Is there a position available anywhere in the world where I can simply take an assessment to identify my skills and capabilities, receive assignments accordingly, complete them remotely, and submit them without the need for ongoing communication or visits? I prefer a role that allows for flexible, independent work hours.
I have ten years of experience as a paralegal but am seeking a different type of work that doesn’t require returning to school, interaction with others, or leaving my home. I am highly capable but uncertain about my next career steps and am looking for a more autonomous work arrangement.
Communication sucks, but no matter what job you do you will need to have some form of communication to someone. We’re a freelance artist and wanting to go into IT or start a record business since we really love retro stuff/physical media. Being the boss of your own stuff makes it easier for us, though we’ve worked in customer service and management for about 10 years (it was horrible) maybe bring your own boss could help you too?
Depends where you are in the spectrum.
Lots of us exist doing data science, writing technical documentation, and programming.
On-going communication is a must though. If not the person, it’ll be your teammates who you trust who can help translate and take notes. No company is going to just give work with zero communication and expect a perfect end result. There’s always communication.
Typically we work in IT or theatre.
Hah. I’ve been involved in more than 60 theatrical productions in my life, and most of my jobs were in some form of IT. I feel seen <3
Lemmy presents, IT the musical. Including such memorable songs such as “PC load letter, what the fuck does that mean?” and…
“All your base are belong to us” and the monologue about the Magic / More Magic toggle.
Who can forget the hit song “I cast magic missile at the darkness”.
Or engineering or nursing
Can’t recommend nursing for neurodivergence. Not in a “you’re not good enough” kinda way. I very much proved that I can. I had to learn a buuunch of new social and communication skills, and I did have to “prove” I could to my instructors and for about the first six months at any new job.
You can absolutely be a nurse with neurodivergence. But whether it’s right or wrong, you’re going to have to put in some extra effort in areas you’re probably not used to. You should first consider whether or not that’s actually worth it to you. That part matters more than people admit.
It also helps that I work psych. I’m doing a lot of communication with people more like me. But that also comes with the downside of a lot of that communication being them yelling at me and trying to hit me. They’re specifically the subset of neurodivergents with more trauma, or in a particularly bad place in their life, and often were never taught the emotional regulatory skills needed to solve problems without doing that (my sister certainly never learned them while we were growing up and I’ve got a permanent back injury to prove it).
Again right or wrong matters very little there. Should someone have gone to the extra effort to teach them not to hit people in ways that they were able to fully engage with? Definitely. Do neurotypicals also sometimes miss learning that skillset? Sure, but it happens less often because more childcare services are designed to teach them those skills than neurodivergent children. Still leaves me dodging punches from auDHD peeps at the end of the day.
That’s fair, I’ve just noticed that a lot of the ADHD women I know are nurses
Masking is the main way sadly. 😕
Masking is the absolute bane of my existence. I can’t bring myself to do it anymore. Burned myself out so much doing it for decades I lost myself. Had to mask at work then had to mask at home around the family. Basically never had even a moment where I could safely be myself without being chastised for doing so.
So now I just don’t. If I’m gonna be uncomfortable either way then I’m not going to waste my fucking energy catering to the sensibilities of assholes who would never do the same for me.
Fuck at home. At home is your castle. But I work with ASD people all the time. I consider myself very patient.
Most people aren’t.
You have to do what you have to do to survive. Unless you’re going to start your own business, you’ve got to adapt to the outside, sad to say.
No one is going to pay you a salary for that kind of work. So youre going to have to work job to job or a clock in clock out kind of job. This is going to be more of a freelance kind of position. I dont know how much paralegal work there is by contract. Seems like there would be lots of restrictions around that kind if work that wouldnt lend itself to the gig economy.
I made my interest my job.
Went into IT.Oh hey, don’t worry, there aren’t jobs to get anymore. Solved problem!
In my experience, they work as engineers, engineers or engineers.
“I solve practical problems!”
Pretty easily; it’s keeping the job that’s the trick. I haven’t really figured that one out yet.
My brother lost 24 jobs until he found one with a boss who knew how to deal with him. It didn’t help that my mother didn’t raise him properly “because he was special” and basically the boss had to teach him things like dressing properly, personal hygiene, and not buggering off on vacation without giving notice.
Same same. My SO gravitated to a position (producer) that actually allows them to utilize the ADHD traits in their job. Appatently quite a few of the producers in the company have ADHD.
Me, well I come with autistic features among others and the longest I’ve worked in the same place was like 4 years - and that’s because it was related to my special interest and the others working there were spicy as well. Oh and I had a 4-day work week, which seems like the maximum for me from which I can still recover (if the work is otherwise sustainable). Apart from that my work history is just random shit I’ve done for a few months before burning out or part time/gig courier work. I’m hoping to be a part-time researcher part-time mechanic or something like that in the future, I’d like to think that would balance things out nicely.
Depends on the flavor and intensity of ND.
Plenty of ND’s find and keep jobs. Just other varieties have different wiring and tolerances that don’t fit well with what most people do in normal jobs.
A lot of work has shifted to remote, even if some do have office days still, so maybe you can find one that suits your skills that allows that? Even school can be done remote and online, though I do expect that there would be mandatory class meetings.
I don’t know of any jobs off the top of my head that allow someone to be a complete hermit, but maybe someone else can chime in with one.
Look towards working in government in your jurisdiction. In ours, government still permits at least partial work from home arrangements, and has staff support networks, reasonable adjustments and management training for neurodivergence in the workforce. It doesn’t pay private sector salaries but risks are lower.
I think sadly the answer is “no”.
Or, this kind of site does exist in the form of fiver or upwork, but of course those platforms are super highly competitive. The harsh reality is that everyone wants the job you described.
I am sympathetic. I suspect im neurodivergent, mid 40s, super tapped out from waking up every day and trying to mask my oddness.
Do you have any special interests you might monetise? Even if its only peripherally related. The caveat is - there be dragons here… trying to monetise a hobby is a great way for a neurodivergent person to waste all their money.
That’s exactly what my main income is these days. I signed up with DataAnnotation a couple of years ago, chipped away and started getting more access to a bigger pool of higher paying projects. I get online whenever it suits me, do work, claim time, get paid. No meetings or time wasting.
It’s not perfect, feedback is minimal, technical issues exist, but the flexibility is such a huge advantage that it’s hard to give up. It does mean you’re contributing to the whole AI… situation. My moral justification is that we’re actually making the models better at sticking with what they’re good at, and getting more efficient with it.
Specific professional skills like legal seem to be in high demand too. I’m a software engineering specialist, but they keep giving me finance projects just because I have that domain on my resume. They also gave me some referral codes specifically requesting legal, medical, and STEM pros. I don’t know if using my codes would give you an advantage in the application, but I guess it couldn’t hurt. DM me if you want one.
My moral justification is that we’re actually making the models better at sticking with what they’re good at, and getting more efficient with it.
My moral justification is that no matter how much work we seem to do for them, the models don’t seem to be getting any better and that General Purpose LLMs must be fundamentally broken and can’t be fixed because the way they come to correct answers is literally the same way they come to incorrect answers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
When I started doing this work it was scary how fast they progressed. I thought I’d be redundant in a few months. Then they hit a wall very hard. The models might even be getting worse now. That could be my perception because a big part of the job is steering them toward failure and correcting the mistakes, so now I’m in the habit of exploiting their weaknesses.
They aren’t going away, but if we can figure out the niches where they’re actually useful, maybe the big AI companies will stop pretending LLMs are a digital panacea.
I’d recommend practicing those social skills. If you can find what you’re looking for, fantastic! Otherwise, going completely hermit is really going to limit the number of opportunities available to you.
This is coming from the guy who would rather sit at his desk for an hour than go for the free snacks at the employee gathering.
