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Wow, this strikes me as unbelievable. How things have changed since the industry was up in arms over Alex St. John's "Recruiting Giants" PDF [1] where he expli

Wow, this strikes me as unbelievable. How things have changed since the industry was up in arms over Alex St. John's "Recruiting Giants" PDF [1] where he explicitly called out the "holy grail" employee: Be on the look out for the holy-grail... the undiscovered Asperger's engineer. (usually found on open source forums) * They have no social skills * They generally marry the first girl they date * Can't make eye contact * Resume and educational background is a mess... because they have no social skills * They work like machines, don't engage in politics, don't develop attitudes and never change jobs [1] https://www.geek.com/news/developer-bro-alex-st-john-want-a-great-coder-hire-someone-autistic-1652730/ https://www.geek.com/news/developer-bro-alex-st-john-want-a-...

lugg 8y ago
People are generally more forgiving when you perceive your employees' disability in a positive light instead of viewing their disabilities as something to exploit. It's a subtle difference, but the first one encourages/enables the employee to function in spite of their disability or perhaps one day overcome the shortcomings, or simply work in a way / environment where it becomes irrelevant. (Software development already gets us 90% of the way there) The other, well, that one doesn't really give a shit as long as you're productive, i.e. it will probably still exclude a large portion of autists and never really help anything. Hell it probably expects to never give them upward mobility with that last remark either.
- anth_anm 8y ago
  > People are generally more forgiving when you perceive your employees' disability in a positive light instead of viewing their disabilities as something to exploit. Is that what this is? I guess it's no more exploitative than employing anyone else.
  - daniel_iversen 8y ago
    > I guess it's no more exploitative than employing anyone else. I think it’s way more exploitative because you’re not leveraging a person’s (by average definition) “strengths” to your/the company’s benefits, you’re using their weaknesses (and weaknesses are relative, but I’d say the list of traits above most people will probably think might complicate or hinder the persons long term success or happiness - in fact it could easily lead to one sided exploitation).
    - black-tea 8y ago
      That list contained both weaknesses (no social skills) and strengths (doesn't engage in politics).
      - tapland 8y ago
        Weakness: No social skills Strength: Gets trampled cause no social skills Sounds pretty horrible.
      - rtpg 8y ago
        Doesn’t engage in politics (in that list) means that they will become a pawn for other people’s politics. Show me an office without politics and I’ll show you one with unlimited vacation time
        black-tea 8y ago
        Not necessarily. Like anything it could be good or bad in certain situations. I interpret it as meaning the person will be driven to do what's right according to logic and merit as opposed to politics. It's another way of saying they are a disagreeable employee which are known to be very valuable to companies.
        itronitron 8y ago
        I also take it to mean that they will focus on what they enjoy and not scrabble to climb the corporate ladder.
        wolfgke 8y ago
        > I also take it to mean that they will focus on what they enjoy and not scrabble to climb the corporate ladder. Climbing the corporate ladder is something many employees seem to enjoy.
        itronitron 8y ago
  - lugg 8y ago
    Dell is exploiting autism here, but in a way that hopefully benefits both parties.
ericzawo 8y ago
How could anyone stand to work for someone who so swiftly limits the breadth and depth of a person via their mannerisms such as this? it's dehumanizing, full stop.
- selimthegrim 8y ago
  His daughter disowned him.
- odessacubbage 8y ago
  it kinda came across as a tongue-in-cheek shitpost to me. is this guy known to be an unironically terrible individual or was he just taking the piss out of the semi-exploitative & work fetishising culture of the industry?
  - ezrast 8y ago
    Here's the full context of that quote: http://web.archive.org/web/20170119234745/http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/download/Recruiting%20Giants.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20170119234745/http://www.alexstj... (spoiler alert, it's the first one)
  - anoncake 8y ago
    Ironically shitposting about autists is a great idea. Theyre very good at recognizing irony.
  - danbolt 8y ago
    I could understand saying something like this in private with an audience that understands the satire, but it strikes me as foolhardy to write/publish something like this as there’s no way of reading the room. If it’s a joke, it’s not smart in its delivery since anyone can assume it’s sincere. “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” — Kurt Vonnegut [1] [1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/379912-we-are-what-we-pretend-to-be-so-we-must https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/379912-we-are-what-we-prete...
ndnxhs 8y ago
Wow, I used to work with someone who ticked every one of those boxes. Incredibly knowledgeable and spent all of their free time reading spec documents and programming. Unfortunately they could be emotionally unstable at times which was had to work around.
- chess93 8y ago
  Its not really relevant but the list seems to not actually describe Asbergers but some other collection of symptoms that results from being socially deprived. (However, this probably matches up with popular conception of Asbergers individuals.) I think the "key" is finding people who deal with their problems by diving deep in to technical tasks and becoming absorbed in minutiae. An unnaturally small interest set combined with a lack of interest in people.
  - newnewpdro 8y ago
    Are you deliberately misspelling Asperger's in the South Park vernacular [1] to be offensive or something, or is it just a mistake? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ass_Burgers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ass_Burgers
    - matt-snider 8y ago
      Wouldn't they have then spelled it as you've written it and not halfway between? Seems to be a typo to me
      - newnewpdro 8y ago
        It's probably a mistake, but South Park has rendered that misspelling/mispronunciation into somewhat of a pejorative.
    - chess93 8y ago
      Sorry I was up all night and didn't even consider that I was spelling it wrong. My track pad is broken and so I can't right click to spell check. (I am waiting to start my new job to get a new laptop.)
black-tea 8y ago
This perfectly describes a few of my friends.
pvg 8y ago
This is about an employer making their employment process more accessible, the Alex St. John thing was mostly about the opposite and traded in (to put it charitably) dumb stereotypes. You're probably misreading something if you see this Dell program as a sign of some industry-wide adoption of Alex St. John's views.
gaspoweredcat 8y ago
well i hit 4 of 5 of those points (missing only no 2) so its not far wrong

lugg 8y ago

People are generally more forgiving when you perceive your employees' disability in a positive light instead of viewing their disabilities as something to exploit. It's a subtle difference, but the first one encourages/enables the employee to function in spite of their disability or perhaps one day overcome the shortcomings, or simply work in a way / environment where it becomes irrelevant. (Software development already gets us 90% of the way there) The other, well, that one doesn't really give a shit as long as you're productive, i.e. it will probably still exclude a large portion of autists and never really help anything. Hell it probably expects to never give them upward mobility with that last remark either.

anth_anm 8y ago
> People are generally more forgiving when you perceive your employees' disability in a positive light instead of viewing their disabilities as something to exploit. Is that what this is? I guess it's no more exploitative than employing anyone else.
- daniel_iversen 8y ago
  > I guess it's no more exploitative than employing anyone else. I think it’s way more exploitative because you’re not leveraging a person’s (by average definition) “strengths” to your/the company’s benefits, you’re using their weaknesses (and weaknesses are relative, but I’d say the list of traits above most people will probably think might complicate or hinder the persons long term success or happiness - in fact it could easily lead to one sided exploitation).
  - black-tea 8y ago
    That list contained both weaknesses (no social skills) and strengths (doesn't engage in politics).
    - tapland 8y ago
      Weakness: No social skills Strength: Gets trampled cause no social skills Sounds pretty horrible.
    - rtpg 8y ago
      Doesn’t engage in politics (in that list) means that they will become a pawn for other people’s politics. Show me an office without politics and I’ll show you one with unlimited vacation time
      - black-tea 8y ago
        Not necessarily. Like anything it could be good or bad in certain situations. I interpret it as meaning the person will be driven to do what's right according to logic and merit as opposed to politics. It's another way of saying they are a disagreeable employee which are known to be very valuable to companies.
        itronitron 8y ago
        I also take it to mean that they will focus on what they enjoy and not scrabble to climb the corporate ladder.
        wolfgke 8y ago
        > I also take it to mean that they will focus on what they enjoy and not scrabble to climb the corporate ladder. Climbing the corporate ladder is something many employees seem to enjoy.
        itronitron 8y ago
- lugg 8y ago
  Dell is exploiting autism here, but in a way that hopefully benefits both parties.

ericzawo 8y ago

How could anyone stand to work for someone who so swiftly limits the breadth and depth of a person via their mannerisms such as this? it's dehumanizing, full stop.

selimthegrim 8y ago
His daughter disowned him.
odessacubbage 8y ago
it kinda came across as a tongue-in-cheek shitpost to me. is this guy known to be an unironically terrible individual or was he just taking the piss out of the semi-exploitative & work fetishising culture of the industry?
- ezrast 8y ago
  Here's the full context of that quote: http://web.archive.org/web/20170119234745/http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/download/Recruiting%20Giants.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20170119234745/http://www.alexstj... (spoiler alert, it's the first one)
- anoncake 8y ago
  Ironically shitposting about autists is a great idea. Theyre very good at recognizing irony.
- danbolt 8y ago
  I could understand saying something like this in private with an audience that understands the satire, but it strikes me as foolhardy to write/publish something like this as there’s no way of reading the room. If it’s a joke, it’s not smart in its delivery since anyone can assume it’s sincere. “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” — Kurt Vonnegut [1] [1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/379912-we-are-what-we-pretend-to-be-so-we-must https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/379912-we-are-what-we-prete...

ndnxhs 8y ago

Wow, I used to work with someone who ticked every one of those boxes. Incredibly knowledgeable and spent all of their free time reading spec documents and programming. Unfortunately they could be emotionally unstable at times which was had to work around.

chess93 8y ago
Its not really relevant but the list seems to not actually describe Asbergers but some other collection of symptoms that results from being socially deprived. (However, this probably matches up with popular conception of Asbergers individuals.) I think the "key" is finding people who deal with their problems by diving deep in to technical tasks and becoming absorbed in minutiae. An unnaturally small interest set combined with a lack of interest in people.
- newnewpdro 8y ago
  Are you deliberately misspelling Asperger's in the South Park vernacular [1] to be offensive or something, or is it just a mistake? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ass_Burgers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ass_Burgers
  - matt-snider 8y ago
    Wouldn't they have then spelled it as you've written it and not halfway between? Seems to be a typo to me
    - newnewpdro 8y ago
      It's probably a mistake, but South Park has rendered that misspelling/mispronunciation into somewhat of a pejorative.
  - chess93 8y ago
    Sorry I was up all night and didn't even consider that I was spelling it wrong. My track pad is broken and so I can't right click to spell check. (I am waiting to start my new job to get a new laptop.)

black-tea 8y ago

This perfectly describes a few of my friends.

pvg 8y ago

This is about an employer making their employment process more accessible, the Alex St. John thing was mostly about the opposite and traded in (to put it charitably) dumb stereotypes. You're probably misreading something if you see this Dell program as a sign of some industry-wide adoption of Alex St. John's views.

gaspoweredcat 8y ago

well i hit 4 of 5 of those points (missing only no 2) so its not far wrong