Five fields an Aspie should NEVER work in

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I'm an Aspie myself, so none of my fellow Aspies should take offense by my producing this list...apart from these, don't let anyone tell you you're not suited for any other job. Note that these five job types involve all the traits that are the contrary of Asperger traits. I believe that Aspies are best suited to any analytical, engineering, software, design, laboratory etc jobs...and those in the middle like doctor and lawyer ARE within the realm of Aspie attainability with the right counseling. But these ones below...NO...so read on, and contribute 5 more if you can to make the top 10 jobs for Aspies to avoid:

1) THE HOSPITALITY SECTOR: this one is a red flag and a no-brainer to avoid. It entails thinking on one's feet, multitasking in an environment full of cues, responding promptly to non-verbals, dealing with irate clients and remaining thick-skinned, using motor skills in the case of serving tables (not so much if you're a hotel desk clerk...) so I always steered clear of this one. It's unfortunate, because this appears to be the field of choice for youth in the 17-25 demographic, and where most people get their first real-world work experience, which propels them forward. My stint in the service industry was fraught with harassment and dismissal.

2) SALES: again, this field should be avoided...sure an Aspie can relay technical product details inside-out, but would miss the subtle signs that a potential client is not interested in what you have to offer, and try to recoup the sale or adopt another tactic to sell them on something else. Also, in this field your co-workers tend to be cut-throat and competitive even in an unscrupulous way, so an Aspie is liable to be walked all over, have credit stolen for sales due to being too trusting with colleagues as "friends", etc...not good.

3) EMERGENCY SERVICES: I recommend that any Aspie stay a long, long way away from this field!! Police, fire and paramedic services can be stressful, involve using intuition under pressure (police), having good motor skills, being thick-skinned, and so on...they also are heavy on social brotherly codes with unwritten rules aplenty that can confound an Aspie. Stay away!!

4) MANAGEMENT: at the lower levels, it's possible, but once you get to the middle-upper echelons of management, it can be a nightmare for an Aspie. This involves dealing with manipulative and narcissistic personalities, executive functioning, social graces, seeing the big picture instead of analyzing details, having better processing speed than memory, being thick-skinned...all the things that an Aspie is not.

5) CARPENTRY & CONSTRUCTION: these involve motor skills, spatial reasoning, and practical smarts as opposed to intellectual smarts...while I believe that an Aspie can be a good designer, architect, drafter etc...they would not be as good in "real-time" as far as responding to directions (oh, you wanted this stake driven one foot closer this way away from this wall? Sorry, you didn't tell me that in specific terms...you just assumed I knew). They might focus more on the details of a task rather than looking at the overall environment to infer that the detail-oriented task would not allow for further tasks to be completed in the same general space b/c it is too constraining or interfering, and they can't press "Ctrl+Z" to undo the error as easily as they could in AutoCAD or Visio.

Hi, this is a very insightful list. As an aspie, I agree that these jobs would be a nightmare for me to do.

An aspie would probably also struggle to work in public relations and human resources. An aspie also probably wouldn't make a very good counsellor or clinical psychologist, because of difficulty reading emotional and social cues.

An aspie may not do well either as a police officer, a firefighter, a soldier or a security guard.

Not that I want to discourage aspies from doing any of these if it's what they want to do.

Given what I have heard of Isreali guard jobs, an aspie would do well in them. Apparently it already means something there not to sleep during your shift... (my SO is Israeli)

I agree with the above list with a couple of qualifiers. I worked for a long time in building trades, but I did/do have problems with following directions, the social interaction on the job site and following through with things. I do think my experience there greatly improved my motor skills and it gave me the knowledge base and confidence to do most of my own home repairs and improvement projects, - though projects can sit undone for a long time or fail to get started. But it is a skill base I greatly value and think many Aspies could be good at if it appeals to them. I have a very spectrumite friend and he is a really good, careful builder. But he likes to work alone and very slowly.

About sales: in general, sales is a nightmare prospect for me. God would I be bad at it as I never want to talk somebody into anything they might not really want or need. Plus not being able to pick up the cues or dress for the job. BUT, again, there is an exception in my experience. I grow vegetables, eggs and raise chickens and sell at Farmer's Markets. It is my own business and I really like the sales part at the market. People only come to my booth if they want what I have, and what I have is just sitting there on the table for them to see. So I don't have to do any convincing. And although most social interaction is very uncomfortable for me, I do have a need and liking of some social interaction and to feel a part of the world in a meaningful way. Selling at the farmer's market is perfect. The person comes to me (I don't have to initiate), the interaction is very short and to the point, often people want and appreciate information (about the varieties, cooking methods, nutrition, their own garden) and I LOVE to share information. So I think for an Aspie, this is one sales venue that can really work. Interestingly, I have noticed that a number of vendors at the market seem to be somewhere on the spectrum.

Such posts are what make this site going on amidst quit a lot of nonsense. I would like to add few more jobs and also those jobs which are aspie friendly.
ASPIE UNFRIENDLY
CASHIER/WAITER: Requires good short term memory, executive function and motor skills (in the case of a waiter).
SURGEON: This would require fine motor skills, instead an aspie should become physician, general or specialized.
EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCES: I left a PhD program about three years ago because I was told, and rightly so, that I was theoretical minded. We care about each and every detail which an experimentalist must ignore to take the initiative, we would then spend time reading about such detail and thus will not be able to give time to experiments. Also we would also be clumsy due to lack of motor skills. Other factor is lack of the ability to do multitasking and planning so that there is no down time as it requires common sense which we do not have.

ASPIE FRIENDLY:
TEACHER: I believe most aspies should become teacher barring those who are average I.Q. because while NTs with average I.Q. can and do become teachers and even become "researchers" because of their faking ability, we aspies have to be of at least slightly above intelligence to have such jobs. And I guess this rule applies even in other fields, it is often seen that an aspie because of lack of social skills doing a job whose requirement is far below his/her qualification. Highly intelligent aspies can, and they do, become theoretical scientists/researcher.
A very good reason to become a teacher is that in free time you can go to the library and do not need to socialize and also you need not figure out complex social relationship among people like you will have to in other jobs to keep the job. The point is that being an outcast would be much easily ignored in a school, college and university. Therefore I believe that aspies should receive an affirmative action for teaching jobs.
LIBRARIAN: This is also aspie friendly as it requires arranging books according to a rule, issuing them to readers according to rule. So it does not require people skills.

I always felt real estate agent (which falls under sales) and carpenter would be the worst possible jobs for me. With regards to the former, Aspies shouldn't work any job where they have to rely on commission. The uncertainty is just too stressful for us.

I agree with the job list. However I am really trying to clarify the theory that aspies don't empathise. I have all the other so called aspie traits but I over empathise with others. I have done enormous amounts of training and can read social ques now if looking for them but have always struggled with a sense of feelikng what others feel even when I don't want to..... is this true for other aspies? I became a counsellor eventually as I learnt lots of skills etc. and have moved away from counselling again. I am three times as qualified as the person that just got awarded the job I am temping in!! !!

Grr

What is that and what does NT stand for?

Regards,

Chris

I think aspies could be successful in certain parts of construction, especially trades where they could work alone once trained. The criticism during the learning process isn't fun. But, once you have a skill, you always have something to fall back on if another job doesn't work out. Subcontracting at an hourly rate sounds like a dream...get in, get out, send a bill.

Sales can be ok, more like consulting with a potential price put on any work to come. I can't do small talk, but can put a price on fixing a customers problem they called me about. High pressure sales, no way.

I don't know if I'm atypical for an Aspie or not, but I want to mention that I did quite well for a time as a customer service representative. This was done over the phone, and I believe that was the key to my success - I am confident I would not have been as successful if I had to help people in person! (We were able to ask for a supervisor when an unknown situation came up, so that helped a lot as well.)

We didn't have any time constraints for calls, and I think that was also a factor - there wasn't any stress in that regard. I did get hired for a telephone insurance claims job that would have wanted us to time our calls, but due to unfortunate circumstances I didn't get to actually see how well I would've done in calls with live people.

EDIT: Oh, didn't see your post about empathy, Lovinlife. I think I would agree, or I want to agree to a degree (hah). One example of the time limit above is where I ended up spending an hour on one phone call trying to console a distraught customer. On another extreme case, I stayed after my clock-out time to try and clear up an issue with some woman's collection calls. Having done what I needed to do, I clocked out and tried to call her after work hours to tell her the results.

It's like the subject of work gives me common ground to relate to someone over, in which case I am more successful with empathizing with a customer...

I think it depends on the aspie. I worked in a shop when I was a young student, I liked the sales aspect though had problems with cash handling and processing stock. I only like sales in lower pressure situations though, such as showing a customer stuff and then it is their choice to buy it, I refuse to manipulate a customer.

Construction etc can be great for some aspies. Also, management can be ok for some if it is a quiet, well ordered sort of industry.

Some aspies with good motor skills can do well in hospitality too. It depends what your skills are and what your deficits are.

Anything that involves stability. If a job is routine and stable, even slightly boring with a clear set of tasks then it is good for us.