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HI! Well, there is the short answer, and the long answer.Since I am autistic, and my picture is in the dictionary by “pedantic”, you get both!I do not know what all Autistic adults do, only what I did. here is my story.Keep in mind, I am the old, in the USA, they didn’t even have ASD /Asperger’s as an OPTION until I was 31.. so I was just ASD in a PRE ASD era, being called defective, and trying to make my way, with no headphone insulations, no supports. Not the fun.Short Answer:so, I started working at 8, got a BS and MS in Mech. Eng from the Univ of Michigan, then did Mechanical Engineering for most of my career, with some teaching now and then. I currently am almost 60, semi retired, and work as an Adjunct Instructor at the local northern Cal community college.Long Answer:I didn’t know I was Autistic as that was not an option in DSM in 1969 in USA, so was fruitlessly sent to the counselors etc. in grade 4, about 10, to no avail.I was always pretty quick, the “little professor” type of ASD, reading at a young age, and talking a mile a minute, enough so my family despaired and called me defective. I was very very tiny growing up, 2nd smallest kid in my HS graduating class, and the only guy smaller than me got Hormone shots to grow! I grew in COLLEGE.. left HS at 5 ft 4″ or so, about 110, now I am 5 ft 10″, and almost that wide, as all the heavy heavy labor I did pre hormones/delayed puberty made me bulk the hell up once the hormones kicked in late, about 19/20. Either genetics, ASD, or lack of good food in my teens (my folks split when I was 14, got streeted and then to my Dad at 16, when my moms decided “no men in my house”).My first job was at age 9 or 10 or so, going around to neighbors, mowing lawns, shoveling walks etc. in Ann Arbor Michigan, in late 60s early 70s. My brother also got the gig of taking the pile of weekly papers (once per week for free type), and helping him as low paid labor, we had to put at every house, and I got some pay for that.Age 11 I got my first big job.. I got a paper route, where you have to deliver the daily Ann Arbor News, and collect the subscription, mail in your bills, etc. That was rain or shine, every day. Only Sunday was early, the rest was afternoon delivery. Sometimes the snow was a few feet, had to bring a sled. Otherwise, I was this super tiny kid carrying his weight in newspapers every day. Just like that old Aesop's fable story, where he wanted to carry the food on a journey, so too with the papers, the load getting lighter as you tossed them onto porches. Upgraded the route once, but never got the one to my house. Walked miles and miles every day.Age 15 almost 16, started at Arby’s. I got paid a pittance, a few bucks/hour, and someone younger than me but that looked 10 years older got more pay, just for looking bigger. That didn’t last, as once I turned 16, after a few months, I could close, and I had won awards etc. for being fast at the register. so got a bit of a raise to like $3/hour. And that other kid was a fool. A fool with a mustache at 15.Ended up getting a job at Barnes Ace Hardware at about 16.5, and worked there for many years, both unloading trucks to helping inside. They worked us hard. I carried my weight in cement bags over and over. Likely was not legal for this day and age laws to work folks that hard, and like I said, I didn’t/couldn’t bulk up as I had not really “hit” puberty very hard and looked sickly, but got to be hella strong, could do pullups all night and day, same for pushups, while looking like I was a stick. Ran cross country as a senior in HS, but only made JV, as I would get cramps.In college, at the University of Michigan, I studied Mechanical Engineering, and they set me up with Work Study jobs (setting up the Rec programs, did mail in surveys to other colleges with rental and other programs, collated “best practices”, and helped shape the current UofM system!), plus worked washing pots in Mary Markley dorm kitchen, doing UofM grounds crew and even roofing (summer crew), that roofing job put meat on me, as by then I was getting hormoney!Along about my Junior year of college, I did some co op internship interviews for Mech Engineering jobs, and got a spot at Hughes Aircraft, way out in Los Angeles. So at age 20, I get on a plane and fly out from Detroit to LAX! First time on a big plane. I was very excited. I told the stewardess (not flight attendants yet) on the plane I was going out to work in Cally in my internship as an Engineer! I was very excited. She asked me if my Daddy was going to meet me. I said no, I am in college. She laughed. Later she gave me a little plastic airplane and said they give that to all the little flyers. At age 20, she thought I was 12, and lying. Really.Did my stint in LA, the summer of the 84 olympics, riding my moped around, no helmet, no sense. Fun though.Back to school in that fall, when my estranged Mom died, the one who booted me at 16 to go live with my dad, had gotten Colon Cancer early in 84, was in remission when I left (we met for lunch, said our goodbyes for the summer), turned bad near the end of my stint. I got of the plane, visited her in the Hospital, where she died on the ward she used to work in I think. AS we were pretty estranged, and not super close, was not a huge hit. She was only 42.My next stint at Hughes was January 1985, ended up driving out with a school mate, we went all over, from Nashville to New Orleans to riding the mechanical bull in Houston at Gilleys, then on to Vegas, San Fran, etc. and a quick visit to Mexico.. About quick visits to Mexico.. we went in, drove around nervously in my car, didn’t know to buy insurance, after seeing mexico in Tijuana for that time, we left. And border control goes “so, how long were you in Mexico” and I said “oh, about an hour, we just wanted to say we went”.. well, that is a red flag, they searched our car! After that, hours later, we finally headed back north to LA to our hotel.finished my last stint at Hughes, and back to Univ of Michigan with another bud who flew out to drive back with me.. this time, Grand Canyon, Denver, chicago, and home, not as many detours!Once I finished up my bachelors degree, got various interviews around the country, and ended up accepting a summer engineer/intern job at Lawrence Livermore national labs, doing nuclear fusion support on the Nova ICF laser. As my Dad worked for KMS fusion in Ann Arbor, the first group to achieve benchtop fusion in a lab in the early 70s using ICF (inertial confinement fusion), we joked I was in the family business..Back to Univ of Michigan, I got a teaching assistance ship / lecture role for an undergrad class, covered my tuition, and paid me enough to live on.. that plus the summer engineer money, did ok. I was the lecturer /instructor for strength of materials, .. not a TA! I wrote and graded my own exams, etc. I thought the students were getting ripped off, getting me to teach them, but is what it is. I joked that my professors were getting revenge on me for all they years I would stop them mid lecture and make them go back and fix some mistake on the first equation. Also did some research on Expert Systems for machining.. like where a drill bit gets dull, the current on the drive goes up for the same feed rate, you watch that, you know you need to replace the bit.Been reading sci fi since I was in 4th grade or so, so wanted to go build spaceships, not cars in Detroit.. and ended up at Rockwell in early 1988, to work on a hypersonic airplane / spaceplane to do SSTO (single stage to orbit). Found some major issues with some of the design assumptions, proved it, got an eraser thrown at my by the chief engineer asking me where I was a year back when they decided on the design, and had to tell him I only got hired 6 months or so before. Ah well. Impressed them enough I got fast tracked to help on the new SSTO for the SDI program, that resulted in the DC-X by our competitor. Ah well. By then, the Berlin wall had fallen, MASSIVE layoffs in aerospace, and I got loaned to do structural analysis on the space station, to Rocketdyne up in the valley. I was the last person almost still employed of a big workforce. Did that Space Station work for a few years, also found errors in the FEA loads model, fixed that.. but missed the south bay. Ended up getting a job at a mad scientist company SARA down in Huntington Beach, doing everything from high energy non lethal acoustic weapons, to stuff I still can’t tell you.but I did miss space stuff, and got headhunted to join one of the VERY early space startups, Rotary Rocket. Started there in early 98, did the Thermal Protection System design and management, along with loads of structures work. Figured out that the engine design would be a giant ass suction cup. Met Branson when he came in with his crew, ready to invest. Watched the ATV fly. Then the money ran out, and got laid off with all the rest.Pete Conrad (Lunar Astronaut) had a company called Universal Spacelines, also a start up rocket spot, and shortly after I connected, he died on a motorbike. I was mainly connected via Lt Col RET Jess Sponable, who was the Program Manager for the AF on that old DC-X project (along with Pete Worden I think?), and he had seen my work, so I connected up as a freelance rocket scientist, we did various operation designs, cost studies, etc. for NASA, NRO, etc. until the funds ran out in late 2000.By then, I was OK to leave LA, which felt like living in a popcorn popper filled with people. So interviewed around the country, got various job offers, and ended up taking one at Ball Aerospace, the most famous aerospace company no one has heard of. They fixed the Hubble, stuff like that. That was interesting (NPP, Kepler, SBSS, etc.), I worked in the Structural Analysis group mostly, for Mike Vujcich (he is now the Chief Mechanical Engineer for all of Ball Aerospace), but work just ran out in 2008 or so, and I took a voluntary layoff… to avoid an involuntary one at some future time I figured. Maybe I would have been OK, not sure. I hate waiting to get let go. So I just leave.Taught inner city math in Thornton at MESA, 10th grade, got a teaching credential, thinking maybe things would pick up in 2009. Nope. No jobs in Denver for me in 09. After a brief time working at Andrews Space in Seattle (now morphed into Spaceflight industries?), work looked to thin to rely on (wife and son still on Denver waiting for me to move them), and ended up taking a spot doing high powered actuators at a small branch of GD (General Dynamics) in Healsdburg CA, MSST program, Excalibur, etc..but I had been looking into renewable energy for years, thinking the space thing was fun for me, but wasn’t going to save the earth. Efforts to get a job at Vesta NREL etc didn’t pan out.. then a call out of the blue for a company called Enphase Energy, trying to make solar easier, just a few miles from me! ENPH is NOW on the SP500, but back then, wasn’t sure if it would make it! Well, it made it, in no small part due to my personal efforts.. taking designs that failed in thermal cycling in less than 100 cycles , to near infinite, via my inputs. Sadly, while the engineering was good the financials and operations were BAD.. the CEO etc. ran the company almost out of business! So a new team came in about 2017, for about 10 million, they bought a seat on the board, installed THEIR CEO, and in 3 years the stock went for under a buck, to over 200$. Sadly, it was at the price of all the old US employees! we were almost all let go from 2017 to 2018, with the whole site I was at erased, and work sent overseas. Bye!Now I do some side consulting, a bit of investing, teaching various classes at the local junior college, and figure to tutor online, maybe write a story or two. I obviously have no issue in coming up with a lot of words! I will be 58 in the fall, and I think I have saved enough to not have to work much anymore.