How to you feel about being self-employed?  If you think that might be
for you, pick your niche, and make a plan.  If you can generate business
leads and can weed out the bad  projects and unethical people, you can
make an above average income and have limited interface with others.  If
you use a contract, and I strongly suggest you do, everything is spelled
out.  If the client decides on a deviation it can be handled by an
addendum and an adjustment to the fees and payment schedule as may be
necessary.   

And you can start learning and doing while employed.  The experts say
you should "moonlight" until your business is doing good enough to
replace your day job. 

On 2017-10-31 00:06, trent shipley wrote:

> Well, as you may recall from my last installment about career options, I am bipolar, have autism spectrum disorder, and I have attention deficit disorder. Another disability is that I'm 50. After working with my "job coach" it turns out that if you are both ASD and ADD the intersection of viable, suggested career options comes down to "computers".  If you are ASD, something terrible uncreative and repetitive like QA. If you are ADD something terribly creative like greenfield development or web development. I like to try development/programming, and I like data, and have had success working with SQL, but that was between 2000 and 2002. 
> 
> So after researching, my options I have reached the following conclusions: 
> 
> To get an entry level job with programming or data you need. 
> 
> 1) Recent, diverse experience bringing you close to a plug-n-play employee. 
> 
> 2) Failing 1, a portfolio. If you are a self-studier who starts their own projects you have a good chance at an entry-level start that you can build on. 
> 
> 3) Failing 1 or 2, If you have a BS in Computer Science or Software Engineering, you need to have graduated with honors from a prestigious school or done at least a year of internships, because odds are you won't get work in your field. 
> 
> 4) Given 1, 2, 3 I qualify for telephone IT help desk. Help desk jobs with no requirements like A+ or Net+ or knowing Active Directory. 
> 
> I currently work in customer service, no sales. They like high quality and low handle times, but it's pretty low pressure. I get $13 & change an hour; plus, a $4 & change allowance for benefits. Not bad. The downside is people, phones, and dead-end McJob, oh and it's seasonal. Thirty-two hours a week for about eight months out of the year.  I also can't sell at all, and my average, normalized, handle time is on the order of 1.8 standard deviations above the mean, and rising. (My speed is measured as being in the lower quartile for almost everything for which they measure speed--math, reading, manual dexterity, typing, everything.)   
> 
> The big advantage I see working help desk is that there is room for promotion to tier II and beyond.  On rare occasions, help desk people may even get promoted to something more interesting, better paying, more prestigious, and less dehumanizing than help desk. 
> 
> On the other hand I expect that most help desk jobs will emphasize sales, short phone calls, high levels of quality, and have very stressful, high pressure work environments, where the workers are treated like eminently replaceable manure, that pay $10 to $13 an hour to start. I expect that if I change jobs, there is a very, very good chance I will be a failure at telephone IT help desk. Unfortunately, telephone help desk, tier I or my current job are the only options I see myself as having. 
> 
> Anyway I'd be happy to hear any feedback the list might have. 
> 
> I'd love to conduct a couple of interviews with people who have worked, or are working unskilled tier I IT help desk. However, be forewarned, the last such interviews I did lasted an hour. My vocational rehab working says most such interviews last WELL under 20 minutes, but did the last ones after work hours, and have an advanced degree in anthropology, so I kinda draw out interviews. 
> 
> Also, If you can send any prospects my way, I'd appreciate it. 
> 
> Regards, 
> 
> Trent. 
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