This week, Sarah Herrero from Bach Prep Tutors explains how autism makes her an effective tutor. We also talk about her journey to becoming self-employed and how she has become a successful entrepreneur.

Clara takes us on a journey of discovery. She finds all the pieces she needs to get to her dream job of translating dog training materials into her native language, Spanish, making information accessible to Spanish speakers.

Erin loves her job as she manages her company’s look and feel. Her boss and coworker are autistic, too, so we get a good look at how different (and nice) that environment can be.

Tink re-imagines how we access support services. And she does it with flair and an army behind her! You can find her website for AUsome Supports here: ausomesupports.com.au and her Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/AUsomeSupports/

Marina McAdam tells us about the exciting life of a divorce coach and how she found herself doing it. She has a unique set of skills that make her great at it. She also teaches us about the importance of balance in life. You can find her at https://www.marinamcadam.com/ and her Facebook group is here.

We have a great time with Elise, who saves animals with numbers! We love it when our guests can mix their special interests and passions together at work.

Kim tells us about her journey to discovering what work works and what work doesn’t. And what it’s like spending 10 years in management at Microsoft.

Barb shares her excitement for chemistry with us. How she dealt with the sensory experience of a forensics lab and how she’s using her skills now.

We have a blast learning about Andrea’s job as a Project Manager and her journey to becoming one. She outlines some amazing accommodation requests and leaves us with some great advice. Transcript Today we are talking to Andrea. Andrea is an IT Project Manager. And we are looking forward to chatting with her about her job. Hi Andrea, welcome. 00:14 Hello. Good morning. How are you guys? 00:15 Good morning, we’re doing great. 00:17 Good. Awesome, I’m excited to be here. Virtually. 00:21 Thank you, us too yeah. Alright, so Andrea tell us what an IT project manager does and what kind of what a day looks like for you. 00:30 OK sure, so an IT project manager, kind of in the generic sense, would help all the different technical teams and the business teams get on the same page about what we’re trying to do, what the goals are, and then work with each person and group to figure out the tasks. And then the project manager will literally put them all in order and figure out what has to happen in a certain order. And then the important thing is to figure out the super critical things that can’t be late, or the whole project’s in danger, 01:06 OK. 01:06 so that’s that’s called the critical path. So 01:09 Oh 01:09 it’s basically organizing a whole bunch of people and helping them not be stressed about what we’re trying to get done, ’cause we you know, breaking it down into bite size pieces. 01:19 OK, so you take the stress so everybody else can 01:25 do their part, right? 01:27 It doesn’t stress me out though 01:29 No? 01:29 because I like making order out of chaos 01:33 Yes. 01:33 so. So I I love it and I and I like UM when people feel relieved because now everybody is on the same page, so they count on me to bring up difficult topics. And you know, force conversations and get us to get to a common understanding so people 01:54 Yeah. 01:54 will tell me things outside of the meeting. And then I’m the one that brings it up and makes us get to a solution so. 02:01 That’s interesting, I like that. That’s awesome. What kind of projects do you guys work on? 02:08 Oh gosh, uhm. Well, I would say that I’m a project management generalist, 02:15 OK. 02:15 so any widget I could manage a project, so anything from like building a house to, like moving all of those things. But for work lately we’ve done some pretty big things like, we did we had to replace 24,000 computers for the Windows 7 to 10 migration. 02:38 Oh wow. 02:40 And so, uhm. I’m a senior program manager. Is my official title, so it’s a little bit different than a regular project manager because I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I actually design a whole system of communication and process 02:57 i 02:57 flow so that project was originally estimated to take two years and then I got involved and I helped us figure out ways to get it done in less than a year. 03:08 Wow fabulous. 03:09 So it’s basically that big systems thinking and seeing way more data points than most people can see. 03:17 Yeah. 03:17 And then my brain organizes it and I figure out how to communicate it and we do it. So that’s one example. Also, did we moved to a new building so I didn’t manage the construction part, but I helped everybody figure out the people moving part. 03:33 OK. 03:33 So like it was consolidating...

We were wowed by the wisdom and wit of the wonderful Julian. He tells us about running his business and the autistic strengths that got him there.

Adam and Thora goof off while apologizing for not having a full episode today. A quick peek into what being a guest is like and a request for you to join us on the show. Transcript Hey everyone welcome. Hi there! To Autism On Shift I’m Thora. Interrupting Adam. Moo. 00:13 So today is a little different. We unfortunately do not have an episode and we apologize for that. Sorry. Yeah, we have some technical difficulties. I’ve been trying to piece together and out takes episode and yeah, I failed. Thora got put in jail, is what really happened and so she hasn’t been able to do it. It’s just a lot of editing and it’s going to take a lot of time. But the thing is we do need some more guests. We have a few people. Lined up, but the more the merrier because we want to get some episodes out there for you peoples. Yeah, we want to be consistent. We want to make sure that we’re always here for you every Thursday morning. Uhm? I imagine some of you might hesitate a tiny bit. It’s not uncommon for us to have anxiety. I don’t know nothing about that. But I want to assuage your fears a little bit. The experience of the interview, like our interviews, are about 40 minutes each, but they usually take an hour to an hour and a half and we cut out all of the- mostly we cut out all the stupid shit I say. 01:23 It’s not true. We all you know. The thing is we all kind of, you know, it’s a casual conversation and and we talk a little bit before the show. We get to know people. We kind of just hang out and make everyone feel comfortable and hopefully people are a little bit more comfortable and some people want to run away when they meet me. Uhm, I know I did. You had a really strong rope. 01:47 I’m just kidding. I’m so tired. This is my bedtime, so pardon me for taking a minute for everything you say. 01:57 I’m supposed to be surprised? No. Our listeners are. They’re so surprised because I’m always such on the ball and never- So we mess up and there’s all kinds of stuff that goes on. But the point is, is that you know what you hear is edited. You know, we’ve, we’ve, we take it up with the best stuff that people say. And you know, basically trying to make ourselves look awesome. Yeah, and we do the same for you. No, I don’t mind looking like an ass. You do such a good job at it. We don’t want to take that away from you. Totally, totally not. But you know, as as it relates to our guests, we want we want you to feel good about your experience. We’re going to take out anything that might embarrass you. That’s not going to go in the show. Right. Anything I mean, just you know? I mean, we’re just hanging out, and if you say what’s on your mind and you feel like you don’t want that in the show, you can always just say, oh, hey, scratch that or hey cut that or you know whatever like not not an issue we’ve had people say, oh hey I want to answer your question but you can’t put it in the show because it’s because I’m talking about a certain person or whatever and that gets cut. We completely want to validate your experience, we want you to feel comfortable to be open and just be yourself and not have to worry. And we want you to be on the show. That too. You know the whole point of letting you guys know is because we imagine, as I imagined for myself, being for a different podcast, or when people ask for a volunteer for something. You know I’m like, I’m nervous, you know, and- Oh, you know, it’s funny in the outtakes episode that I’m trying to edit. You actually say that at one point, and I wanted to put it in. Oh, really, yeah, you say I was terrified when Thora asked me to do this. And Oh my God, I would never. Yeah 04:00 it was funny. I didn’t know we took that out. I thought it was actually in one of the episodes. Oh was it? But you could still put it in. You can say it twice. It’l...

Chris Bradburn gives us the inside scoop into England’s film industry. He’s got great achievements and even greater goals. You can find his work at his website here and his YouTube Channel here.

This week Scott has us laughing with his adventures as an IT Specialist for a government agency. It’s hard work, but Scott’s up to the task! He lets us in on his experience having ADHD, as well.

This week we talk to ourselves! Thora discusses her role as an employment consultant helping the autistic community and how fun she finds job hunting. We are actively seeking guests! Please click here and fill out the quick form at the top of the page to be on the show.

This is part 2 of our chat with Will where he tells us about starting his community interest company (CIC), an amazing organization to benefit people with hidden disabilities and help them transfer into independent work. Be sure to catch the part 1 by listening to the episode titled Carpenter. Also, check out the organizations we talk about, Atypical Support CIC and The Bank, Chopwell.

We have a great time with Will while he discusses his love for carpentry, how he got into doing it, and who’s helped him along the way. His amazing work can be found at www.ir8bespoke.com, his Facebook and YouTube.

Carly’s official title is Tasting Bar Associate and she explains the exciting world of wine pairings and talks about how she manages her needs in a customer facing role. Writing is Carly’s passion and we learn about how it has gotten her through the pandemic.

Kelly works hard at an Environmental Institute for a university. She shares the experiences of her work, her diagnosis and her amazing Mind Palace!

We learn lots about how US National Cemeteries function and how Chucky works hard to make it all come together.

We get to learn about designing users’ digital experiences from artist and speaker, Christoph Foulger. He has big dreams and even bigger accomplishments!