Undoubtedly. The question is whether sufficient parts of the world to make a living can be convinced of that.
>>Neither was slaughterhouse animal comfort consultant, until an autistic woman invented it. Now her work makes slaughterhouses safer and more efficient for humans, and less stressful for animals. Because she thinks like a cow. It is really all about figuring out what you do well, and then monetizing that. Look for a problem people are having that you can solve.<<
Perhaps I should try to reach out to this woman, see if she has any advice.
>>Start doing this as volunteer work until you feel confident about it.<<
I got the idea from my volunteer work. I work for this amazing summer camp that I went to as a teenager, and one of the things I do is explain to my fellow volunteers why this or that practice is not good. I had a lot of trouble with authority figure pressure to do things that were awful, but the camp was still worth it. Historically, I've worked in an administrative role officially, but I'm on the team of people figuring out what they want to do this year because the loneliness was getting to me. The person who runs that program said to me that this is the thing I'm doing, and it got me started thinking. But of course I know Camp like the back of my hand. Who knows if I could do this somewhere else. It seems important enough to try, though.
>>That's a serious limitation. Hmmm ...
One option would be attaching yourself to a charity or nonprofit that serves people with disabilities.<<
I didn't go into detail here. I don't want to work alone, I don't want to be in charge of all the taxes and stuff, and being a consultant is scary, because it's not near-guaranteed income. And I'm not very good at keeping track of my life or actually doing stuff without an externally enforced schedule and accountability. But the things I'm good at - fixing paperwork and understanding accessibility - aren't things that lend themselves to regular jobs. For the first thing, I might be able to find another person to do the numbers things. The second and third are rather more of a problem.
>>Then when you know more, start charging.<<
On one level, this is totally sensible. But I'm severely underemployed right now, and it feels like an opportunity. I have fairly considerable savings, but I still need to find a stable income source that's enough to support 1.5 people and 1.5 cats (my brother and his cat live with me, but he has some income of his own) in a soonish kind of way. I tend to get absorbed in my work, though, and I doubt I'd keep working on this if I was otherwise sufficiently employed.
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dancing_serpent
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2015-07-07 05:11 am (UTC)Undoubtedly. The question is whether sufficient parts of the world to make a living can be convinced of that.
>>Neither was slaughterhouse animal comfort consultant, until an autistic woman invented it. Now her work makes slaughterhouses safer and more efficient for humans, and less stressful for animals. Because she thinks like a cow. It is really all about figuring out what you do well, and then monetizing that. Look for a problem people are having that you can solve.<<
Perhaps I should try to reach out to this woman, see if she has any advice.
>>Start doing this as volunteer work until you feel confident about it.<<
I got the idea from my volunteer work. I work for this amazing summer camp that I went to as a teenager, and one of the things I do is explain to my fellow volunteers why this or that practice is not good. I had a lot of trouble with authority figure pressure to do things that were awful, but the camp was still worth it. Historically, I've worked in an administrative role officially, but I'm on the team of people figuring out what they want to do this year because the loneliness was getting to me. The person who runs that program said to me that this is the thing I'm doing, and it got me started thinking. But of course I know Camp like the back of my hand. Who knows if I could do this somewhere else. It seems important enough to try, though.
>>That's a serious limitation. Hmmm ...
One option would be attaching yourself to a charity or nonprofit that serves people with disabilities.<<
I didn't go into detail here. I don't want to work alone, I don't want to be in charge of all the taxes and stuff, and being a consultant is scary, because it's not near-guaranteed income. And I'm not very good at keeping track of my life or actually doing stuff without an externally enforced schedule and accountability. But the things I'm good at - fixing paperwork and understanding accessibility - aren't things that lend themselves to regular jobs. For the first thing, I might be able to find another person to do the numbers things. The second and third are rather more of a problem.
>>Then when you know more, start charging.<<
On one level, this is totally sensible. But I'm severely underemployed right now, and it feels like an opportunity. I have fairly considerable savings, but I still need to find a stable income source that's enough to support 1.5 people and 1.5 cats (my brother and his cat live with me, but he has some income of his own) in a soonish kind of way. I tend to get absorbed in my work, though, and I doubt I'd keep working on this if I was otherwise sufficiently employed.