#makingalivingwhileautistic — Public Fediverse posts

Further reflections on tutoring...

The first platform I mentioned in my previous post seems to have some sort of orchestrator who decides how to match students and tutors. I know this because I've read discussions from people tutoring on this platform, and they talked about how their matches seemed to come in batch. You are pretty much at the whim of a third party to get jobs.

On the second platform, the clients are in control. The platform may help with the selection, but the client ultimately decides who they want to go with.

#tutoring #MakingALiving #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

Imagine this.

One tutoring platform has customers paying through the nose, and gives a fixed 1/6 of the proceeds to the tutor. In some cases, a customer can tack on a bonus to a job ad, but those bonuses are rare and don't really correlate with the task they ask of the tutors. (I've seen two ads for Electrical Engineering tutoring... without bonus. Don't fucking tell me that this is the same as tutoring English or French.)

There's a second tutoring platform which gives 3/4 of the proceeds to the tutor. That's if they find a student for you. If *you* bring your student, you get 100% of the money. On this platform, you can negotiate an amount of money with the client.

(If you need help understanding the difference, imagine a job at $90. The first platform would give $15 to the tutor. The second would give $67.50. Notice the difference?)

I'm on both platforms. I have one student on the 2nd platform that nets me the same amount of money as on the first platform. *All* my other students on the 2nd platform net me more money than if I tutored them on the first platform.

The end result is that tutors are inherently motivated on the 2nd platform to get good rates for themselves, and as they get good rates for themselves, the platform also profits. It is a win-win situation.

On the 1st platform, the platform wins, but the tutor loses.

I'm about to leave that first platform, hopefully forever. It stinks. I still have one student there. I plan to break the news to him tomorrow or Friday that he should find himself another tutor.

#tutoring #MakingALiving #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

Another thing I've stopped doing when applying for tutoring jobs is that I no longer try to psychoanalyze the person making the offer.

I used to give a "rebate." If the person asked for $X/h I'd ask for $(X-10)/h. A $10 rebate per hour.

This strategy may have backfired on me. Instead of:

"Yay! I'm getting the same thing for less money."

I might have gotten:

"Why is he charging less? There must be a problem with this person. 😬"

I cannot *prove* this, but people being what they are, I bet this happened.

I now just ask for what they offer. Or I pass if I see a problem.

#tutoring #MakingALiving #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

Musings about tutoring...

I'm finally at the point where I can leave the first tutoring platform I was on. The pay is atrocious on that platform. I'm no longer seeking new clients there. I have one steady client that I intend to see through the end of the semester.

I'm on another platform that pays better. There, the clients can name their price. What I'm discovering is that the clients that name cheap prices don't have a horse in the game. $10/h for tutoring does not cut it. It's not just that this is not enough money. I doubt I'd have a client who cares. Students who don't care are not students I wish to tutor.

#tutoring #MakingALivingWhileAutistic #MakingALiving

My principal sources of income have expiry dates. So I need to find alternative sources of income: writing and tutoring. I prefer writing, but this activity gives me less income than tutoring. So, I write when I can, and mainly tutor in order to provide for my financial security.

I managed to land on a tutoring platform a while back. This platform makes it fairly easy to establish yourself. They looked at my diplomas, and decided that I could teach a whole slew of subjects that are above my pay grade. Yes, I've done algebra and calculus back in my day, but that was **over** 30 years ago. I essentially had to *relearn* all of it in order to tutor it properly.

So I've been making some money from this first platform. The problem though is that the pay is mediocre. I'd need easily to work 66h/week every week to make up for the sources of incomes that I have and have an expiry date.

Not possible. I don't think this is a sane way to live, especially for an #autistic person.

However, I found another platform. This one pays better. I basically set my rate, and they take a cut. I've recently started getting students there, and I make more money from **all** of them than on the first platform.

The only issue with this second platform is that it is harder to get established there. For one thing, they test you in all the subjects you want to tutor in. They don't care about your diplomas. It is not overly hard, but it is a thing nonetheless. I managed to not get 100% on my French test because of an idiotic mistake on my part. I just did not read the question right. Mind you, it is pass/fail and the student never sees your grade, but my mistake still stinks.

It took me a while to realize it, but in order for new tutors to establish themselves they can answer questions, in a Q/A forum. I posted some of my answers there, and that my have helped.

Another factor that I think helped is that I installed this extension:

https://distill.io/apps/web-monitor/

I use it to monitor job offers. I think my offers used to be buried under the others, but with this extension I can make an offer really fast, and stand out from the crowd.

#writing #tutoring #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

"A Michigan computer science major says he sent out 456 internship applications and only got 3 offers"

The kid finally got an offer, but that's after 456 applications.

:catthinking:

This kid is the best placed to get a job. He's young. He's naive. However, he has to send 456 applications.

What are my chances? Offices are awful for #autistic people. (Interesting tidbit: I need a couple of naps during the day. I don't know of an office environment that would allow this, and that's only one of my issues.)

Add to this the fact that my experience at this point is both underqualified and overqualified, due to my complex background.

:hide_the_pain_harold:

#USNews #NoSatire #JobMarket #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

https://www.businessinsider.com/computer-science-major-applied-to-456-internships-got-three-offers-2024-1

The Gutter: How To Keep Me Out Of It

Here are the ways you can support me so that I stay out of the gutter.

Please publicize and boost this page. Please also read it to the end. There are various methods for supporting me.

I’ve talked about this earlier, but the way I talked about it was a bit messy. In this page, I aim to explain exactly how you can support me, and what my preferred methods are. I’ve explained the problem in another article, you should read the section titled “The Problem” there.

Let me start with two revelations:

• Some of the methods you can use to support me do not require you to pay anything. You can follow me, and that’s already something. (Please read the article, however, just following me in the fediverse is nice but is the least helpful way you can support me.)
• Do not get trapped in all or nothing thinking. Every little bit you can do to support me counts. If you cannot pay for a subscription on Substack, maybe subscribing on Ko-Fi can do it. Or giving a one time donation. Or publicizing me. Or just following me.

A note about nomenclature: I’m not super happy with this, but on Substack, all of what I’m talking about here has the same basic name: a subscription. However, Substack has free subscriptions, and paid subscriptions. Don’t think that every time I talk about subscriptions on Substack, it involves paying for something.

Now, going in order of my most preferred form of support, to my least preferred. Yes, I do prefer to be paid.

Get A Paid Subscription To My Substack

As we speak, I need roughly 500 more paying subscribers on Substack in order to be able to make ends meet when my disability runs out. A subscription there paid by the month is $5, paid by the year is $50. (Note that this is a bit lower than what Substack suggests as a default.)

Here the link to my English publication there:

https://yourautisticlife.substack.com/

Here is the link to my French publication:

https://votreviedautiste.substack.com/

Unfortunately, the two publications are separate and require separate subscriptions.

The articles I write in French are only available on Substack. Those that I write in English and which are free to everyone are currently reposted to my blog after a week or so. I’m also slowly reposting them on Medium.

Subscribe To My Ko-Fi

If you have an issue with paying Substack, you can still subscribe to me by subscribing to my Ko-Fi. I’ve turned on the monthly subscription there. Subscribing to my Ko-Fi can be cheaper than subscribing to my Substack. You can select the amount of monthly money you are willing to spend. I suggest $3 per month.

While there is no way to transfer a membership on Ko-Fi to a membership on Substack, I plan to copy my paying articles from Substack to Ko-Fi. I have already two such articles here:

https://ko-fi.com/post/My-Sleep-Ritual-J3J8QKV60

https://ko-fi.com/post/Loop-Quiets-Not-Worth-It-For-Me-Also-Loop-Flat-O-C0C4QKWMO

The only thing that a subscription to my Ko-Fi won’t give you relative to Substack is the capability to comment on my Substack articles in Substack. You can comment on my articles in Ko-Fi, however.

Buy My Stuff

If you need it, you can buy a Mastodon login on my own instance.

You can buy a commission on Ko-Fi.

You can also buy some shirts from my Bonfire store. Note that I don’t make a ton of money on those shirts.

Hire Me

I’m available for writing comedy, coaching or tutoring. This is described here. My comedy is available on YouTube.

Publicize Me

Tell other people about my accounts. The more people know about me, the bigger my pool of potential supporters.

Follow Me

If you cannot pay for Substack or Ko-Fi you can still always follow me on Substack (EN/FR) or Ko-Fi. (On Substack, you’d be subscribing, but not paying.)

On YouTube I cannot monetize my channel before getting 500 followers. I also need to get more views of my videos. I hate to ask for this, but if you listed to something there, and you liked it, please give it a like.

You can follow me on Medium too.

Do note that you can always mute me after following, if you think that I generate too many notifications.

I’m going to update this page with new statistics and new methods as they become available.

#MakingALiving #MakingALivingWhileAutistic #YourAutisticLife

https://www.yourautisticlife.com/the-gutter-how-to-keep-me-out-of-it/

(Boosts appreciated.)

Subscribe, Donate, Hire Me Before I End Up In The Ditch

I'm trying to avoid ending up in the ditch, and I need your help for this.

#YourAutisticLife #ActuallyAutistic #AutisticWriters #substack #medium #YouTube #kofi #Bonfire #MakingALivingWhileAutistic #MakingALiving

https://open.substack.com/pub/yourautisticlife/p/subscribe-donate-hire-me-before-i?r=2hhuwi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

I had a nice chat with my brother. At some point, he was discussing office politics. They've pretty much put him in the same situation he was when he decided to leave his old job.

:headache:

I told him I don't want to return into an office ever. His talk about office politics only reinforced my resolve.

I expect my brother to be neurodivergent too, probably autistic, like I am, but he's not done the self-examination work yet.

#ActuallyAutistic #work #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

So I went back to LinkedIn to check my stats to answer a question about my diplomas. (Yea, like I'm just going to remember everything right off the bat, sure...)

I was very quickly assaulted by someone in DMs asking "Are you looking for a job?"

Yeah, sure, because I'm 100% certain that you're going to peddle something that I want to do and that people want to hire me for.

I logged off without engaging.

#LinkedIn #jobs #ActuallyAutistic #MakingALiving #MakingALivingWhileAutistic

Am I More Autistic Than I Used To Be?

For people who used to mask, the realization that they are autistic may make them appear more autistic to the world.

The answer is “no,” you are not more autistic than you used to be. As I’ve taken pains to explain with my garden allegory, we are autistic from birth. Those who mask are able to hide this fact to the world, and sometimes to themselves. That’s exactly what I did for most of my life. My autism was there, but it was hidden to everyone.

The Autistic And Allistic Minds As Gardens

It is often neurotypical people that will tell autistic people that they look more autistic than they used to. These neurotypical people are misguided. They hold onto a stereotype of what an autistic person should look like. The more the autistic person conforms to this stereotype, the more autistic they are. This, of course, is nonsense. As I’ve explained above, we’re autistic from birth. How we manifest into the world has nothing to do with whether we are more or less autistic.

I do know now that I am autistic. I am letting the mask fall down. Some of the effects of the mask falling down have been somatic effects, that I don’t have any control over. However, other effects are behavioral, and these behavioral effects are evolving.

My stimming has evolved quite a bit lately. It used to be very discreet. I would stim, for the most part, under the table, or the stim would be invisible, like grinding my teeth. Sometimes I’d tap my desk, but that was in rhythm to the music. I’d also listen to music and music videos because I’m an audio-visual stimmer. However, after my cancer, I also started hand-dancing. At any rate, these stims were mostly socially acceptable stims. Either people did not see them, or I could explain them away.

Since I’ve discovered that I’m autistic, I’m also using more varied forms of stimming. For instance, I hit my fists together. I never ever used to do this. I’ve also started doing movements similar to my hand-dancing. II usually hand-dance to music. However, this new stim is not done to music, but it looks like fragments of hand-dancing. It is hard to explain. I don’t think I’ll ever go into hand-flapping mode, or twirling mode, but I’m still evolving. Also, I don’t shame the people who hand-flap or twirl.

I’m also much better at establishing boundaries. I’ve always been okay in social settings. Yes, they generate anxiety, but I was able to cope with it, and I did not need to be the center of attention. However, lately, I have had a harder time, especially if the place where the event is happening is noisy. It used to be that if an event was from this time to that time, I’d say for the whole thing unless I had some other important thing I needed to attend to. I now leave when I feel that I’ve had enough. I’ve done this a few times. Truth be told, I do have something important to attend to: myself.

I’m also aiming to not return into an office, or do any kind of work attached to an office, if I can help it. I’ve been in an office. I’ve also done work attached to an office. I don’t want to return to this. Right now, I am writing, which is already something, but I need to find more sources of income if I don’t want to return into an office. This wasn’t really a conscious goal of mine before I knew I was autistic, but now it is.

Finally, I have no qualms about telling people that I am autistic, or about wearing “autistic clothing” like my Stimming Is Life shirt. (Available in my Bonfire store.) If they cannot handle it (and some cannot), it is their loss.

#ActuallyAutistic #boundaries #MakingALivingWhileAutistic #masking #SelfCare #stimming #StimmingIsLife #work #YourAutisticLife

https://www.yourautisticlife.com/2023/08/28/am-i-more-autistic-than-i-used-to-be/

How Are Autistic People Supposed To Make A Living?

I explain at least part of the “making a living” problem from the point of view of an autistic person.

Tie your hat. This is a long post. Now, keep in mind the proverb:

When you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.

I don’t claim here to talk for every single autistic person on the planet. Still, I feel I need to tackle this subject mainly due to the trolls that periodically assail one of the members of the ActuallyAutistic community in the fediverse. I’m not naming him here so that he does not get more trolls due to this article.

Okay, so how do we make a living? Most of the working world caters to neurotypical people. Harsh light. Intrusive sounds. Dress codes. Having to deal with other people. The list goes on and on. I’ve worked in an office, but I do not want to return to an office. Furthermore, I’ve worked on projects attached to an office, but I do not want to work on projects attached to an office. So no remote work as is normally understood.

“But if you worked in an office, surely you can return to an office.”

This is typical neurotypical bullshit. Cut it out! I was able to work in an office because I was able to mask. With age and my cancer, I lost a good deal of that ability. Previously, I stimmed in a stealthy way. Now, I stim openly. I used to be better able to tolerate harsh sounds when I was younger, too.

Listen, I’m not saying that I couldn’t under any other circumstance return to an office, but it would have to be a very special office, headed by someone who, against all odds, is able to deal with neurodivergent employees. Good luck finding that heaven!

So, how are we to make a living? Well, some of us could DoorDash. Yes, it is possible that I may have to do this down the road. We’re not there yet, but my current sources of income are contingent. If they disappeared tomorrow, I’d have to DoorDash. DoorDash here is just a stand in for other similar jobs.

However, I’d rather do something else than DoorDashing, thank you very much. I have nothing against the DoorDash drivers, but that’s not a job that I’d be thrilled with. I’d rather do something else. So what should I do?

What I’ve been doing all along. I write on Medium, Substack and here about multiple topics. One of them is my life as an autistic person. Hopefully, my writing is helpful to others. Most of it is accessible freely. However, I’d also like to make a living from it, if possible. So far, I’ve made some money, but not nearly enough to sustain me.

I also produce nonsensical skits on spectra.video and YouTube. I love doing this. It would be nice if I could make money from this nonsense, but frankly I don’t see this happening until I partner with someone to bring the whole enterprise to a new level.

Finally, I’ve offered life coaching and tutoring services to help people. On the tutoring side, I do have formal credentials, but none of my credentials are about tutoring per se. I have a Ph.D. in Religion. I have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering. I speak French, etc.

On the life coaching side, I have no credentials related to life coaching at all. This is where we run into the trolls. They come in the fediverse to harass the person I mentioned above. “What formal credentials do you have to coach people.” Actually, this person does have the credentials. I do not.

However, if you want life coaching as an autistic person, here is what matters:

1. Your life coach should also be autistic. This is first because it is the most important criterion. Enough with the paternalistic bullshit that neurotypicals like to heap on us.
2. Your life coach should be able to empathize with you. Again, autistic people know better than neurotypicals what it means to be an autistic person.
3. Your life coach should be able to listen to your needs without judgement.
4. They should not peddle miracle cures.

I’m sure there’s more I could add to this list, but this will do for now. One thing that is definitely not on this list is certifications, formal training, degrees, and things of the sort. They are “nice to have,” but not dealbreakers. There is no amount of degrees that will give someone the ability to understand what it means to be autistic, or that will give them the ability to listen without judgement.

How do I know this?

Well, I’ve been “helped” by people with “training.” Most of them sucked at their job. There’s the completely useless couple’s therapist that my wife and I saw in 2018. She gave us a bunch of stupid exercises that helped nothing, with the result that in 2023 our divorce was final. Thanks a lot! Then there’s an online outfit that kept switching therapists on us. And then there’s a lady that insisted on me making lists of things that I couldn’t change and things that I could change. It was useless.

I finally got good therapy when I picked out of the pack a therapist that is queer! I did not know I was autistic at the time, so “queer” was first in my list. Oh, he’s not autistic (that I know of) but he’s one of the rare good allistic therapist. He’s helped enough autistic people in his life to know an autistic person when he sees one. He’s the first one who told me with a straight face “You might be autistic.”

Some trolls accuse the person I mentioned above of “funneling” people from free offering to paying offerings. Mind you, they have no proof of this. They see this person offering free seminars and the like, and next to those free offerings, there are also offering which you have to pay for, and from this they infer that some sort of “funneling” is happening.

Again, I ask you how are we supposed to make a living? We do have to advertise our services, at least minimally. Clients don’t fall in our lap from the sky. I’m not a fan of being bombarded by advertisements, nor am I a fan of bombarding people with advertisements. Still, we do have to advertise, or we’re going to end up asking for charity.

Sometimes it truly feels like some people in the autistic community, and outside of it, think the only authentic autistic person is one who:

1. Can’t make ends meet.
2. Is a failed entrepreneur.
3. Is a struggling entrepreneur.

Any sign of success is seen as proof that the person cannot possibly be autistic, or that they are swindling someone.

Okay… now bear with me, because I’m about to make an analogy that some of you are going to find disgusting. There’s something on the internet called OnlyFans. They ask you to pay to watch porn and to be in contact with the porn stars. You know what? It looks like it works. I think some people like to be in contact with the porn stars. Now, do note that there is perfectly freely available porn sitting on the internet right next to this porn that you have to pay for.

What is going on?

The ability to be in contact with the person making the porn is what people pay for. This is it. Or maybe they feel some need to support the porn makers. I don’t know. However, the point here is that they are willing to pay, where they could get the porn they want for free.

Okay, so this was an analogy. What does it have to do with the topic at hand here? People are going to pick the services they want, for whatever reason they have, and that logic may seem nonsensical to you, but it is very logical to them. If an autistic person on the internet is successful at what they do, it is because they are providing something to their clients that another source cannot.

Here are some reasons that may seem nonsensical to you, but make sense to the people picking these reasons:

1. I want to support a business run by an autistic person.
2. This person has proved in the past that they listen to me, and I like this.
3. This is a small business.
4. Etc…

The second point in the list above is very much like my OnlyFans example. Some people are willing to pay more for a service if it means that they have a contact with the person selling this service. It does not matter one bit if that reason does not make sense to you!!!

I’m going to stop here before this turns into a full on manifesto. Just cut the crap, please!

#actuallyautistic #makingaliving #makingalivingwhileautistic #work #yourautisticlife

https://www.yourautisticlife.com/2023/08/18/how-are-autistic-people-supposed-to-make-a-living/