My brother is autistic. You would never know it to meet him. He worked in a warehouse for 20 years directing the picking of orders and doing the routing for the shipments. He could remember the bin and aisle location and quantities in stock of over 35,000 line items. He also did the routing from memory, including all of the international orders. When he retired it took 3 people with a computer each just to do the routing. To replace his order picking took 2 more people with computers.
When he retired from the warehouse he went to work in a music store because he loved music and wanted to stay busy. He could tell you from memory who the artist was, who wrote the song, who originally released it, what label produced this and the original version and usually most of the people who played the various instruments on each of the songs. He could do that for virtually any song that had ever been recorded, except for Jazz and Blues because he never listened to them. He was a savant when it came to remembering complex combinations of things. He easily beat anyone he ever met at musical trivia.
A lot of autistic people work in retail, they are not all savants but they do need to work some place. I have a number of hobbies that would take a truly gifted sales person to know as much about the topic as I do. For instance, I have never met anyone working in retail that knows anywhere near what I do about ballistics and reloading. I think those who expect retail sales people making $6 and hour to be subject matter experts are holding on to un-realistic expectations.
Last edited by Dean2; 03-03-2018 at 11:25 AM.