintaining a gazetteer which can get repetitive but that's good in a way as I know what I'm roughly going to be doing day-to-day. I don't have any knowledge of the maths side of GIS and it hasn't really been a problem. You don't state where you are in the world, but I'm guessing the US? We have the NLPG in the UK, I'm not sure if you have an American equivalent.
The only thing I'm finding tough is the 37 hour week. This is my first full-time job and all I seem to do is get up, go to work, come home, fall asleep. I tire incredibly easily.
I've spoken to my employers and they are agreeing to a reduced working week which is going to be much better for me. I'm lucky, they have been understanding.

I also have a 37.75 hour work week and it is all I can do to sleep, eat, do my laundry, do my grocery shopping and show up everyday, let alone actually WORK the hours assigned. At the end of the month I have paid for my existence through that month of work and haven't had a 'vacation' since I started my job three and a half years ago.
I am terrified to make a mistake at work because I was living in a little garden shed on an old acquaintance's land before I got this last job. I now have an apartment and a cat. All this is wearing on me, though, and I don't know how long I can sustain it, or how long they will allow for my Family Leave Act Leave of Absence.

The only extenuating circumstance is I was diagnosed autistic two years AFTER I got the job. That makes it rather legally complicated because I had exemplarly yearly evaluations, always qualifying for raises and promotions from one job class to another.

OK....thanks for the advice.
I'll say first, I do live in the US.
I absolutely love maps but I am NOT a GIS guy.
I took GIS and it was the hardest class I ever took, I am a slow learner when it comes to computers.
This is a shame because I love studying and looking over maps in my spare time.
Just wondering if there are any map jobs where you don't have to be a GIS guy...like the job you have kirsty?


Second, both kirsty and sinsboldy mentioned that working 37.5 hours a week has been rough.
This is very much a major concern for me, and I would like some advice.
1) Why has this been so hard for you? 37.5 hours is full time, but it is not 50 or 60 hours a week, which can be quite common for entry level out of college professions. 37.5 seems to be the norm and is required for full time work. I can see 50 and 60 hours being too much....but why do you think 37.5 has been so hard?
I am very concerned because I feel like if I can not handle 37.5 hours I just am not cut out for life.

I had one 6 month internship 4 years ago and it was 37.5 hours a week....I thought it was too much.
Granted, I was just 21 and my OCD symptoms were MUCH worse (though they still exist today!), but I was hoping being 25 this would be less of a problem.

I notice during the summer sometimes I feel more stress because without anything to do, I have no structure and do not know how to go about my day.
I was hoping that maybe my need for structure would fare good for me with a full time job in that I would have purpose and a schedule.

I find it discouraging you both have struggled and feel burnt out.
I'd like to know, how old are you?
Is this your first full time job?
Why do you think this is such a struggle?

2) Do you have advice/suggestions on how I can transition from being and living as a student to a full time employee?
-Anyway this can not be a rough but a seemless transition, or is the only way around it working 25 hours as a part-timer?

I really feel pressure to conform to society's demands and be a full time 37.5 hour or more employee, feeling otherwise like I would be looked at as a 'bum.'
On the other hand I worry if I could handle this.

Wow, sounds all too familiar, the tiring, the grind of even working 37 hours. I've often felt the exact same way. Its even worse when I talk to people who think nothing of working 60 hours a week let alone 40. Sad fact is, there's no real fix for this, at least that I've found. My best advice is very simple, focus on improving your health and stamina. Pay attention to diet, get exercise, sunshine, maintain your water/body PH to saline levels, try liquid vitamin b12 for energy, and whatever else you find works. Its simply a matter of having to do much more than the ordinary person to maintain ordinary amounts of stamina. As far as the routine goes, that's not easy either, but try to find ways to create structure, whether its getting up at a set time despite not needing to, eating at set times, whatever works for you.

Urban Geography professor or a job around Urban Geography? That's basically what your interests are in

Sorry I know nothing about geography-related jobs (although maps were one of my childhood obsessions), but just wanted to say that when I still had my first full-time job after college, it was doing labwork with a lot of paperwork. 40 hours a week, and it was really really rough doing it week-in week-out for three or so years. Luckily I had a boss who I think was undiagnosed AS and was pretty flexible about worktimes. He only cared that the work I was supposed to do got done, so what ended up happening was that I brought a lot of the paperwork home to do in the evening when I could relax in a comfortable environment and not have to deal with so many people. That way the time actually at work I didn't have to stress so much about jamming all the work into that amount of time, and I could spend more time taking a few more breaks by browsing the internet looking up info on my special interests and so on. Having to spend 8 hours at a computer and not be allowed to look up my special interests would be nightmarish for me, haha. I also used my vacation days by making my weekends 3-day weekends every two to three weekends, so my breaks were rather frequent. Traveling and doing outdoors stuff is another of my interests so those long weekends I'd always be going off somewhere, not staying at home. That freedom was incredibly important to me and allowed me to stay in tune with the world around me, instead of burying myself in the workgrind.

I'm in grad school now so in terms of workload it's even worse than when I had a job in industry, so instead of writing my thesis I'm here on WP...

Hi Blue Country. I work in planning, have done for around 15 years. Here in the UK, planning work is done by local government and by private consultancy firms. I think it is the same in the States. The private firms range in size from self-employed consultants to global companies with thousands of staff.

I think your best bet might be a medium sized consultancy where you can be a behind-the-scenes person. Planning is very interpersonal as you say, but there are some people who enjoy and specialise in the communications while others get on with things like surveying, preparing presentation materials (including maps) and so on. Where I have worked there have always been shy quiet people who were never expected to say much and who were valued and looked after by other staff.

I say a mid-sized consultancy because some of the global ones can be a bit ruthless ie don't value and look after their shy technical people, they just exploit them. There is a particular size of company - between 60 and 500 I think, where there can be a strong company ethos of caring and excellence.

Government organisations are a possibility but there seems to be a tendency for poor performance to be accepted in the public sector, which might drive you insane. In planning in general there are all sorts of stuff goes on that can be hard to take for anyone with high moral standards.

On the 37 hour week I don't think it is necessarily more hard for AS people than anyone else. It's just a long drag at first until you come to terms with that being life! If you do find yourself in an open-plan office then wearing headphones in order to concentrate is generally accepted and you don't have to claim special needs.

It's worth taking a bit of time to find the right place and then plan to stay.

I think you need to be a bit clearer about what it is you do like doing with maps and stats. From what you say, I'm not sure. Most people in planning really don't seem to be into the mathematics at all - I say that as the techie who loves to code and analyse data. Do you like going out on site and writing notes onto paper maps for someone else to code up? Could you manage to enter stuff into a handheld GIS (have been having tech probs with these so paper is still king here for that task.) Have you got a good memory for statistical information and would you be able to write it up into a report that is readable for the layman? Those are useful skills.

HTH

Thanks for all your responses and help.

1) So basically for somebody with my skills (NOT Math or GIS guy) and interests...you think
1) A behind the scenes planner
2) Transportation planner
3) Demography
4) Market research

2) Might be the fields which suit me best?


3) I think another important thing to point is the office environment.
-I can not stand cubicles...to me they are absolute torture.
-I hate being trapped in the same small stale space all day and having to deal with other people talking/phones ringing/all that noise.
-I am used to being able to be with people in class and then going and doing my work in private solitude without noise.

-I really would like to know how likely/hard it will be to find a job in this field where I can avoid being stuck in a cube all day.
-It would be a really hard transition and I just am not somebody who can focus well, I get overstimulated, when around people and noise all the time.
-I need my space.


4) Also...I'd like to be in an organization which is mid-sized.
-Too big means you are just another number...but I don't want to be with 10 other people..that gets very stale...I want it where I can be like a student...I can blend in and be anonymous if I want to or if I am having an "off" day but at the same time I can meet people and get personal.

I would say surveyor could be a job fitting what you ask. Would not be perfect in the fitting but best I can think off right now that is geography related.

Surveying Wiki info


Other thing I can think of is navigator, trouble is that in our day doesn't ask much map reading for auto-pilot and GPS do all the job in open sea, in more specific navigation inland or along to quest where navigator have to learn where the way is (For example each ship entering the Saint Lawrence River are require to let on board a navigator of the river)

Blue Country, one thing I found about the office was that thought I thought I would hate it, I found a way to get used to it. Headphones are widely regarded as acceptable - I've always worn them when I need to concentrate. No-one ever criticised me, in fact one of my managers gave me a pair of very good ones.

An awful lot of organisations around the world have a system they call "flexi-working" and "hot-desking". This normally involves some or all of the staff working from home some or all of the time, as well as variable start and finish times.

This sort of arrangement has the advantage that some of the time you have total control of your surroundings. There are disadvantages, and some people prefer to have a space in the office that is totally theirs and not shared.

When you are applying for jobs find out whether they do flexible working. When you go for an interview, you will nearly always be introduced to someone who you would be working with who will show you around and tell you how things are. Ask this person how things actually work - the reality is sometimes different to what officialdom would like it to be. For instance, in one office everyone had to go in, and no-one had their own desk, and one team used to go in at 7am and bagsy the same seats every day so they could always sit together. That was a bit of fun for them. In another office with 100 staff, theoretically everyone was in from 8.30 to 5, and theoretically there were 9 people in my room but in practice there were only ever 3 people in there part from me and none of them came in before 10 so I came in at 8 and was on my own for 2 hours.

HTH