Why do people recommend working in IT/Computers for Aspies?

Post Reply New Topic

Just wondering, whenever you get articles and forum posts about people with aspergers/autism looking for work, it is quite common to suggest that they work in IT or computers. Any idea why this is?

I know some people take a particular interest in computers, which is fine, but plenty don't. I was interested in computers in the early 2000s and considered it a potential future career option. That interest really dwindled a few years after I got my AS diagnosis. My computer knowledge is now very outdated. I struggle with a lot of modern systems, and due to worsening health I find it hard to concentrate on computers a lot of the time.

People also tend to advocate "working from home", and this really took off during the so called pandemic. What is special about working from home? And how does one actually go about it? I have never done a job which could not be done without other people or without products/paperwork/tools/etc. People often say they "work from home" but it is always very vague as to what they actually do.

I have had intermittent internet & telephone access over the last few years. I ended up sleeping rough for some time last year. I often have to leave the house at no notice due to other people being here. I do not know from one week to the next if I will have a house to live in, let alone work from. So I am at a loss as to why 'work from home' is often recommended for people with Aspergers Syndrome.

Working with computers suits me because it mainly involves following very logical steps. In more people based jobs the rules you have to follow are less obvious, and things are more subtle. Working with computers often involves less human interaction than other jobs.

Working from home suits me because it allows me to work in a quiet environment. I Remote Desktop to a computer that sits in the office and has all the resources I need on it , I communicate with my colleagues mostly by instant message.

That’s just my preferences though, we are all different.

What LittleBeach said. The tech trade works for me because it's non-people-facing, non-multitasking, logically sequential and repeatable. It's also a trade, not a career. The better I get, the more I earn, and I am rated solely on my technical ability rather than any capability or potential for management. Beware though; a disturbing number of employers simply do not understand that 'development' and 'support' are entirely different vocations.

Working from home avoids the overwhelm of the typical office environment - open plan seating, noise (audio and visual), bright lighting, people talking, interruptions, enforced socialising. Again though, I have to remember that as an elderly childless homeowner I'm very lucky. A lot of people increasingly find themselves in living arrangements which make working from home more or less impossible.

I noticed this as well. I'm a seemingly rare type of Aspie who is not great with computers & other tech. I find that the smarter tech gets, the smarter a person has to be in order to use it. Some of my issue may be due to me not having internet at home till after I graduated high-school in 2001. I didn't have friends I visited outside of school so I only used the net at school which wasn't much. A big reason why I didn't have net at home was because my parents were worried I'd get into trouble; I likely woulda stayed up all night on school nights looking at adult type stuff & possibly ended up in a grooming type situation. My parents were also very frugal & didn't want to spend the money for a decent computer & then paying for a seperate phone line every month to have internet. I never had a lot of money & keeping up with the latest tech can be very expensive. My typing is also kinda slow & I make a bit of mistakes due to dyslexia & a tremor disorder causing bad fine-motor skills.

The three jobs I had were cleaning related like dish-washer at a restaurant & in retail doing custodial type stuff while the stores were open. I tried to be polite & helpfull when customers, coworkers, & managers wanted something & I had lots of various misunderstandings but I never really got in trouble over it.

I understand why pursuing tech careers & working from home gets recommended to Aspies but most of the stereotypical career advice for Aspies is not applicable for me.

Working from home typically requires a fast Internet connection to hook up to a company's computer system remotely.
I did this during the pandemic. Voice mails were sent to my email account.

I don't think it is rare for Aspies to have issues with computers.

I just thought how lots of work from home jobs NTs have mentioned to me were customer service related. They were talking to lots of various people on the phone & through chat programs ie they were customer service reps for airline companys or they did tech support & customer calls would be transferred to them. Those types of jobs do not seem very Aspie friendly to me considering us Aspies tend to have communication issues & feel anxious talking on the phone with strangers. Those suggestions might be due to NTs not being able to fully grasp what Aspergers is like.

I was terrible on the phone when I was a teenager and scared to death of talking to strangers. I felt extremely shy. My NT friend was uninhibited and would prank call random strangers from the phone book. He would insult men, and seduce women with fabulous lies about his affluence and power (all lies). His success surprised me. A lot of women responded favorably to being called up by a random stranger on the phone. In fact, some agreed to meet him, this is one way that he met women. I did not understand it, it did not seem to make any sense to me.

Later in life, I grew more confident over the phone. Not to the level of my prank caller friend--I will never be like that. However, I worked in phone support over 10 years and do not have any problem with it today. In fact, I like talking on the phone now. So my point is, with experience, phone talk is doable for aspies. You learn how to steer conversations, get what you want, give the other side what they want, all without offending anybody.

Working with computers is peaceful, there's not much socialising (think customer service). Also it's something autistic people tend to be good at. I got the diagnosis years after choosing IT as my career, because it suited me.

^ What type of IT job do you do, Vergil?

I have just graduated and I'm looking for a job, but I'm learning towards cybersecurity. I used to work as a back-end programmer before.