What does everyone do for a living and how have you handled it?

[clg114]

I am a teacher for a private English school in a foreign country. As long as I'm not being jerked around like a puppet on strings working full-time, the job is barely tolerable. I'd like to do something else, but nothing is available to me.

I have always admired educators. Considering the education that you need to do your job, pay and benefits are not up to par. In most cases, teachers must really like to teach, particularly in the US. I feel the same way about nurses. These are two professions that take a lot of qualifications and should be treated better. These people are in the business of helping others.

 

[Nervous Rex]

I'm a programmer. When I started out, a programming manager would give me a task and then leave me alone until I said I was done. Everything was direct manipulation of data, devices, etc ("low-level" programming). I had time to be unfocused and time to be hyper-focused, which worked well for me (though, before being diagnosed as autistic, I thought I was being lazy and wondered how everyone else could just focus non-stop).

Things have changed a lot in the last decade. Programming languages and software architectures are getting more and more abstract and it's getting harder for me to follow. No one person can understand the entire system ("Okay, so this is a proxy that implements an interface for communicating with a plug-in that may or may not exist. When do I see some code that actually does something?").

Management styles have changed, too. Now, we plan the exact tasks we will accomplish every week and we account for our time at the end of the week. If I have a bad week, it shows. I feel constant pressure to perform at my peak.

Both of these changes stressed me out enough to seek out a counselor, who diagnosed me as autistic. I've learned some tools to manage the stress and my unrealistic expectations for myself, but I still worry that I will completely break down before I retire. Retirement is 18 years from now. So, I need to keep learning ways to manage myself, defuse stress, and be productive.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

I have always admired educators. Considering the education that you need to do your job, pay and benefits are not up to par. In most cases, teachers must really like to teach, particularly in the US. I feel the same way about nurses. These are two professions that take a lot of qualifications and should be treated better. These people are in the business of helping others.

I often think of Nurses as finding a way to provide care despite a system being designed to make it harder and harder to do.
I don't mean US specifically, Britain too.

 

[Declan O'Sullivan]

I'm a 30 y/o female aspie in the banking and financial services industry .. Currently taking a long break after resigning in September and the job market has been crazy I have a major interview tomorrow fingers crossed.. But what fields are all of you in? I'm so interested to know...
How have you handled open plan offices, too many rules , and low frustration tolerance at work? I was in a large corporate Job and it almost broke me literally. I was taken advantage of underpaid etc. I need to work early in the morning and finish before 5... Some companies don't allow that in fact they'll say come whenever you want but leave late. Anymor this will be my third job and I really hope I can stay!
What's everyone's career sorry? Tell me everything...
Love
Taz

 

[Declan O'Sullivan]

Hello, I'm Declan O'sullivan, I'm 42 I was diagnosed with Adhd, and OCD, along with Aspergers last September, , I work in finance creditors, I only started back to work yesterday and I did a half day, I can't do it, the last 5 months have released my inner most thoughts, I've an interest in many things, but my jobs non exist ant to me, why do we mask who we really are, I'm so mad I spent 30 years feeling fustrated and only now it's explained, I feel its a life wasted, I flunked secondary school, but in my thirties I studied psychology at night, I then started writing short stories, I'm fascinated by the simplest things, music can zone me out, most times I just want to talk for hours,

 

[Shamar]

I'm a 30 y/o female aspie in the banking and financial services industry .. Currently taking a long break after resigning in September and the job market has been crazy I have a major interview tomorrow fingers crossed.. But what fields are all of you in? I'm so interested to know...
How have you handled open plan offices, too many rules , and low frustration tolerance at work? I was in a large corporate Job and it almost broke me literally. I was taken advantage of underpaid etc. I need to work early in the morning and finish before 5... Some companies don't allow that in fact they'll say come whenever you want but leave late. Anymor this will be my third job and I really hope I can stay!
What's everyone's career sorry? Tell me everything...
Love
Taz

I'm a retired exploration geologist/geophysicist. My career was mostly spent in the middle of nowhere electrocuting rocks and analyzing the screams. It is potentially a good career for an autistic person, since it minimizes contact with people. The downside is that you are responsible for everything that happens but have no authority do do anything not approved. This include dealing with a crew of yahoos who think it is all a game, and work is a dirty word. I tended to get the more difficult assignments due to a reputation for keeping things going despite major problems and breakdowns, and for not getting stressed out (externally) despite the difficulties. Unfortunately, on one assignment I came back with full blown burnout, so they "let me go." I also spent a few years as a framing carpenter and an ATM service tech.

 

[Southern Discomfort]

I do voluntary work at a lavender farm. We help people with neurological conditions, mental ill health and learning disability. I manage the website.

I want to break properly into IT though, I have a BTEC in ICTP - equivalent of an A Level but I'm going back into education in September for a foundation degree.

I deal with my work quite well although we're an upstanding bunch, I'm not too sure what it's going to be like to go back into education or work with Tourette's. I'm a confident person with it and I did just come back from a trip to London with a friend who also has Tourette's. That was a lot of fun!

 

[Fay Jones Day]

I have found having my own business, working at home is best for me. For many years I took care of babies. Now I make art tiles and sell them online.

 

[FreeDiver]

I have always admired educators. Considering the education that you need to do your job, pay and benefits are not up to par. In most cases, teachers must really like to teach, particularly in the US. I feel the same way about nurses. These are two professions that take a lot of qualifications and should be treated better. These people are in the business of helping others.

No wonder why most teachers are such jerks and encourage bullying. Although, don't get me wrong. I did have one great teacher that I have very fond memories of. But the rest of them were just absolute jerks. But I agree with you. I don't think that teachers get paid enough to give a damn about the kids that they are teaching.

 

[NecroCurator]

Mobile librarian. It's super cool. Although I'd wish we had more adults for customers.

 

[Omnik]

I have no official job. I am all in bitcoin trading earning living only for myself. I am pretty satisfied with a monthly income and can even deposit some sums of money on my saving account.

 

[FreeDiver]

I have no official job. I am all in bitcoin trading earning living only for myself. I am pretty satisfied with a monthly income and can even deposit some sums of money on my saving account.

Back when Bitcoin first came out. I was mining Bitcoin just for the fun of it. Actually a lot of us in where into it. We would have these contests on who could mine the most coins. Over the course of that time. I must have mined over 130 coins. We would sell then as we mined them and I must have gotten over $6000 from those coins I mined and I would put it towards buying better PC hardware ie. A better graphic card. So I could speed up the mining process. In the end. The price of Bitcoin keep dropping and dropped to the point that mining and holding on to them was no longer practical any more. At that time. most of us though that Bitcoin was a fad and would just disappear. Me and the other guys had sold off all our coins and got out of mining altogether. Now that I look back on this, well you get the idea.