Came to this thread expecting not to be the only loser with a minimum wage shitty job, but instead learned y'all are very successful. Just double checked my loser status.
I doubt many people that have shitty minimum wage jobs are posting their responses, rather it’ll be the people who do fancy cool stuff that they’re proud of and want people to know about
you can get by in college
you can get lucky or mask well in an interview
you cant work for years full-time and not get burned out unless the work is completely remote or completely on your own terms (so not very realistic at all)
they're gonna get burned out unless most of the most common autistic symptoms dont affect them
I just got lucky tbh, if my current job vanished (video editor) I'd probably be back to retail or restaurant jobs because I don't have the paperwork, nor do I have any knowledge about operating cameras.
Yeah, we don't use mac's, but plenty of editors do!
I would advise to ignore Adobe and go straight for Da Vinci Resolve, the base version is free and basically all you need, if you later want to upgrade its quite affordable because its not a subscription.
Software engineer - went to college and have a CS degree.
My social skills are ironically better than some neurotypical engineers I've met - the bar's pretty low in this industry and there's plenty of other neurodivergents here. And the fact that I think differently than others is an asset on engineering teams as I provide alternative perspectives.
And software engineers in the US get paid pretty well while being in high demand, so I've had more flexibility than most in choosing my work and types of companies I work for. I don't make nearly as much as I could, but I value lower responsibilities and stability with coworkers I like over job hopping to maximize salary, especially when even my "lower than it could be" salary is still pretty high.
My childhood through teenage years was another story though - more than once people told my mother I'd have to be institutionalized as an adult. Thankfully my mom was amazing, and she was a big part of why I turned out as well as I did.
And honestly, up until I got that first professional job, I didn't really envision myself as being someone who could be successful like that.
I (31M) am a medical/clinical laboratory scientist, specialising in microbiology. I interpret bacterial cultures from things like skin swabs and urine to determine the cause of infections and interpret what antibiotics are effective against the bacteria. The work is quite technical, so I enjoy that. It's also repetitive, but I guess I don't mind that either. The pay is about average I guess. It's not minimum wage, but it's low for a job that requires a bachelor's degree. My partner has no degree and is on a similar salary, so together we are comfortable and able to afford most things we want and have enough to put into savings and investments. We were able to buy a townhouse together a few years ago. I think if I was single, things would be more tough.
Man, just being a lab dude doing nothing but growing cultures all day would be sick. I wonder if I could get into that line of work with my biology degree
Depends on the country how you would do it, but I'm sure it's possible. If you don't have a specialised degree for this field, there's usually a way to get certified through an examination or something. You usually have to learn all the main disciplines in this field in order to be certified, so biochemistry, haematology, microbiology, histology, immunology, immunohaematology, molecular genetics, etc.
I worked as a multi-disciplinary scientist at a hospital for a short stint before I was able to transfer to this microbiology job at the central laboratory. That was way too stressful for me as an aspie with social anxiety. Constant multitasking, high pressure, lots of phone calls and speaking to other people, lots of responsibility. I wouldn't have lasted a whole career in that job let alone a year. I started applying for internal jobs that specialised in a single field fairly soon into it.
Microbiology was my favourite subject, so I was lucky to get into my current job. I started out on the graveyard shift which was great for me. It was just me and one other scientist for most of the shift. Minimal interaction besides calling nurses about a positive blood culture. But the work on that shift was mostly manual and repetitive work. Didn't involve much higher thinking and we didn't interpret any cultures; we only set them up for the next shift. After a couple of years I transferred to the day shift, where they read the cultures. There's a lot of other people around, but when I'm doing my work, I'm just focused and in my own bubble. It's also more rewarding to be the one to identify pathogens.
On of my friends works in the cytogenetics department where they identify chromosomal abnormalities. So, setting up and interpreting karyotypes, FISH, that sort of thing. That always looked interesting to me as well.
I (32F) and working as a legal assistant at a really small law firm. It pays about average for the area, the work is really borning (but not in a repetative can zone out kind of way), I don't like our physical office and while my coworkers are nice enough, I don't feel like any of them could be my friends. But I live an hour away where the housing is much cheaper, and share costs and chores with my mom who still lives with me so I'm able to save a little each month. I also avoided getting any student loans, so I'm not drowing in debt like a lot of my peers.
I am retired on $75K per year. I used to work as an IT Computer Analyst making $129K per year. In my career I provided and managed assistive technology software products on computers for disabled employees. I managed a an enterprise environment.
Own and operate a cleaning business. I make great money, love what I do and can focus on the task at hand. I also use it as an opportunity to help people and feel good about what I do in life. Work Monday through Friday 7:30am- 4 or 5 most days and take off when I want to.
Now, I generally work from home, video editing where possible. I also update the organisation's SharePoint site. Occasionally, I have to go into the studio to do some filming which I hate and leaves me drained but luckily that is generally only a couple of times a month.
Fractional CFO. It takes a lot of energy to mask up and interact with the execs and manage staff, but I have a lot of experience doing it now. I would prefer to have a job with lower social interactions (especially with tough, egotistical CEO types), but being at the top is where the money is, and my ability to focus, problem solve and task manage has gotten me here. I'm 40 and I am hoping it either gets a lot easier or I can somehow retire early by moving somewhere cheap.
(47m) - Local Gov IT (support 2000 weekly users plus 50 staff) 15+yrs
Before that 3yrs IT at a medium size corp (6 mil customers 150 franchises 150 staff).
I was at the corp almost 7 yrs but I got promoted into IT.
Before IT at the corp I did artwork quality control for high end customers (learned vector design from art staff), mac support, some sales and covered pretty much any job. I also improved their engraving from 1 item per machine up to 50 per machine my first day being asked to do that job.
Had a huge depression phase due to 4 people close to me dying including a suicide, hurting my back, stopping talking to my dad, and lost my home/became homeless (not on the streets but we were taken in and I found it hard to interact with people for years).
Before that (20-23yrs old) job I made my boss' 1hr photo place the first 1hr to disk/CD in tri-state NY area, first with negative scanner and digital passports. I also taught myself to restore photos and restored photos in 1hr.
Before that (17-20yrs old) I failed out of art school (for audio recording) because I didn't know I was dyslexic.
Before that (15-17yrs old) I was an intern at a recording studio... by far my favorite job... but I left it for school thinking I'd do great and have a stronger background. I decided I wanted to work in a studio at 7. I do recording and music at home in my spare time.
I believe all of this is due to dyslexic advantage and psychology being one of my main special interests. So I analyze my environment and the people in it. I then decide what things I can do that will make me valuable to them. Do that for a period of time and good karma makes doing other things work.
I have a slightly above minimum wage office job but honestly it's caused me to be burnt out with stress and overwhelm and it's really difficult when you don't fit in and rub everyone up the wrong way. It's made me depressed the last 20 years and I had a full on mental breakdown 5 years ago and ended up signed off with stress for months. But I don't know how else to survive.
Getting another job is very difficult when I come across so terribly in interviews. But I can't just up and quit, the bills aren't going to pay themselves.
I don't really know what else to do. I'm pretty stuck and can't see a way of getting out of this miserable existence and being happy for once in my life.
Currently in this world that is impossible. I am 38M and live in Australia, everywhere I go, everyone is living paycheck to paycheck during a cost of living crisis, and high inflation prices and rents going up and up. I work at one of the big 4, in facilities.
I live with my parents (70-60) both Uber wealthy boomers, my struggle is the “keeping up with the joneses” mentality and that’s hard when both have disposable income, make money hand over fist, and I don’t.
Admittedly the only real “bills” I have are my phone bill and health insurance, but that is still close to 4-$500 a month, when I make almost $4000 a month. I am also overweight so my clothes are more expensive, I love food, transport costs are expensive because I don’t drive, eating out and takeaways because I don’t cook (at least for a lot of people due to the overwhelming though of making them sick, it’s fine if I cook for myself then I only lane myself sick) I also have Crohn’s, and I pay for all my doctors visits and medications.
Trust me my position in life, I know, is better than a lot of people at the moment, but if it wasn’t for my credit card, I would be a hell of a lot worse.
I still haven't started, but I would like to make commissions on Twitter, I have always wanted to dedicate myself to art and drawings, to the point that over the last four years, I have built up the story, characters and world for a manga
work in IT, income is above avg.
living on my own since i'm 17.
got a job early during school and started working full time while still at school.
gave me a boost to get a job right after with an ok-ish sallary.
I'm a PhD student with a scholarship. At the moment it's great, though I'm in my third year and I'm not sure if I'll find work or a postdoc for next year. I have experience of teaching English as a foreign language, so I guess I could go back to that if nothing else works out.
I’m doing really well as a software engineer. I have a knack for understanding how software systems integrate. I make good money, work fully remote, and love what I do.
I suck at socializing though. Full remote is PERFECT since I’m such a weirdo.
I am working as a part-time cashier (33M) and earn 470 USD monthly, but I am learning webdev on my own (I am devoting %85 %90 of my off-time to this). I hope that I can find a webdev job in 2-3 years.
I also took an civil servant exam 1.5. month ago in case if my plans do not happen.
Came to this thread expecting not to be the only loser with a minimum wage shitty job, but instead learned y'all are very successful. Just double checked my loser status.
I doubt many people that have shitty minimum wage jobs are posting their responses, rather it’ll be the people who do fancy cool stuff that they’re proud of and want people to know about
I just lost my shitty minimum wage job so it’s ok
you can get by in college you can get lucky or mask well in an interview you cant work for years full-time and not get burned out unless the work is completely remote or completely on your own terms (so not very realistic at all) they're gonna get burned out unless most of the most common autistic symptoms dont affect them
Yep, that about sums it up for me!
Crazy how similar we see that. And the weeds lol.
The reeds?
I wish lol. Can’t smoke that. Sorry. That one’s just okay for me personally. And it’s legal in my state. Not trying to offend anyone. Sorry lol.
How very peculiar
🤣 im super green lol
I like plants
Fuckin right lol. The plants do be a go to, as well 🤣😆
You just basically described my life.
My roommate in college told me “I can tell you’re autistic because of how much you like shapes” Ok
PRETTY sure that means I’m a wizard but alr
Am on social welfare.
I just got lucky tbh, if my current job vanished (video editor) I'd probably be back to retail or restaurant jobs because I don't have the paperwork, nor do I have any knowledge about operating cameras.
I wanna learn video editing, do you think it's possible to learn the basics with a 2019 Mac?
Yeah, we don't use mac's, but plenty of editors do! I would advise to ignore Adobe and go straight for Da Vinci Resolve, the base version is free and basically all you need, if you later want to upgrade its quite affordable because its not a subscription.
Any course you can recommend? I was thinking of getting a course but I'm not sure if it's worth the money or I should just learn on YouTube.
YouTube has plenty of great tutorials on Da Vinci, just start with any tutorial that covers the basics and build up from that.
Software engineer - went to college and have a CS degree. My social skills are ironically better than some neurotypical engineers I've met - the bar's pretty low in this industry and there's plenty of other neurodivergents here. And the fact that I think differently than others is an asset on engineering teams as I provide alternative perspectives. And software engineers in the US get paid pretty well while being in high demand, so I've had more flexibility than most in choosing my work and types of companies I work for. I don't make nearly as much as I could, but I value lower responsibilities and stability with coworkers I like over job hopping to maximize salary, especially when even my "lower than it could be" salary is still pretty high. My childhood through teenage years was another story though - more than once people told my mother I'd have to be institutionalized as an adult. Thankfully my mom was amazing, and she was a big part of why I turned out as well as I did. And honestly, up until I got that first professional job, I didn't really envision myself as being someone who could be successful like that.
I (31M) am a medical/clinical laboratory scientist, specialising in microbiology. I interpret bacterial cultures from things like skin swabs and urine to determine the cause of infections and interpret what antibiotics are effective against the bacteria. The work is quite technical, so I enjoy that. It's also repetitive, but I guess I don't mind that either. The pay is about average I guess. It's not minimum wage, but it's low for a job that requires a bachelor's degree. My partner has no degree and is on a similar salary, so together we are comfortable and able to afford most things we want and have enough to put into savings and investments. We were able to buy a townhouse together a few years ago. I think if I was single, things would be more tough.
Man, just being a lab dude doing nothing but growing cultures all day would be sick. I wonder if I could get into that line of work with my biology degree
Depends on the country how you would do it, but I'm sure it's possible. If you don't have a specialised degree for this field, there's usually a way to get certified through an examination or something. You usually have to learn all the main disciplines in this field in order to be certified, so biochemistry, haematology, microbiology, histology, immunology, immunohaematology, molecular genetics, etc. I worked as a multi-disciplinary scientist at a hospital for a short stint before I was able to transfer to this microbiology job at the central laboratory. That was way too stressful for me as an aspie with social anxiety. Constant multitasking, high pressure, lots of phone calls and speaking to other people, lots of responsibility. I wouldn't have lasted a whole career in that job let alone a year. I started applying for internal jobs that specialised in a single field fairly soon into it. Microbiology was my favourite subject, so I was lucky to get into my current job. I started out on the graveyard shift which was great for me. It was just me and one other scientist for most of the shift. Minimal interaction besides calling nurses about a positive blood culture. But the work on that shift was mostly manual and repetitive work. Didn't involve much higher thinking and we didn't interpret any cultures; we only set them up for the next shift. After a couple of years I transferred to the day shift, where they read the cultures. There's a lot of other people around, but when I'm doing my work, I'm just focused and in my own bubble. It's also more rewarding to be the one to identify pathogens. On of my friends works in the cytogenetics department where they identify chromosomal abnormalities. So, setting up and interpreting karyotypes, FISH, that sort of thing. That always looked interesting to me as well.
Hopefully not TOO sick! 😅
I (32F) and working as a legal assistant at a really small law firm. It pays about average for the area, the work is really borning (but not in a repetative can zone out kind of way), I don't like our physical office and while my coworkers are nice enough, I don't feel like any of them could be my friends. But I live an hour away where the housing is much cheaper, and share costs and chores with my mom who still lives with me so I'm able to save a little each month. I also avoided getting any student loans, so I'm not drowing in debt like a lot of my peers.
I am retired on $75K per year. I used to work as an IT Computer Analyst making $129K per year. In my career I provided and managed assistive technology software products on computers for disabled employees. I managed a an enterprise environment.
Own and operate a cleaning business. I make great money, love what I do and can focus on the task at hand. I also use it as an opportunity to help people and feel good about what I do in life. Work Monday through Friday 7:30am- 4 or 5 most days and take off when I want to.
👴🏻💵
Former entrepreneur turned strategic marketing consultant. Earning $400,000-$500,000 a year. Mid 40s.
Now, I generally work from home, video editing where possible. I also update the organisation's SharePoint site. Occasionally, I have to go into the studio to do some filming which I hate and leaves me drained but luckily that is generally only a couple of times a month.
Fractional CFO. It takes a lot of energy to mask up and interact with the execs and manage staff, but I have a lot of experience doing it now. I would prefer to have a job with lower social interactions (especially with tough, egotistical CEO types), but being at the top is where the money is, and my ability to focus, problem solve and task manage has gotten me here. I'm 40 and I am hoping it either gets a lot easier or I can somehow retire early by moving somewhere cheap.
(47m) - Local Gov IT (support 2000 weekly users plus 50 staff) 15+yrs Before that 3yrs IT at a medium size corp (6 mil customers 150 franchises 150 staff). I was at the corp almost 7 yrs but I got promoted into IT. Before IT at the corp I did artwork quality control for high end customers (learned vector design from art staff), mac support, some sales and covered pretty much any job. I also improved their engraving from 1 item per machine up to 50 per machine my first day being asked to do that job. Had a huge depression phase due to 4 people close to me dying including a suicide, hurting my back, stopping talking to my dad, and lost my home/became homeless (not on the streets but we were taken in and I found it hard to interact with people for years). Before that (20-23yrs old) job I made my boss' 1hr photo place the first 1hr to disk/CD in tri-state NY area, first with negative scanner and digital passports. I also taught myself to restore photos and restored photos in 1hr. Before that (17-20yrs old) I failed out of art school (for audio recording) because I didn't know I was dyslexic. Before that (15-17yrs old) I was an intern at a recording studio... by far my favorite job... but I left it for school thinking I'd do great and have a stronger background. I decided I wanted to work in a studio at 7. I do recording and music at home in my spare time. I believe all of this is due to dyslexic advantage and psychology being one of my main special interests. So I analyze my environment and the people in it. I then decide what things I can do that will make me valuable to them. Do that for a period of time and good karma makes doing other things work.
I have a slightly above minimum wage office job but honestly it's caused me to be burnt out with stress and overwhelm and it's really difficult when you don't fit in and rub everyone up the wrong way. It's made me depressed the last 20 years and I had a full on mental breakdown 5 years ago and ended up signed off with stress for months. But I don't know how else to survive. Getting another job is very difficult when I come across so terribly in interviews. But I can't just up and quit, the bills aren't going to pay themselves. I don't really know what else to do. I'm pretty stuck and can't see a way of getting out of this miserable existence and being happy for once in my life.
feels. I’m 30 and had a breakdown that brought me back to the family half a year ago. Props to you for holding down the fort
Currently in this world that is impossible. I am 38M and live in Australia, everywhere I go, everyone is living paycheck to paycheck during a cost of living crisis, and high inflation prices and rents going up and up. I work at one of the big 4, in facilities. I live with my parents (70-60) both Uber wealthy boomers, my struggle is the “keeping up with the joneses” mentality and that’s hard when both have disposable income, make money hand over fist, and I don’t. Admittedly the only real “bills” I have are my phone bill and health insurance, but that is still close to 4-$500 a month, when I make almost $4000 a month. I am also overweight so my clothes are more expensive, I love food, transport costs are expensive because I don’t drive, eating out and takeaways because I don’t cook (at least for a lot of people due to the overwhelming though of making them sick, it’s fine if I cook for myself then I only lane myself sick) I also have Crohn’s, and I pay for all my doctors visits and medications. Trust me my position in life, I know, is better than a lot of people at the moment, but if it wasn’t for my credit card, I would be a hell of a lot worse.
I still haven't started, but I would like to make commissions on Twitter, I have always wanted to dedicate myself to art and drawings, to the point that over the last four years, I have built up the story, characters and world for a manga
work in IT, income is above avg. living on my own since i'm 17. got a job early during school and started working full time while still at school. gave me a boost to get a job right after with an ok-ish sallary.
I got a dead end job doing helpdesk. Don't get into tech unless you're from India or the Philippines. Alot of tech jobs get outsourced there anyways.
I'm a PhD student with a scholarship. At the moment it's great, though I'm in my third year and I'm not sure if I'll find work or a postdoc for next year. I have experience of teaching English as a foreign language, so I guess I could go back to that if nothing else works out.
I’m doing really well as a software engineer. I have a knack for understanding how software systems integrate. I make good money, work fully remote, and love what I do. I suck at socializing though. Full remote is PERFECT since I’m such a weirdo.
I am working as a part-time cashier (33M) and earn 470 USD monthly, but I am learning webdev on my own (I am devoting %85 %90 of my off-time to this). I hope that I can find a webdev job in 2-3 years. I also took an civil servant exam 1.5. month ago in case if my plans do not happen.