Jobs for aspies

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Does anyone have any suggestions for suitable jobs for people with aspergers? Just curious to get your opinions, I'd like to make a job change.

Something that is rules based. Software, engineering or applied mathematics, if you have the background. If you don't have the background go to school and get it.

ruveyn

Dispatching might be good for you. Dispatching goods at a warehouse or working the receiving and storage function. It is very structured and detail oriented.

Also dispatching cabs or trucking shipments.

If you have the background, airline traffic control might be good for you.

ruveyn

In computers, network administration works pretty well. Lots of minute details, lots of rules, and the administrator is expected to be somewhat aloof because he's responsible for the functioning of the whole network, not just an individual user's personal preferences. In other words, you aren't expected or required to get too socially close to the other people in the organization. You also satisfy people with actions more than words, so you don't have to socially interact with them as much.

What does NOT work: helpdesk (helldesk) jobs. Phones, interacting with people, having to make already-annoyed (after all, that's why they're calling you) customers happy with your words rather than your actions. Helpdesks play to aspies' inherent weakness while utilizing none of their strengths.

Last edited by WardenWolf on 16 Jul 2009, 8:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Are any of the medical professions any good?

Home business.

A distribution center (shipping and recieving), is a good place, because it's pretty routine, and structured. Basically anyplace where the environment isn't constantly changing, or where minimal multi-tasking is required, would be good. Also, if your a night owl, try to find a 3rd shift job.

Here is what a job would have to be for me. Everyone is different though:

- Limited or no social interaction. No teamwork.
- No creativity involved, work by a set of written rules.
- Can't be noisy, can't be around people, etc.

I can't think of much that fits that description.

Stamp licker for lazy CEOs, but um, seriously?

How about management in an office setting. It sounds insane but the managers do much less dirty work and are usually on the phone just talking numbers (if you dig them) and giving short, already rude orders. You certainly don't have to mask you inability to make small talk. lol

I am a electrical engineer and really enjoy it. Not much socializing or phone talking. Allot of working with numbers.

I took a promotion up to managment once and seriously failed due to no people skills. They let me shift back down to my old engineering job. I won't make that mistake again.

Legal Assistant/Paralegal......mostly drafting legal documents...Involves some contact with clients, but as a legal assistant working in a quiet law office environment you don't have to worry about screaming children, loud sudden noises, and other things. You work independantly at a computer most of the time and do so at your own pace, and the lawyers wont stand behind you all the time as you work.This job requires 2 years of post secondary education.

I don't think it's all about AS; it depends on the individual to a large degree.

I am an outgoing person and I have ADHD. I did well at school in most subjects except for maths.

One of the roles I fulfil in my job now is that of lecturing (teaching adults). There's a Nobel prizewinner who is an Aspie, and he is also a lecturer by profession. He says it allows him to be paid for talking for days about his special interest (which is economics).

I have also worked as an educational cartoonist, and as a Web developer.

I like having some variation in what I do on a day-to-day basis. Occasionally I have to draft patent documents. I would hate to have to do that every day.

Dancing is extremely important to me (as a form of stimming), and I regularly go out to dance. I am even starting up a project to teach dancing to other people like me who don't learn dance sequences easily. But I wouldn't want this to be my full-time job. It is not intellectually stimulating enough.

I know an Aspie who studied book-keeping. That would be an impossible job for me to do. I would lose concentration.

Last edited by Alphabetania on 17 Jul 2009, 6:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

Management is extremely stressful and to be successful it requires a broad skillset and big-picture vision. I don't recommend it at all. (I teach Project Management; I should know.)

Technicians who evaluate x-rays, MRI and PET-scans. By the numbers, by the book. No contact with patients, just with their scans. It is dry work, contact with squishy tissue or emotions.

ruveyn

I'm going to add some unusual ones here. I think that working at a zoo would be awesome, especially if you're not all that interested in something really techy or mathematical. You get to interact with non-human animals more than people, and when you do interact with people it would just be answering questions about animals(which is super-awesome if you have a special interest in animals or a certain kind of animal, like me. In that setting, rambling on about random animal facts would be a positive thing ). I always thought that any job where you're mainly interacting with animals would be perfect, but that probably only applies to aspies who are animal-lovers.
Wildlife biology fieldwork is also something that would be interesting and mostly solitary... But it's not all that steady a job to have, so that's a negative. Plus, if you have sensory issues involving heat/cold that could also be a negative.
And if you don't mind something that involves a little bit of people-interaction, a veterinary assistant seems like it would be a nice job. You do have to go in and talk to the animals' owners to get some basic background info on their pets... But the majority of it is assisting with surgeries(handing the vet instruments, draining blood, setting up, etc), looking at samples under a microscope, testing blood for diseases, tending to animals, etc. I took a class in that, and i think that would be a cool job after getting over the initial stress of getting accustomed to the way a particular veterinary clinic operates. This might just be me, though. It could probably go either way, depending on an individual. If you get an emergency(although, if it's just a general clinic, real emergencies would probably be rarer than an at an emergency vet place), all the chaos could be overstimulating... And if you get easily stressed by a situation like that that demands quick action, that could be a problem too. But, then again, i think most aspies have a really good ability to remain unaffected and clear-minded when everyone else's emotions are running amok in an emergency or critical situation, and that could benefit the situation greatly.

I really think an aspie can probably find a comfortable job they can do good at in pretty much any field that they have a good amount of interest in. It's just going to depend on how many uncomfortable aspects of a job you're willing to deal with, and whether or not the uncomfortable bits are made up for by the satisfaction you get from it. I think that's why i keep going for jobs that you wouldn't expect for someone who has problems dealing with social situations and stress. I could choose something really safe like data entry or accounting... But i have no interest in that, so, yeah, i wouldn't get meltdowns or any anxiety, but i would also be bored out of my mind and dissatisfied with it. So i'm rather go for something where i can use my interests and be mentally stimulated, even if that means having to put up with a few things i don't know how to deal with well. So, yeah, i think a good "aspie job" is going to depend on the individual more than anything.

I've been lucky enough, after several abortive attempts to hold down a fulltime job, to find one in which my AS isn't a handicap. I work in the music section of a large public library (music being my pet aspie monomania), but as I'm in the basement I don't have to interact directly with listeners, or engage in any confusing situations where multi-tasking is required. I just listen to new acquisitions, catalogue them and assign them munbers on the computer.