2 Types of people with Aspergers...

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Yes, I'm also one of those who is absolutely terrible with anything technical or mechanical along with being socially inept and has no marketable skills.

I was very disappointing to learn that envelope stuffing is now done by machines and ads seeking employees to do this nowadays are generally scams. Now that's something I could do. I think I'd be a truly exemplary envelope stuffer!

WA5p, I like the way you explain the whole lawn cutting situation and business. I think it opens two additional doors: entrepreneurship and professional sales. Now, the baseline is that 80% of new businesses fail (yes, eight out of ten new businesses fail).

Now regarding professional sales, and someone once said the three ways to become rich are to inherit it, a set of skills like being a doctor or lawyer, and the third way is professional sales. Some companies are sleazy, and some aren't. Some companies rip off their employees and some don't. I once worked for a boutique chain of mattress stores which was okay but not great. Will be happy to tell you more about it. Perhaps the most challenging part was that the right kind of soft is healthy, specifically whether you sleep on your back or your side, if your shoulders and hips sink modestly and evenly so that the mattress fills in the lower back area, that's what you're looking for.

I don't get it.

I think people like John Elder Robison have a bunch of traits that allow them success with employment. After all, if the ASD unemployment rate is above 80% then his type is very much the exception rather than the rule.

I.e. sensory stuff: if the noise, light, drafts, smells, etc. of a typical work environment cuts your IQ in half then it doesn't matter what kind of work it is.

Processing speed: how many employers are not going to fire someone who works and learns at half the speed of co-workers?

Social compensation: If you have to put 95% of your energy into social stuff the leftover 5% may not be enough to do the actual job. I know I've read people on here who had jobs but did no more than go to work and come home and then come home and collapse in exhaustion every day. (BTDT)

Discobobulation: if your ability to think is easily disturbed or inconsistent from day to day it's going to be hard to stay employed.

Interviews: If you can't get through one then all of your other skills don't matter.


I'm trying it to use things I've seen others say, but I've 'done' all of the above and more. I used to be moderately good at math, had technical hobbies/skills and even a slightly fancy science degree (which getting nearly killed me), but the above stuff made it all not matter. So, IMO, employment requires a whiole constellation of skills and traits.

I don't get that social worker saying that having pi memorized to a thousand places means that someone is employable -- who the hell hires someone to recite pi? If that's truly his only skill then there's no way he's employable.

I think I did had potential for computer, science and math, but I never could develop those skills, so I'm pretty much without marketable skills anyway.

I - female - can memorize Pi to more than 1000 digits, but that does not make me employable, I am on disability, though I do volunteer work from time to time, but last time after 2 weeks I was so much in overload, though it was work I like (sound and light-technique for a theatre), that I had to stop doing it, though people were informed about my autism and took care about me, but even though they are informed about my autism, they do not know what it really means and it is not their fault, as I cannot know what it means being not autistic.

It is not logical, that a non-autistic person can determine an autistic person's perception and determine their ability.

That goes for me too.

I am another one of those who aren't stereotypical. I always did well in Norwegian, English, community subject and religion. I only barely passed in maths and sciences, and in high school I ended up flunking. I didn't do too well in practical subjects like wood and textile work, to say nothing of PE.
I'm mostly a story / narrative thinker.



This is another problem. I am so slow at what I do.

My visual processing speed as tested is very high, but my working memory as tested is very low, which makes me finally very slow in outcome as a lot of visual information is coming in, but miss the ability to process it at adequate speed.
I cannot do math almost at all, as I have no working memory for it and try to solve it visually, which does not work out.

I am the science type, and I think that the same brain that makes me good at science also makes me good at non-social functioning, while a social dunce.

I got fired after nine months from the only real job I've ever had as a busboy at a fast food restarant, because they wanted someone they could train to do more complex tasks as time went by, such as preparing ice cream orders, waiting on the drive-through customers, and handling the register. I couldn't comprehend the instructions necessary for making all the different kinds of ice cream they wanted, and on rush days became a liability. It wasn't until several months after they got rid of me that I finally understood the reason I kept failing was because of auditory processing problems and an inability to remember verbal instructions of almost any kind. It's a little disappointing; my sixteen-year-old NT sister started working there, two years younger than I was when I started; she's been there four months and already surpassed ice cream and is being trained on the drive-through windows. Such is the difference in our social capacity and comprehension of verbal instructions.

^^^
I got fired after two weeks of working in a fast food place for being too slow. My processing speed sucks, I can't multitask or prioritize properly, I'm clumsy and break and spill things wasting company money and I'm socially inept and annoy people or make them feel uncomfortable half the time.

I'm in Library school now,part-time, doing one course at a time. Will I really have the executive functioning and social skills necessary to keep a job as a librarian? I'm not so sure. It'll probably take a miracle , the perfect job that can make accommodations for me and for which very little interaction is necessary.

^^^^^ Oh, indeed. Which is why I have heard the following more than once:
1) "You're the smartest stupid person I know."
2) "What the hell is wrong with you?"
3) "You're weird."
Well, to all of those who said those things to me in the past, I say to them now: "You're an insensitive an very cruel person for saying that to me. May God have mercy on your insensitive and unloving soul." Amen.

I was told 2 and 3 verbatim more than once and variations of #1 such as "you're so stupid" "ret*d" and "you're dumber than your sister". The last of which is technically true because my sister's IQ is higher than mine, hers is genius.

My interests range in the sciences mainly biology and evolution and I'm good at both the concepts and the definitions and now that I'm out of my undergraduate training in biology, I'm doing what my heart compells me to do; Study biology whether by reading about and doing some amateur biology.

I have been always so good in science and my mind constantly revolves around science.

I agree that there are two types; I'm definitely the humanities type. With respect to sex/gender, though, I don't think it's necessarily gendered; I've met plenty of guys with ASD who fit into this category.

I had an interest in math for a decent period of time, but somehow, even despite VERY hard work, I did not do as well in it as I did in humanities with perhaps a quarter of the effort I put into math. Eventually, my interests shifted in the right direction (psychology), which I'm more naturally good at and were the math is not so abstract that I can't grasp it.

I have, though, a somewhat odd talent at working with people who have intellectual disability/autism. I think I become more relaxed and myself around people with body language that is easier for me to read, just as I feel more comfortable around animals. So far, people have commented that I have done exceptionally well in respite-type jobs, so this is one area of employment to fall back on. With a degree, however, this would be considered underemployment. I will work on my career and see if I can go further than this. However, if all else fails, I can just be a respite worker for the rest of my life.

I'm off the strange type that, in school, was very good at the exact sciences like phys, chem, and bio, yet also did fine with linguistics. OTOH, humanities did nothing for me, and I wasn't good with them either. I was terrible with maths (or rather slow).

In recent years, I've developed an interest in culture and history, though.

If I had enrolled in university, however, I likely would have picked something that doesn't necessarily promise a lot of job prospects. I don't like applied sciences, as I prefer to just explore/discover things for the sake of exploring/discovery. I likely would have become an ornithologist or herpetologist.