Thursday, June 6, 2013

Career choice

I was taking a voluntary survey for a study a college student was doing on Asperger's Syndrome and career choices. Nearly the whole second half of the survey was to rank three various job tasks by preference. One being the task you'd most like to do and three being the one you'd least like to perform.

As I was making my selections I noticed a clear pattern in my choices and had a revelation of sorts. What I chose in the survey was tasks related to working with things: making, repairing, installing, programming, writing, and such. What I've done for careers in my life has been working with people. I've mostly worked in the medical field and now I'm just realizing that a good part of my difficulty with working may, in fact, stem from choosing the wrong type of career.

I didn't know at 20 years old that I had Asperger's and that affected how I interacted with people. I didn't know that I wasn't perceiving non-verbal communication and that I wasn't sending it appropriately. I could never understand why my co-corkers didn't like me or why my jobs were causing me such stress. My father chose a good career for Aspergers. He repaired TVs, VCRs and camcorders in a back room in a repair shop for 30 years. That sounds much more appealing to me than working in a busy doctor's office. I don't think I really thought about it before.

I need to make sure I chose my next career with this realization in mind.