Career Resource for Aspies

My Aspergers Child has given us a very good resource: Best and Worst Jobs for Aspergers Adults.

It's based on common sense: We Aspies are much more likely to be better at certain things than others. This is not a final answer to "What should I do with my life?" - any more than any other career guide is, for any Aspie or NT. It is a realistic assessment of strengths and challenges - as any other career guide should be.

Any Aspie may be able to do anything, just like any NT. And dismissing something offhand as a bad job for a whole group of people can be premature. It is, however, a good heads-up which you should seriously consider before going your own way. The harder path may involve more glory...but also more hardship, self-doubt and loneliness.

Remember that we - human beings in general - naturally tend to overestimate (1) our abilities - especially soft skills like leadership and socializing, and (2) our chances of beating the odds. We tend to assume we're more able than our peers, and even if only a few people can succeed at something, we'll be the ones to beat the odds. Especially (but not only) when we're young.

Case in point: Your Obedient Servant. People assumed that I was headed for a teaching career. After all, I was so smart, and could discuss so many esoteric things. Like with many Aspies, people thought of me as a "Little Professor". And I went to graduate school, blithely ignoring the fact that relatively few PhDs ever got tenure-track college teaching positions.

Thing is:

• Teaching - including college teaching, especially before you get tenured - involves a great deal of social skills, including empathizing with students and getting along with peers and superiors (and these days, pleasing students),


• Precisely because I lacked these skills, I did not know this - let alone that I was lacking,


• Over the last few decades, colleges and universities have radically cut back their full-time faculty, shifting much teaching work to adjuncts (who are hired, and paid, by the term), and


• I was far from the only one not to get the message.

Result #1: 20 pounds of PhDs seeking teaching jobs in a 5 pound bag of available slots.

Result #2: I was one of those who fell out of the bag.

This resource is a set of warnings, not absolute rules - but as with any warnings, do take them to heart.

What do you think?

H/T: TG, an autistic parent of autistic kids.

What Are Your Personal Demons?

Hello,

On Halloween afternoon (a week from today) - 3-4pm ET - we'll have a Blog Talk Radio show discussing some of my personal demons, and please feel free to call in with any of yours at (760) 695-5604 (free except for your normal long-distance charges or cell minutes*). NTs with constructive responses to Aspies' thoughts are also welcome.

If you see on that page a button for calling in via Skype - it depends on whether there's a Skype channel available - and you're logged into both Blog Talk Radio and Skype (both free), you can use that to listen and then if you want to talk on the show hit 1 on your keyboard.

Or you can just listen and/or participate in live chat, both on the webpage.

[*] Many cell plans these days offer free unlimited weekend (and for that matter night) minutes.

Enjoy your week!

Q3 2010 Ends By The Numbers

As the third quarter of 2010 draws to a close, I have, today alone:

• Had to admit making mistakes on four separate occasions - and that's not counting my earlier missteps I recounted on Blog Talk Radio today.



• Been offered "weed" for the first time in many, many years (and possibly for the first time ever as a serious offer).



• Pulled out from the garage with 20,400 miles on the odometer - note that the first two digits make up the square root of the last three.



• Confirmed two close acquaintanceships.

Happy start to the final quarter of 2010!

(And yes, I'm a nephew of an accountant, and informally studied accounting myself. Plus as you might have noticed, I enjoy numbers.)

It Gets Better

You may have heard of Dan Savage's recent challenge "It Gets Better" - he wants gays, lesbians and bisexuals to show by their personal examples how well they're doing now. The idea is to show those still growing up that it does get better, so hang in there.

Well, the same is true for young Aspies and autists growing up. It gets tough, being lonely, getting bullied (and not necessarily just by the students either) and feeling out of place. It's easy to wonder if life will always be that way, year in and year out.

So, we're having a Blog Talk Radio show - "It Gets Better" - tomorrow, 3-4pm ET/noon-1pm PT. We'd love to hear Aspies' and autists' success stories; just call in at (760) 695-5604. Or if you see on that page a button for calling in via Skype (that will depend on whether there's a Skype channel available) and you're logged into both Blog Talk Radio and Skype - both of which are free - you can use that. (Skype will enable you to listen to the show, and if you want to call in press 1 on your keyboard.)

Or just feel free to listen on the show's page, and do some live chat there too if you like.

If you're not able to make it, just drop by afterward and listen to the podcast any time you wish.

See you there!

EDIT: Megan McArdle of The Atlantic is spreading the word - thank you very much. Tune in this afternoon at 3 ET/noon PT!

An Object Lesson: Social Skills vs. Technical Competence

Adrian Fenty has reached the end of his term as mayor of Washington, DC. He's long been known for (1) his record of accomplishments and (2) a personality which would strip paint from woodwork at ten feet.

On Fenty's record alone, no serious politician might have challenged him for re-election this year. Among other things, even the Washington City Paper, which had printed attack after attack on Fenty's personality (including the quotations from my above-linked previous post), endorsed Fenty based on his achievements: "Adrian Fenty: The Jerk D.C. Needs".

Given his problems winning friends and influencing people, City Council Chairman Vincent Gray stepped into the fray. And in yesterday's Democratic primary*, Gray trounced Fenty. Since the Democrats own the city itself lock, stock and barrel, for all intents and purposes Gray has now been elected mayor. In any case, Fenty has definitely been un-elected.

[*] For non-U.S. readers - primaries are elections held among voters registered to a certain party, to decide who will be that party's official candidate in the general election. Note that in places where most of the voters belong to one party, winning that party's primary virtually guarantees winning the general election.

As political columnist Tom Diemer summed it up:

[T]he incumbent's decisive defeat was a sobering reminder that being nice counts for something in politics, even when one has numerous accomplishments to boast about.

Fenty's prickly personality and stand-offishness turned off black voters -- and cost him even though he achieved much of what he set out to do in 2006 as the youngest mayor in four decades of home rule in the nation's capital.

[Emphasis in original]

Screaming About Discrimination (SAD)

The Olde Salty restaurant in Carolina Beach, North Carolina has announced a new policy: No screaming children allowed.

One might think it would go without saying for almost any public place. And owner Brenda Armes says that the policy has attracted more customers than it's repelled.

A few parents and others don't like it, and even claim it's illegal. You see, autistic children are more likely to scream and even go into meltdowns, so (by this line of reasoning) a policy banning screaming in effect discriminates against the disabled.

Yes, autistic children may scream, for example, due to a sensory overload that's no fault of their own. And people should understand and not jump to conclusions about children necessarily just having temper tantrums, or say that autistic children shouldn't be brought out in public.

Does that mean that any issue causing problems for others has to be someone's fault before an establishment may take action? Suppose someone loudly coughs and sneezes many times in a restaurant. Of course it's probably not her fault she's sick. So the management has to stand by while she disturbs everyone and maybe infects some people?

Of course not. The original idea of combating discrimination is that people can't treat others differently based on illegitimate criteria. For example, if a black person wants to eat at a restaurant, the management can't bar him based on a dislike of black people, because someone's being black does not harm the business or any individual.

However, screaming in a public place definitely disturbs others and harms the business, and management has every right to eject screamers. Even if they include some autistic children who don't mean to scream and are suffering meltdowns, not pulling ordinary temper tantrums.

We need to help autistic children learn to minimize and finally eliminate their meltdowns, not demand that everyone else put up with disturbances.

What do you think?

Radio Kickoff

Yesterday, A SPLINT kicked off our Blog Talk Radio series with an episode on how Aspies can get along better with NTs in school. If you missed it, feel free to stop by any time you like and listen to the podcast.

We'll announce a regular schedule shortly. If you've any time and/or day preferences for listening live - and maybe calling in - please let me know!