I've never felt stigmatized because of my profession, or as though I have to "switch between two worlds". I suppose there's a point to be made that it's not easy to discuss with someone outside the field the difficulties of implementing algorithm X or integrating API Y with service Z, but I imagine the same must be broadly true of any highly technical field. Are biology and surgery and piloting "Asperger professions", too?

If anything, I've often found that the perspective and knowledge that come with my professional experience are socially valuable, rather than the converse. I get a fair bit of my social interaction over beer and cider at a nearby bar, and it's pretty common that, when a conversation gets around to professions, I find myself fielding questions on all manner of subjects from the plausibility of widespread voting machine fraud to the rise of the machines - I spent a good few minutes the other day allaying fears that turned out to go back to that Ars article with the picture of Arnold as the T-800 that turned up here a little while back. I suppose the possibility exists that I did so in a particularly Aspergery way.

As a law student, I experience this a lot. Computers and programming were/are my only passion and obsession. My life is dedicated to computers, but professionally I have to be a lawyer.

I just had an interview at an IT Law Firm, and made a fool of myself. That's why I completely agree that, we as "people who are good at computers" need to keep seperate identities.

Because if you go full Aspergers, you make yourself vulnerable. Once people realize you're "different", you get the "poor boy treatment" and that hurts.

PS: I am still trying to get over the interview, sorry if I don't make any sense.

>Once people realize you're "different", you get the "poor boy treatment" and that hurts.

Or worse, once you're pegged as a hopeless geek then people tend to walk all over you and you're not seen as the kind of person who advances, becomes management, etc. You're a freakshow human resource to perform labor that, unfortunately needs to be done, until everything can be a one-click cloud solution.

I make a very special effort to hide whatever geeky qualities I have. I think ultimately a lot of geek culture is manboy-ish and the kinds of people who let all of that loose at work are seen as childish or immature, right or wrong. Sadly, those of us into things like hard sci-fi or DIY maker stuff get lumped in with the guy who still buys Superman comics at age 40 or thinks over-sexualized fan-service anime is humanity's highest artistic calling.

That's true, most of the time I only say that "I'm good with computers". Nobody understands.

But sometimes, it slips out inevitably.

Regaining your image or just being able to hold your head high requires great effort.

i try to never let it slip at work that i went to college for graphic design, can shoot great photography, am very proficient in photoshop, do UI/UX design and edit video as well... the things i really dislike doing on a professional level but love to do in my spare time, i don't let on about at work, don't want to muddy the waters. the places where i did let it slip, ended up wanting me to do all that kind of stuff so they didn't have to outsource it or go to another team.

Smart people should never have to feel ashamed for what they know. The other day I - as an underemployed 24 year old teaching myself software development - was at the cafe of a software company. Some guy was telling his coworker that in the near future we may have patches that read our temperature and heartrate throughout the day (I'm thinking contact lenses). He's coworker answered with a sarcastic "Okay..?" and pretty much had nothing to say on the subject. I've been that guy. People are intimidated by things they don't know the same way a baby is intimidated by the cup without a sippy lid. You have to train them to let them know they're able to use the cup and sadly society at large hasn't trained themselves to accept new information.

Cold world but I'm sure there's a way to go about it that inspires more awe than resent.

Why do you have to be a lawyer?

Actually, you're right I don't have to be a lawyer.

I try to work on side projects and continue to develop my skills. But those are dreams and I need to be prepared for reality.

If I had the guts, I would risk everything and drop out of law school.

It takes a lot of courage to do this, but more less now than you will ever need. You will start earning $150k a year then and then the opportunity cost might be $80-100k to go down to a junior developer. Then you have a wife, kids, mortgage, credit card loan...

Perhaps you can one day automate all lawyers out of existence :)

Especially in criminal law this can be done. For the other areas of law software could really help. There are decent platforms for searching cases/articles, but they're all mostly keyword based. On the other hand most lawyer work is monotonous. Research, believe, make believe :). It doesn't matter which side you're on.

It's the only way to afford law school.

> and made a fool of myself.

Good. you got out there and made mistakes. Now you can learn from them and you wont ever be that bad henceforth, hereunto. I made a total ass out of my self the first few programming interviews I went to. First one, recruiter called me (woke me up at ~10am) and I thought I'd show "initiative", I said "sure Ill be there in 2 hours". Went totally unprepared, didn't even bring a copy of my resume. They even lectured me about improving my interview skills.

Second one, I made the mistake of asking my potential coworker "what college he went to", thinking anyone in an engineering profession went to college. The manager interjected that he was 'self taught', this wasn't a total faux-pas on my part, but it created an awkward moment where I didnt really know what to say. I further erased any possibility of getting the job by getting too relaxed/comfortable and blurted out that I'm really groggy in the morning (cringe). I learned quickly, eventually got good at interviews, and ultimately got a job at bloomberg, which is fairly difficult to get past their interiew process.

So dont take it out on your neck, pick yourself back up and make a list of things you can take away from your experience. you have no other direction to go than up.

>I learned quickly, eventually got good at interviews, and ultimately got a job at bloomberg, which is fairly difficult to get past their interiew process.

Bloomberg, where it's just one giant open noisy room? Doesn't sound like much of a reward to me.

Personally, I wish I had never gone into programming. I wanted a profession where I could sit in peace and quiet and work on interesting intellectual problems on my own. Little did I know that programming would not be like that after the year 2010. If I had known this, I would have chosen a different profession, probably something involving medicine, since at least there's lots of women in those workplaces.

> If I had known this, I would have chosen a different profession, probably something involving medicine

You can still work in a medical field, for example, as a bio-informatician.

The point of my comment was not that bloomberg was an awesome reward. I only stayed a year, and yes it was noisy as hell. The floor sounded like a drum when people walked on it. My point was that I went from a blundering buffoon in an interview to passing a notoriously difficult software engineering interview in 8 years (with a few jobs in between).

Good point. Was turnover high there? Did you manage to find a place with a better working environment?

I think turnover is pretty high there. People dont want to get locked into BB's proprietary (or in some cases antiquated) technologies. However, there are tons of departments, many of them are modernized, and you can really learn a lot for your first few years out of school. If you stay and are faithful you can go up the ranks.

I am doing fine. I went contractor, and currently in healthcare / imaging. I dont even sweat interviews anymore :)

Thanks for the support. It's been an embarrasing experience, but I've learnt a lot.

First, I shouldn't mention my passion for computers. They're looking for a lawyer, not an engineer. They already employ engineers, who are active in legal research. Second, I should pick a career outside of IT-Law. Solely working on technology feels too close to the heart. Third, I shouldn't speak a lot and reveal details about my life when I'm too excited during an interview.

Now, I only have to endure the next couple of days, then the sting will go away. After a couple of months, I'll remember this as an experience and I'll laugh at how foolish I was.

If you know HN, you've probably heard of above-the-law, but if you haven't, definitely brush up on their how-to-get-a-job articles. Network with other lawyers/3L's (or whatever rank you are), go to practice interviews, rehearse. I've heard its difficult to get a job as a lawyer so if you aren't putting in 110%, do it.

I dont know much about law, but to ignore your passion doesn't seem wise. I think you'd just have to spin it. Come up with a narrative that says tech has always been a part of your life, "but not as much as law", or "but it was missing something", or some other bullshittery that makes sense in that field. People want an impassioned person. And I also disagree that you should ignore IT law, it's in very heavy demand right now, isn't it ? The lawyers who can write amazing briefs struggle to understand technical protocols. Dont pass up on a dynamic field that will drive you. Also, shout out to https://www.reddit.com/r/LawFirm and other subreddits that might be of assistance to you. Good luck.

Are you looking to get involved in the patent-law field? You can apply your love for computers and as far as I understand, there's more job stability as well.

I never have issues like this. Of course I am not a programmer that thinks about code all day every day either. I am good at what I do, but I also have many other interests. No one stigmatizes me.

The key is to not let your profession define you no matter who you are. Once you let your profession take up every part of your life that is when it is difficult to discuss problems with other people. This would be the same with any profession even artists of any type.

Speaking as an ex-film producer - nope.

It's tremendously difficult to share the problems inherent in most showbiz professions.

That's partially because they tend to be very complex and counterintuitive. If we wanted to have a conversation about my problems selling a feature film (assuming I was currently doing so - thankfully I'm not), I'd first need to give you a 90-minute seminar on how selling films works in 2016, unless you're also in the business.

It's also partially because people are usually very jealous of you working in such a cool profession, and thus any problems you have become "complaining about diamond shoes pinching".

I think listening to someone talk for 90 minutes about how selling films work would be freaking fascinating.

My wife however does not feel the same way about a 90 minute lecture on how compilers work.

Just to add into another comment, a 90 min seminar on how selling films works does sound fascinating, as would a whole series of seminars on how various industries operate.

I think that the stigma is less than it was, and these days people are quite interested if you're working on a cool public facing service. No, what we do isn't really /cool/ and you will still bore them if you get into details, but that applies to most white-collar professions.

You don't need to change your identity or succumb to "developer culture" in order to succeed, and in fact being a citizen of the "normal" world is a distinct advantage in many regards - product design, communicating with non-developers, team management..

> But at least those jobs don't have the stigma of being (in the words above) Asperger professions.

Works both ways though. I'm a writer (albeit a technical writer) and I find developer culture a bit intimidating as I'm trying to educate myself and hopefully change careers. Devs can be quite sniffy and elitist if you're not one of the club.

But, as a freelance writer who works remotely, I do get the "you can't possibly understand what it's like to have a real job" attitude from a lot of people too. It's not like creative professionals are entirely accepted by "mainstream culture" either.