Employment

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Hello friends,
Curious what everyone does for work? I have reached a limit with the field I more or less fell into after college where it is becoming so blatantly clear that it is not for me. Not sure exactly what happened over the arc of my life but until very recently my personality and behavior around people was generally considered adorably quirky and unique. There has clearly been a shift or I'm just in the wrong industry where I can feel I'm being read as a misplaced weirdo. The field I'm in draws in the squarest of the square people, who in turn assume an aggressively confident exterior and proceed to interact with each other as a subtle jousting match for dominance. I absolutely can't take it anymore. I have never had people be so consistently underhanded and petty towards me in any work environment before. I have not brought to the attention of HR or my direct supervisor that I am moderately on the spectrum as I fear/know my supervisor would be incredibly insensitive and likely unprofessional behind my back about how this explains why I'm so weird. I'm leaning towards leaving this industry, and would love to explore other professions which don't force me to be more people oriented than I am. My ideal role is in an office with a white noise machine and essentially no one looks at or talks to me. I go in, do my job, have maybe 2 conversations the entire day which were entirely relevant to my workload and/or the company, then leave.

Have you identified other careers where your experience and skills might be transferable? Or are you considering going back to school?

I have to talk to people in my job but not a lot. Now that most of us are working remotely, I may go several days without having to communicate with anyone, and it's often by email when I do. To answer your question, I'm a geoscience data analyst.

Have you identified other careers where your experience and skills might be transferable?
Indeed I have, diligently for at least the past month. I am in sales, and up until this current position what has been referred to as "my quirky personality" has been more of an asset than a liability for me. But I just feel so broken down from this current environment. Sales roles typically involve sales environments that are, for whatever reason, almost always loud and obnoxiously extroverted. Most sales managers believe it builds morale and incentivizes hard work and meeting or exceeding daily metrics. Perhaps it does with some; I tend to dominate in surpassing daily metrics and it's usually despite the noise not because of it. Anyhow, this is one thing to handle, I tend to tune it out. A bully manager is a new experience and I'm just finding her impossible.

Going back to school involves time and money that I do not want to spend. I'm mostly curious to just hear from others what they do, how they like it, how they make work work for them.

Oh yes I can imagine sales would a very difficult work environment! Bullies make it even worse!

She's the first. She's impossible. She is the most insensitive person I know. If she asks a question and I'm just taken aback by how deliberately rude she is and a take a moment to respond, her tone shifts to me being slow. She is the worst person I have ever worked for. Most other supervisors have kind of hinted that I'm a little different and they see it as a strength. She is the first person to treat me in a way that suggests she sees me as mentally deficient and it's an unrelenting character assault with her.

I found my groove with most other sales floors: you don't actually need to be social, just get in, make your calls, close your deals, leave. You're given an outline to follow in terms of the actual conversation you're having (which would definitely be useful in all areas of life) and there's a specific goal in mind for that conversation. It's actually incredibly easy. Almost, mindlessly easy. Just about asking questions and getting people to trust you. I like it, it's one of the few ways I can successfully connect with most people. Because the conversation is structured for me, there's an arc to the conversation and I have a goal in mind for how the conversation builds toward an inevitable conclusion. Without these things I will guaranteed start telling a person about a model trebuchet I am building that is a replica of Edward I's War Wolf that he constructed for his siege of Sterling Castle to quell the last stages of a Scottish rebellion against the English Crown. I am building this for an art project and I want to ensure that the angles for the trajectories for the items thrust from the trebuchet are accurate. And I also just want a trebuchet. Prior to being around this woman and frankly the entirely of the office of the people I work with are not terribly different, people's reaction to information like that was something along the lines of finding me amusingly odd. But she's broken my confidence down so thoroughly that I'm afraid to be me with people that they'll just think I'm strange. And because I'm projecting out the feeling, it tends to be self-fulfilling.

I found self-employment was best overall, in a field where doing a good job was rare enough to generate free advertising. That way the NTs did most of the talking and promotion for me.

She sounds like a miserable person to be around. It sucks to have someone knock your confidence and make you question you're awesomeness.

Would it help you to mentally prepare yourself for these encounters with her by imagining scenarios where she is nasty and you can practice feeling things other than shame? I do this a lot. I imagine the worst possibly things they could say and since it's not right in the moment, I'm able to think of clear-headed responses and feel justifiably peeved. Maybe that's silly, I don't know, but I like being prepared.

I'm happy as a geotechnical engineer, but it takes a lot of study & qualifications to get into.
There are some allied roles that are easier to get into, such as engineering drafting or technician in a soils lab. Though you'd still be expected to have some training.

A lot of people working in sales are sadly obnoxious. The nature of the job attracts the most egocentric of ignoramuses. Like you said your personality is actually a huge benefit in sales. A salesman who is approachable, seems down to earth and doesn't pressure potential customers goes a LONG way in securing a sale. I always thought aspies make deceptivly good salesmans for their chilled demenour. I've seen those obnoxious salesman you mention regularly you can smell them a mile off. They think they're great salesman but their pressure tactics are obvious and a guaranteed way of talking themselves out of a sale. It makes them look extremely untrustworthy.

If what you've said is accurate, you're a good salesman.

As for other jobs, have you ever thought of getting some training in electrical safety testing or heavy lifting equipment? (Or both + more) The courses are quick and easy and the work is mostly independant and regular. The money you can make from it is unknown as I've never tried doing it independently but everything needs to be checked sooner or later for pretty much all companies.

It doesn't seem silly at all. With this woman it's just impossible. She turns everything into an insult. If I'm in a good mood, it's wrong. If I'm in a neutral mood I'm not being positive enough. If I'm happy about a deal closing, I shouldn't be too excited yet. If I'm not excited yet about a deal closing I need to be more positive. If I really don't have the patience to deal with her and am short on the phone (I'm obligated to talk to her once a week) she acts like it hurts her feelings. It's fairly predictable interacting with her, everything is wrong always there is no winning. She has voiced her desire too many times that I involve myself in a few different social clubs that our company hosts and I very delicately explained that I don't tend to shine in these types of forced social scenarios which she interpreted as me being arrogant. Very draining. I'm drained talking about it. I feel like describing this is draining to someone reading it. I'm sorry guys just venting.

I have not thought of these, thank you

I'd have trouble containing my snarkiness or laughter at her ridiculous behavior! What a terrible human being.

I've snapped at her a few times. She's hinted at insubordination. Impossible person.

Electrical Engineer (MSEE) specializing in systems analysis and communications technology.  I supervise a crew of field and lab technicians in the transportation industry, and oversee procurement and logistics.  Not too shabby for the class geek, eh?