you don’t have to describe them in detail with dates, not trying to get you to doxx yourself
but it’s kind of A Thing with neurodivergent folks to have tried a lot of different jobs, and I’m curious about everybody’s count
I think I’m up to 21 that I’ve filed taxes for, which doesn’t seem that extreme for 42, except when you consider that I’ve been unemployed most of my son’s 17 years of life because I couldn’t handle parenting and that level of outside obligations, so most of those happened before I was 25 – so 20ish jobs between 15-25
how bout you, how many things have you tried?
I worked like 6 or 7 very different jobs before I got into homeless services. I’ve had tons of different jobs in the field at all levels from temp overnights to running entire shelter programs, but I kinda count them as the same job even if I change positions or agencies every year or so. If I counted all the promotions and agency hops it would be a lot a lot.
I’m mid-30s and started shelter work 7 years ago. I was also an unemployed disaster through most of my early 20s, so those pre-shelter jobs went by pretty fast too I guess.
how did you get into that line of work?
Honestly, I was in a new city and needed a job, and the biggest shelter agency in town was hiring people for night shifts. Turned out I really liked the job, even with all the wild and sometimes traumatic shit that happens periodically. The social benefits are pretty cool ngl - everyone thinks you’re some kinda saint when like 90% of what you do is just clean and give out coffee and stuff. After a few years of that I was like “huh, guess I’m a shelter worker now.”
I also had some lived experience and come from a family of social workers, but I never thought I’d be a shelter person until I started doing it. Didn’t go to school for it.