28 ms·

‘They Get Fired All the Time. And They Have No Idea Why’

374 points by laurex 7y ago

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
FYI: This is an article about people who exist on the autism spectrum, as described by someone who is a parent of a daughter with autism and moves to investigate how autism functions in the workplace- mostly focused on finance. The writer themselves does not appear to have autism and is mostly interested in describing the phenomenon from first-hand accounts mixed with known public figures and pop culture depictions.
- draw_down 7y ago
  Seems fine. If someone is writing about who just got elected president, I don’t expect them to have been elected president themselves.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Any resources you’d suggest for someone whose daughter might be on the spectrum? Edit: Thank you for the replies, they are very helpful.
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    I would generally suggest the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN)'s resources page since I don't know specifically what you're looking for. As a side note, and I assume you already know this but I'd like for it to be stated often enough such that it is widepsreadly known: Depending on the age of your daughter, I understand it is significantly important that she be diagnosed officially or ruled out of autism as early as reasonable. If she has autism, an official diagnosis is one of the only ways to recieve appropriate educational/occupational support as she goes through public/private schooling and higher education which would greatly improve chances of being able to comply with societal standards for productive membership.
    - rbavocadotree 7y ago
      Correct. And all research points towards the earlier she gets support the better. Early meaning by 18 months or so.
      - jaf656s 7y ago
        There are also a lot of resources for therapy for young children if they are diagnosed early. In California, you can start receiving state funded therapy at 18 months.
  - 9wzYQbTYsAIc 7y ago
    If you aren’t already aware of this, take a look at askjan.org for future planning and reach out to local chapters of the national Autism organizations and also to local disability resource agencies, if you are in the United States.
  - munificent 7y ago
    There are a bunch of books if you search for "Asperger's" and "Girl". I read "Asperger's and Girls: World-Renowned Experts Join Those with Asperger's Syndrome to Resolve Issues That Girls and Women Face Every Day!" Nothing in there really blew my mind, but it was definitely worth my time.
- KON_Air 7y ago
  It reads more like a couple of people on the spectrum and then people who decided they have to be on the spectrum.
leggomylibro 7y ago
>One day the young man’s manager called her in a panic. The manager had asked him if he would like to complete a task that needed doing, and the young man simply said, “No.” >Later, when asked why, the young man said he’d been working on another project on a deadline and didn’t think he should take on extra work. Scheiner explained to the manager that he needed to be more specific and directly tell the employee that he wanted him to set aside what he was currently working on and start on the new task. I gotta say, I'm surprised that this needed to be explained to the manager. If someone asks a worker whether they want to do something and the worker say "no", the manager's instinct is to panic and escalate before trying to clarify anything? I guess it's a good example for the article - it's easy to empathize with the person whose manager got confused, and easy to understand how dealing with those kinds of situations on a daily basis ends in the workers quitting or getting fired. Everyone feels uncomfortable when a conversation goes off-script, but we as a society expect the 'abnormal' people to be the ones who bear the consequences of that discomfort whenever it arises. It doesn't seem fair, especially since the 'abnormal' people are expected to bear their discomfort in silence, but that's life for you.
- duxup 7y ago
  Yeah that's a good observation. I see too many managers are quick to interpret "refusing" for what is often a miscommunication, and after being caught off guard they don't know what to do.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Good managers are hard to find.
    - duxup 7y ago
      And the skills we're talking about aren't highly valued / recognized by their managers often. Soft skills, no matter what the story line a company has, often are undervalued in my experience.
    - mikeash 7y ago
motohagiography 7y ago
From the article: "People with Asperger’s syndrome, the term still commonly used for one of the most well-known forms of autism spectrum disorder, bring serious advantages to the financial markets: extreme focus, a facility with numbers, a willingness to consider unpopular opinions, a strong sense of logic, and an intense belief in fairness and justice. But, like other autistic employees, they often feel alienated from their managers, colleagues, and clients. Sometimes they simply get fired." I wonder if these people were always fired, or has something in the business changed that made immoderate instances of these traits a liability? Tech has changed in the last decade, to where I don't think someone "on the spectrum," could survive very long in a west coast company without being preyed upon by people who trade on other attributes. Using Pfeffer's triad of "Performance, Credentials, Relationships," businesses seem to evolve to where success becomes weighted to the latter two instead of purely on performance. Arbitrage, startups, and other asymmetric, high risk plays could seem to benefit from high performing people on the spectrum, where people in later stage businesses that have more linear growth or stability benefit from the latter two. To me, the trouble with the most functional edge of the "spectum," view as presented is it seems to both normalize groupthink and some of the more shameful characteristics of political operators, and pathologizes clear reasoning and principle. I get that expecting others to be accountable to my or any other general ethical rules is to choose suffering, but the tendency to pseudo-medicalize people as "on the spectrum," who lose politically feels ominous.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  I agree with you, and I get the impression that the spectrum phenomena in business is a reflection of the tyranny and dysfunction of what is deemed to be normal and how to behave. Decades of leaning out organizations has created an expectation of workers working multiple jobs, and I think that process purged many people who either by personality or diagnosis are in the "spectrum" bucket. People are a suited to detailed technical work shouldn't be evaluated like salesmen. Yet the traditional interview process that is described in the article is just that. IMO, the idealized "normal" corporate employee who is panting like a dog to do a trick and shit out a powerpoint is more problematic.
- commandlinefan 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
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wglb 7y ago
Related to this is one of my favorite articles: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/302696/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-.... A year ago, my wife and I ran into a friend of hers who seemed hard to get to know better. On a hunch, I pulled up this article, and she scrolled through it and was like "yup, yup, yup, yup". She hadn't been able to articulate that for herself. A related book is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts_in_a_World_That_Can%27t_Stop_Talking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts.... The title kind of says it all.
- yasp 7y ago
  My understanding is that most people with ASD are in fact not "natural" introverts, perversely enough. That is to say, were it not for their poor social skills, they would be extroverts.
  - sylk 7y ago
    Rings true for me, I've worked hard to socialize and try to talk to a stranger everyday for at least 30 minutes. It's painless now, and I'm loving where I've come along my journey. It's been hard, but really well worth it. It all started with me working in a call center 7 years ago...
rbavocadotree 7y ago
I'm glad the article takes time to explain the negatives as well. My SO works with kids on the spectrum. For every kid that has their city's entire transit system memorized, there are another 10 who will be unable to function for the rest of the day if their classmates do not exit the classroom for recess in the expected order. The 'financial-math-numbers-wizard' is absolutely the very rare exception. For the vast majority it is an extreme struggle, for both the child and their family.
- aNoob7000 7y ago
  Ditto. My wife is an OT at an elementary school treating kids with special needs. What is being described in the article is indeed a rarity.
- curun1r 7y ago
  > The 'financial-math-numbers-wizard' is absolutely the very rare exception One of the points in the article is exactly the opposite of this observation...that ASD is far more common than most people believe it to be. The difference is that the vast majority of those with autism can pass and silently struggle with the negatives of their condition. Your SO deals with those who can't pass and have the more pronounced form of the condition. There's a selection bias by the simple fact that they end up in her class that creates that 10::1 you describe even though the 1 will be much more common in the overall population. I can see that pushing the savant angle of the condition can be counterproductive, especially to those whose form of ASD often prevents them from being functional. But so is the "it's rare" narrative that leads people who can pass to struggle with not understanding themselves. As the article points out, nearly 2% of people have some form of ASD. For that to be the case, the vast majority of them have to appear mostly normal from the outside.
  - rbavocadotree 7y ago
    > vast majority of those with autism can pass and silently struggle with the negatives of their condition This is not true. The article says only 16% can hold a fulltime job. Most of those are jobs requiring the absolute minimal skillsets. > As the article points out, nearly 2% of people have some form of ASD. For that to be the case, the vast majority of them have to appear mostly normal from the outside. It may sadden you to know the staggering amount of adults with ASD that have essentially been removed from society. They do not appear normal, and as a consequence they do not appear in society at all.
andy_ppp 7y ago
We had someone go completely mental at a manager on Slack the other day with the whole team on the same channel. Respect to the manager he simply kept say the equivalent of “I understand where your coming from and it wasn’t my intention to upset you” even though the guy kept saying terrible things about the manager. I will aim to be that calm if aggressively accused in future, especially as you end up coming out of it looking better and feeling more relaxed that the alternative.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  The second it starts going off the rails it needs to be switched over to a private conversation, ideally face-to-face but by videoconference otherwise if someone is remote. That's bad form on both people's part to have that kind of argument in a public forum.
  - whywhywhywhy 7y ago
    > The second it starts going off the rails it needs to be switched over to a private conversation Can be just as bad, theres an exec where I work who has taken a disliking to me and I'd much rather when he goes off on one it takes place in Google docs comments where other people can see it and see what he's like than in a private Slack convo where only I see it.
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      I was saying to de-escalate in private, not escalate in private. This exec you're dealing with sounds terrible, and depending on how often you have to deal with him, might be worth finding a new job over.
      - andy_ppp 7y ago
        Yup, I would just ask him outright how you can improve your working relationship. Being direct with people like that often might not work in the moment but saying things like “I don’t think we understand where each other are coming from” could get him thinking. It’s unlikely to work however so look to the job market while things are good.
ranger207 7y ago
Autism is called a disorder, but I think that that's a pretty negative term for it. People with autism may be a minority, and that makes the condition abnormal, but in itself autism isn't a bad thing; it's how they relate to the world that make autism "bad." Instead autism is merely different. I think we can treat autism like any other subject. For example, some children start reading earlier than others, and other than extreme cases we don't say that they have a reading disorder. We simply recognize that some people have more difficulty than others learning to read. Can we do the same with social skills? Simply have a dedicated class with structured learning, and recognize that not everyone learns social cues at the same rate?
- swiley 7y ago
  If they’re a minority it can’t be a particularly extreme one. (Or maybe it’s just because most of the people I spend time around are technically inclined and for some reason that attracts people who are on the spectrum.) I don’t think I’m autistic but personally I know I would have benefited from a course on social cues.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  This is a philosphy generally known as neurodivergence, from my understanding.
- bena 7y ago
  Your comment is kind of self-contradictory in a way. Or at least, contains its own answer within itself. You admit that we call extreme cases of slowed reading development a reading disorder. People with autism do represent extreme cases. I understand the logic behind not wanting to call it a disorder due to the negative connotation the word carries. And I appreciate the sympathy. But recognition of the condition is far more valuable. Even if a less-desired word has to be used, I'm just glad it's being recognized.
- cr0sh 7y ago
  I'm worried that the (fairly) recent change to the DSM to lump the various forms of autism under the terminology of "autism spectrum disorder" will ultimately lead to more confusion by people as to what autism can be about. Which is why in the article it was mentioned that many who are "high functioning individuals with autism" hang on to the term "Asperger's" (despite some trolls re-renderings of it) - as it was and is a label that, perhaps incorrectly, has been applied to that particular subset of autism spectrum disorders. At the same time, we don't want to say that those in that sub-group only have issues with social skills and cues; the issues that such people face are much broader than just that particular area. Also, we don't want the term "autism" applied only to those who are in that set either. That is perhaps what the terminology change was about - the idea that by inserting the word "spectrum" into the diagnosis, and removing the individual terms, that people would see it more as a continuum diagnosis, much like Asperger saw it. However, people will likely tend to focus on the first word "Autism" and come to a different conclusion - maybe. Which is again why, I suspect, people have hung on to the "Asperger's" label for their particular subset. Maybe there's not a good answer or solution for the definition(s)...
stephc_int13 7y ago
I can easily imagine a future where people on the spectrum are more than half of the workforce of some companies. Simply because it's generally easier and more efficient for Aspies to work with other Aspies. And I think that might open a whole new range of problems...
- sylk 7y ago
  My last senior dev was an aspie and I aswell. We connected on levels that none of the other team mates could. It was like a perfect interface for communicating everything. I miss working with him. Unfortunately my boss really didn't like how I behaved socially and I got alienated over time. I quit to pursue something else, and I haven't seen a co-worker in days.
chad_strategic 7y ago
Hmmm... I was just obsessed over solving a futures algorithm. (In which I haven't been paid for.) Became anxiousness when I was away from the computer. Slept only 5 hours until it was solved. I wouldn't have had to stress so hard, if a good project brief from the client, but regardless. I was more interested in the solving the problem, than the economic benefits. I write stock/options in the evening for fun. I'm moderately introverted. But don't do poorly in social situations / or awkward. However dealing with clients, has really prevented me from starting my own firm. I wouldn't say that I have Asperger's, but I might have mild tendencies? Labels really don't matter as it is more important to know one's strengths and weakness. That's the key I take away from the article. But I can relate to some of this. I work with other programmers who might think they have Asperger, but in actuality I think they are just probably dochce bags. :)
- pier25 7y ago
  > However dealing with clients, has really prevented me from starting my own firm. Some people have a natural talent for that, but for most of us this is a difficult skill that has to be learned. I doubt this is related to any disorder. I've been dealing with clients as a freelancer and when I owned a small web dev shop. I don't think I'm particularly good at it, but at least I feel a lot more confident than when I was in my 20s. I think the most challenging aspect is being able to know how and when to move between different "buckets" of communication styles and adapt your language. For example, it's common for clients to not tell you when they aren't understanding something and you have to react to that. It becomes easier as you get to know a client and he gets to know you better over time, but those first meetings are always difficult, at least for me.
- cr0sh 7y ago
  I've never been formerly diagnosed, but I'm pretty certain I'm on it somewhere. A decade or so ago, one person, who was a coworker of my wife's, and whom I had met and conversed with - without any prompting or explanation from my wife - gave her a copy of "Mozart and the Whale" to give to me. I have yet to watch it. But I've always had certain obsessions: one is things moving in circles - windmills, gears, whatever - all fascinate me; interestingly, even abstract things likes loops and recursion, such as in programming, are easy for me to understand and utilize. Mazes are another thing (which is almost opposite of a loop). Fractals, too. Recently I sat for a couple of hours coding a bookmarklet to remove extraneous portions of instructables so they could be saved to a PDF or otherwise, without including all the "cruft". It just kinda "sucked me in" after I was trying to clean up one I had just browsed to; at the end, I had to sit for a bit to figure out "now what did I just make this thing for - ah, yes - this tab over here". My mother (RIP), who was of a different generation (I can't explain it easily - number one, I was adopted, rather late by my parents, who were in the 40s at the time - but technically they fell into an "in-between" generation somewhere between "the greatest generation" and "baby boomers" - much like how GenX is today - of which I am a part), always described me as looking, or being, "sour". It wasn't until my adult years that she likely meant I had a particular RBF, maybe a blank or poor affect that resulted in my countenance being "non-agreeable". Even today, my wife will sometimes ask me if I am mad at her, because I look or seem angry - when I'm not. It's just the way I look. I have this look of seriousness or something. My current employer/boss has noted the same thing about me; he has often said that he doesn't know how I will react or respond to certain things, and that sometimes I'm surprising in that regard. Something you may have noticed here - or elsewhere if you've seen my other postings - is my manner of writing, and likely speaking; a coworker of mine once told me that I speak like how Lisp is written (what he meant was that I typically talk parenthetically, nesting explanations and anecdotes within each other down a chain, but that everything was related, and I would eventually "pop things off the stack" and come back up the chain to the original discussion). All of this underscores why I've never been good in social situations, among other things, but my wife has been very helpful and understanding in that regard (yet, she still has problems with my countenance at times). As far as your experience with other programmers - well, I admit that at times I can be "that guy"; arrogance and other mal-traits do surface at times. That said, I'm also the first to apologize when I know I am or have been in the wrong. I also make sure not to let whatever led to that situation happen again. Most of the time, though (except when hubris, arrogance, or stupidity attacks me), I have learned that the best way to avoid issues is to not say anything at all - I am often known as "the quiet one" because of that (I then will often play the a-hole and remind them of what neighbors always say about serial killers and mass murderers)...
matchagaucho 7y ago
Wow.... this strikes me as a really insensitive clickbait headline. I've had the privilege of managing SW Engineers who've confided in me their diagnosis of Aspergers or Autism. Over time, I've generally helped Engineers understand that doing "deep work" is a characteristic of the craft and not an illness. Most Psychology books and Academics have been back peddling on the definition of Autism in recent years.
amai 7y ago
It‘s the normal people that need treatment, not the abnormal ones.
PeterStuer 7y ago
At uni I spent two years as the president of the computer science student society. I can assure you 80% of the members could be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders, going from mild to serious. Coordinating and leading in such an environment requires a different approach. Any manager running a small to medium software business/startup/scale up that does not feel comfortable dealing with aspys will not be a good match.
- yellowarchangel 7y ago
  The article mentions how a very small fraction of adults have jobs, and who are diagnosed with being on the autism spectrum. I wonder how accurate that number is, or how far on the spectrum the individuals in that study are. It seems like a lot of great tech minds have some form of autism.
gist 7y ago
Love the way people seem to believe they have to walk on eggshells when someone is 'on the spectrum'. I wonder what is done if a person on the spectrum is accused of some form of sexual assault or reasonably offensive language. Do they get a pass because of that behavior?
- dymk 7y ago
  I've never, in my life, seen or heard an individual with Aspergers getting a free pass on sexual assault. James Damore was fired from Google for his offensive language.
thtthings 7y ago
Please enlighten me. I want to be educated. According to me our mind is very fluid. We can teach it to behave a certain way. I do not believe that someone is awkward socially or cannot get caught in mania etc just because they are the way they are. All of this is learned behavior according to me. Why is it that most of these people are in the US? It seems to me because the environment makes people act this way. I do not think that this is because of genetics. If we mediate then we can look at the mind as an observer and change most if not all of our behavior. When someone gets a diagnosis for say ADHD. Then they exhibit those symptoms even more because they reinforce that behavior. put these people in a situation that the only way to survive is to socialize, i am pretty sure they will be very charming because we are capable of doing a lot if our survival is at stake. Here i am not talking about people with mental illness. Those i understand. Please help me understand this
- munificent 7y ago
  > According to me our mind is very fluid. According to science and medicine, our mind is a combination of plastic learned behavior and innate physiologically determined capabilities, strengths, and preferences.
  - thtthings 7y ago
    how has science determined that? consciousness is subjective so they are depending on what people have said to them. The mind of scientist and the person they are observing are at play here.
    - jaggederest 7y ago
      There's a lot that can be done purely mechanistically, if you're super concerned about consciousness interfering with accuracy. For example, in the extreme, fMRIs show different activation patterns for people with different developmental disabilities. It's extremely clear and not at all subjective.
- freehunter 7y ago
  What you're claiming is that every mind, absent of mental illness, can behave exactly the same way given the same set of conditions. To start with, I'd like to see any proof that you have saying this is true. As far as I know, we don't know the brain well enough to say that is true, but also as far as I know we know enough about the brain to say that is likely not true. If you know otherwise, feel free to link some sources. The second thing I see wrong here is that you say "I'm not talking about mental illness" but you're talking about ADHD which is a mental illness [1] as is austism [2]. Brains are fluid, yes. Up to a certain point. At a certain age, brain plasticity slows down and changing behaviors becomes harder. This is why kids can learn so fast, but adults have a harder time. Other behaviors are subject to environment yes, but are still difficult to change. If I talked to a stranger and was then mugged by that stranger, I am going to be less likely to talk to strangers in the future. There is a whole field of science dedicated to overcoming these kinds of learned behaviors, and it is very difficult and time consuming. It is very difficult to unlearn behaviors we have already learned. But ultimately, "if our survival is at stake" isn't the situation most people find themselves in. If I am socially awkward, I'm not likely to die because of it. I might be uncomfortable, but survival is not at stake. 100 years ago we would tie the dominant hand of left-handed people behind their back and force them to write with their right hand. Did it work? Sure. Was it necessary for survival? Not a bit. Did it cause more problems than it solved? You bet it did. [1] https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/ADHD https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/ADH... [2] https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/autism https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/aut...
turk73 7y ago
"People with Asperger’s syndrome, the term still commonly used for one of the most well-known forms of autism spectrum disorder, bring serious advantages to the financial markets: extreme focus, a facility with numbers, a willingness to consider unpopular opinions, a strong sense of logic, and an intense belief in fairness and justice. But, like other autistic employees, they often feel alienated from their managers, colleagues, and clients. Sometimes they simply get fired." I'm definitely one of these. I've never been fired, but have voluntarily left plenty of developer jobs out of sheer frustration. And then I fall right back into the same bs over and over again until I'm just at the point where I don't give a damn about any of it. What is wrong with fairness and justice, btw? Oh, I forgot, business is really about how hard you can screw everyone else! Sure... Unpopular opinions? Again, that wouldn't be a problem if the so-called geniuses could themselves get over their own egos. What's really wrong here isn't people like me, I've been enormously flexible, it's that the biggest asshole always wins in the business world. THAT is what needs to end. It's not my ethics that are challenged. I have upheld my ethics. And it's not fair that people like me are considered to have some kind of "syndrome" when in fact it's the other way around. Am I perfect? No. But I realize that and understand that.
wst_ 7y ago
The web page got really slow. I suspect it got viral and can't handle the traffic.
wisty 7y ago
> Statistics I uncovered were deeply disturbing — fewer than 16 percent of adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder were employed full-time, for example. Autism has changed its definition though. Adults with autism are often diagnosed under the old criteria and are extreme, often barely verbal. Now that Asperger's (and a couple of other milder types) are rolled into autism (stuff that older people didn't bother diagnosing - functional people didn't need diagnoses back before every kid with a diagnosed got funded) you'd expect better outcomes because it's not just the extreme non-functional ones getting diagnosed.
tabtab 7y ago
Vulcans in the world of Ferengis.
einpoklum 7y ago
> People with Asperger’s syndrome... bring serious advantages to the financial markets: ... a strong sense of logic, and an intense belief in fairness and justice. If that were true they would never accept work in the finance sector. Or would resign in disgust soon after being hired.
- thundergolfer 7y ago
  Even if it were true I’m confused about how it’s an advantage. Maybe it leads them to seek out financial foul-play more enthusiastically and thus more often profit when they find it and short it?

374 points by laurex 7y ago

FYI: This is an article about people who exist on the autism spectrum, as described by someone who is a parent of a daughter with autism and moves to investigate how autism functions in the workplace- mostly focused on finance. The writer themselves does not appear to have autism and is mostly interested in describing the phenomenon from first-hand accounts mixed with known public figures and pop culture depictions.

draw_down 7y ago
Seems fine. If someone is writing about who just got elected president, I don’t expect them to have been elected president themselves.
toomuchtodo 7y ago
Any resources you’d suggest for someone whose daughter might be on the spectrum? Edit: Thank you for the replies, they are very helpful.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  I would generally suggest the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN)'s resources page since I don't know specifically what you're looking for. As a side note, and I assume you already know this but I'd like for it to be stated often enough such that it is widepsreadly known: Depending on the age of your daughter, I understand it is significantly important that she be diagnosed officially or ruled out of autism as early as reasonable. If she has autism, an official diagnosis is one of the only ways to recieve appropriate educational/occupational support as she goes through public/private schooling and higher education which would greatly improve chances of being able to comply with societal standards for productive membership.
  - rbavocadotree 7y ago
    Correct. And all research points towards the earlier she gets support the better. Early meaning by 18 months or so.
    - jaf656s 7y ago
      There are also a lot of resources for therapy for young children if they are diagnosed early. In California, you can start receiving state funded therapy at 18 months.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 7y ago
  If you aren’t already aware of this, take a look at askjan.org for future planning and reach out to local chapters of the national Autism organizations and also to local disability resource agencies, if you are in the United States.
- munificent 7y ago
  There are a bunch of books if you search for "Asperger's" and "Girl". I read "Asperger's and Girls: World-Renowned Experts Join Those with Asperger's Syndrome to Resolve Issues That Girls and Women Face Every Day!" Nothing in there really blew my mind, but it was definitely worth my time.
KON_Air 7y ago
It reads more like a couple of people on the spectrum and then people who decided they have to be on the spectrum.

leggomylibro 7y ago

>One day the young man’s manager called her in a panic. The manager had asked him if he would like to complete a task that needed doing, and the young man simply said, “No.” >Later, when asked why, the young man said he’d been working on another project on a deadline and didn’t think he should take on extra work. Scheiner explained to the manager that he needed to be more specific and directly tell the employee that he wanted him to set aside what he was currently working on and start on the new task. I gotta say, I'm surprised that this needed to be explained to the manager. If someone asks a worker whether they want to do something and the worker say "no", the manager's instinct is to panic and escalate before trying to clarify anything? I guess it's a good example for the article - it's easy to empathize with the person whose manager got confused, and easy to understand how dealing with those kinds of situations on a daily basis ends in the workers quitting or getting fired. Everyone feels uncomfortable when a conversation goes off-script, but we as a society expect the 'abnormal' people to be the ones who bear the consequences of that discomfort whenever it arises. It doesn't seem fair, especially since the 'abnormal' people are expected to bear their discomfort in silence, but that's life for you.

duxup 7y ago
Yeah that's a good observation. I see too many managers are quick to interpret "refusing" for what is often a miscommunication, and after being caught off guard they don't know what to do.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Good managers are hard to find.
  - duxup 7y ago
    And the skills we're talking about aren't highly valued / recognized by their managers often. Soft skills, no matter what the story line a company has, often are undervalued in my experience.
  - mikeash 7y ago

motohagiography 7y ago

From the article: "People with Asperger’s syndrome, the term still commonly used for one of the most well-known forms of autism spectrum disorder, bring serious advantages to the financial markets: extreme focus, a facility with numbers, a willingness to consider unpopular opinions, a strong sense of logic, and an intense belief in fairness and justice. But, like other autistic employees, they often feel alienated from their managers, colleagues, and clients. Sometimes they simply get fired." I wonder if these people were always fired, or has something in the business changed that made immoderate instances of these traits a liability? Tech has changed in the last decade, to where I don't think someone "on the spectrum," could survive very long in a west coast company without being preyed upon by people who trade on other attributes. Using Pfeffer's triad of "Performance, Credentials, Relationships," businesses seem to evolve to where success becomes weighted to the latter two instead of purely on performance. Arbitrage, startups, and other asymmetric, high risk plays could seem to benefit from high performing people on the spectrum, where people in later stage businesses that have more linear growth or stability benefit from the latter two. To me, the trouble with the most functional edge of the "spectum," view as presented is it seems to both normalize groupthink and some of the more shameful characteristics of political operators, and pathologizes clear reasoning and principle. I get that expecting others to be accountable to my or any other general ethical rules is to choose suffering, but the tendency to pseudo-medicalize people as "on the spectrum," who lose politically feels ominous.

Spooky23 7y ago
I agree with you, and I get the impression that the spectrum phenomena in business is a reflection of the tyranny and dysfunction of what is deemed to be normal and how to behave. Decades of leaning out organizations has created an expectation of workers working multiple jobs, and I think that process purged many people who either by personality or diagnosis are in the "spectrum" bucket. People are a suited to detailed technical work shouldn't be evaluated like salesmen. Yet the traditional interview process that is described in the article is just that. IMO, the idealized "normal" corporate employee who is panting like a dog to do a trick and shit out a powerpoint is more problematic.
commandlinefan 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

wglb 7y ago

Related to this is one of my favorite articles: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/302696/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-.... A year ago, my wife and I ran into a friend of hers who seemed hard to get to know better. On a hunch, I pulled up this article, and she scrolled through it and was like "yup, yup, yup, yup". She hadn't been able to articulate that for herself. A related book is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts_in_a_World_That_Can%27t_Stop_Talking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts.... The title kind of says it all.

yasp 7y ago
My understanding is that most people with ASD are in fact not "natural" introverts, perversely enough. That is to say, were it not for their poor social skills, they would be extroverts.
- sylk 7y ago
  Rings true for me, I've worked hard to socialize and try to talk to a stranger everyday for at least 30 minutes. It's painless now, and I'm loving where I've come along my journey. It's been hard, but really well worth it. It all started with me working in a call center 7 years ago...

rbavocadotree 7y ago

I'm glad the article takes time to explain the negatives as well. My SO works with kids on the spectrum. For every kid that has their city's entire transit system memorized, there are another 10 who will be unable to function for the rest of the day if their classmates do not exit the classroom for recess in the expected order. The 'financial-math-numbers-wizard' is absolutely the very rare exception. For the vast majority it is an extreme struggle, for both the child and their family.

aNoob7000 7y ago
Ditto. My wife is an OT at an elementary school treating kids with special needs. What is being described in the article is indeed a rarity.
curun1r 7y ago
> The 'financial-math-numbers-wizard' is absolutely the very rare exception One of the points in the article is exactly the opposite of this observation...that ASD is far more common than most people believe it to be. The difference is that the vast majority of those with autism can pass and silently struggle with the negatives of their condition. Your SO deals with those who can't pass and have the more pronounced form of the condition. There's a selection bias by the simple fact that they end up in her class that creates that 10::1 you describe even though the 1 will be much more common in the overall population. I can see that pushing the savant angle of the condition can be counterproductive, especially to those whose form of ASD often prevents them from being functional. But so is the "it's rare" narrative that leads people who can pass to struggle with not understanding themselves. As the article points out, nearly 2% of people have some form of ASD. For that to be the case, the vast majority of them have to appear mostly normal from the outside.
- rbavocadotree 7y ago
  > vast majority of those with autism can pass and silently struggle with the negatives of their condition This is not true. The article says only 16% can hold a fulltime job. Most of those are jobs requiring the absolute minimal skillsets. > As the article points out, nearly 2% of people have some form of ASD. For that to be the case, the vast majority of them have to appear mostly normal from the outside. It may sadden you to know the staggering amount of adults with ASD that have essentially been removed from society. They do not appear normal, and as a consequence they do not appear in society at all.

andy_ppp 7y ago

We had someone go completely mental at a manager on Slack the other day with the whole team on the same channel. Respect to the manager he simply kept say the equivalent of “I understand where your coming from and it wasn’t my intention to upset you” even though the guy kept saying terrible things about the manager. I will aim to be that calm if aggressively accused in future, especially as you end up coming out of it looking better and feeling more relaxed that the alternative.

CydeWeys 7y ago
The second it starts going off the rails it needs to be switched over to a private conversation, ideally face-to-face but by videoconference otherwise if someone is remote. That's bad form on both people's part to have that kind of argument in a public forum.
- whywhywhywhy 7y ago
  > The second it starts going off the rails it needs to be switched over to a private conversation Can be just as bad, theres an exec where I work who has taken a disliking to me and I'd much rather when he goes off on one it takes place in Google docs comments where other people can see it and see what he's like than in a private Slack convo where only I see it.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    I was saying to de-escalate in private, not escalate in private. This exec you're dealing with sounds terrible, and depending on how often you have to deal with him, might be worth finding a new job over.
    - andy_ppp 7y ago
      Yup, I would just ask him outright how you can improve your working relationship. Being direct with people like that often might not work in the moment but saying things like “I don’t think we understand where each other are coming from” could get him thinking. It’s unlikely to work however so look to the job market while things are good.

ranger207 7y ago

Autism is called a disorder, but I think that that's a pretty negative term for it. People with autism may be a minority, and that makes the condition abnormal, but in itself autism isn't a bad thing; it's how they relate to the world that make autism "bad." Instead autism is merely different. I think we can treat autism like any other subject. For example, some children start reading earlier than others, and other than extreme cases we don't say that they have a reading disorder. We simply recognize that some people have more difficulty than others learning to read. Can we do the same with social skills? Simply have a dedicated class with structured learning, and recognize that not everyone learns social cues at the same rate?

swiley 7y ago
If they’re a minority it can’t be a particularly extreme one. (Or maybe it’s just because most of the people I spend time around are technically inclined and for some reason that attracts people who are on the spectrum.) I don’t think I’m autistic but personally I know I would have benefited from a course on social cues.
SolaceQuantum 7y ago
This is a philosphy generally known as neurodivergence, from my understanding.
bena 7y ago
Your comment is kind of self-contradictory in a way. Or at least, contains its own answer within itself. You admit that we call extreme cases of slowed reading development a reading disorder. People with autism do represent extreme cases. I understand the logic behind not wanting to call it a disorder due to the negative connotation the word carries. And I appreciate the sympathy. But recognition of the condition is far more valuable. Even if a less-desired word has to be used, I'm just glad it's being recognized.
cr0sh 7y ago
I'm worried that the (fairly) recent change to the DSM to lump the various forms of autism under the terminology of "autism spectrum disorder" will ultimately lead to more confusion by people as to what autism can be about. Which is why in the article it was mentioned that many who are "high functioning individuals with autism" hang on to the term "Asperger's" (despite some trolls re-renderings of it) - as it was and is a label that, perhaps incorrectly, has been applied to that particular subset of autism spectrum disorders. At the same time, we don't want to say that those in that sub-group only have issues with social skills and cues; the issues that such people face are much broader than just that particular area. Also, we don't want the term "autism" applied only to those who are in that set either. That is perhaps what the terminology change was about - the idea that by inserting the word "spectrum" into the diagnosis, and removing the individual terms, that people would see it more as a continuum diagnosis, much like Asperger saw it. However, people will likely tend to focus on the first word "Autism" and come to a different conclusion - maybe. Which is again why, I suspect, people have hung on to the "Asperger's" label for their particular subset. Maybe there's not a good answer or solution for the definition(s)...

stephc_int13 7y ago

I can easily imagine a future where people on the spectrum are more than half of the workforce of some companies. Simply because it's generally easier and more efficient for Aspies to work with other Aspies. And I think that might open a whole new range of problems...

sylk 7y ago
My last senior dev was an aspie and I aswell. We connected on levels that none of the other team mates could. It was like a perfect interface for communicating everything. I miss working with him. Unfortunately my boss really didn't like how I behaved socially and I got alienated over time. I quit to pursue something else, and I haven't seen a co-worker in days.

chad_strategic 7y ago

Hmmm... I was just obsessed over solving a futures algorithm. (In which I haven't been paid for.) Became anxiousness when I was away from the computer. Slept only 5 hours until it was solved. I wouldn't have had to stress so hard, if a good project brief from the client, but regardless. I was more interested in the solving the problem, than the economic benefits. I write stock/options in the evening for fun. I'm moderately introverted. But don't do poorly in social situations / or awkward. However dealing with clients, has really prevented me from starting my own firm. I wouldn't say that I have Asperger's, but I might have mild tendencies? Labels really don't matter as it is more important to know one's strengths and weakness. That's the key I take away from the article. But I can relate to some of this. I work with other programmers who might think they have Asperger, but in actuality I think they are just probably dochce bags. :)

pier25 7y ago
> However dealing with clients, has really prevented me from starting my own firm. Some people have a natural talent for that, but for most of us this is a difficult skill that has to be learned. I doubt this is related to any disorder. I've been dealing with clients as a freelancer and when I owned a small web dev shop. I don't think I'm particularly good at it, but at least I feel a lot more confident than when I was in my 20s. I think the most challenging aspect is being able to know how and when to move between different "buckets" of communication styles and adapt your language. For example, it's common for clients to not tell you when they aren't understanding something and you have to react to that. It becomes easier as you get to know a client and he gets to know you better over time, but those first meetings are always difficult, at least for me.
cr0sh 7y ago
I've never been formerly diagnosed, but I'm pretty certain I'm on it somewhere. A decade or so ago, one person, who was a coworker of my wife's, and whom I had met and conversed with - without any prompting or explanation from my wife - gave her a copy of "Mozart and the Whale" to give to me. I have yet to watch it. But I've always had certain obsessions: one is things moving in circles - windmills, gears, whatever - all fascinate me; interestingly, even abstract things likes loops and recursion, such as in programming, are easy for me to understand and utilize. Mazes are another thing (which is almost opposite of a loop). Fractals, too. Recently I sat for a couple of hours coding a bookmarklet to remove extraneous portions of instructables so they could be saved to a PDF or otherwise, without including all the "cruft". It just kinda "sucked me in" after I was trying to clean up one I had just browsed to; at the end, I had to sit for a bit to figure out "now what did I just make this thing for - ah, yes - this tab over here". My mother (RIP), who was of a different generation (I can't explain it easily - number one, I was adopted, rather late by my parents, who were in the 40s at the time - but technically they fell into an "in-between" generation somewhere between "the greatest generation" and "baby boomers" - much like how GenX is today - of which I am a part), always described me as looking, or being, "sour". It wasn't until my adult years that she likely meant I had a particular RBF, maybe a blank or poor affect that resulted in my countenance being "non-agreeable". Even today, my wife will sometimes ask me if I am mad at her, because I look or seem angry - when I'm not. It's just the way I look. I have this look of seriousness or something. My current employer/boss has noted the same thing about me; he has often said that he doesn't know how I will react or respond to certain things, and that sometimes I'm surprising in that regard. Something you may have noticed here - or elsewhere if you've seen my other postings - is my manner of writing, and likely speaking; a coworker of mine once told me that I speak like how Lisp is written (what he meant was that I typically talk parenthetically, nesting explanations and anecdotes within each other down a chain, but that everything was related, and I would eventually "pop things off the stack" and come back up the chain to the original discussion). All of this underscores why I've never been good in social situations, among other things, but my wife has been very helpful and understanding in that regard (yet, she still has problems with my countenance at times). As far as your experience with other programmers - well, I admit that at times I can be "that guy"; arrogance and other mal-traits do surface at times. That said, I'm also the first to apologize when I know I am or have been in the wrong. I also make sure not to let whatever led to that situation happen again. Most of the time, though (except when hubris, arrogance, or stupidity attacks me), I have learned that the best way to avoid issues is to not say anything at all - I am often known as "the quiet one" because of that (I then will often play the a-hole and remind them of what neighbors always say about serial killers and mass murderers)...

matchagaucho 7y ago

Wow.... this strikes me as a really insensitive clickbait headline. I've had the privilege of managing SW Engineers who've confided in me their diagnosis of Aspergers or Autism. Over time, I've generally helped Engineers understand that doing "deep work" is a characteristic of the craft and not an illness. Most Psychology books and Academics have been back peddling on the definition of Autism in recent years.

amai 7y ago

It‘s the normal people that need treatment, not the abnormal ones.

PeterStuer 7y ago

At uni I spent two years as the president of the computer science student society. I can assure you 80% of the members could be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders, going from mild to serious. Coordinating and leading in such an environment requires a different approach. Any manager running a small to medium software business/startup/scale up that does not feel comfortable dealing with aspys will not be a good match.

yellowarchangel 7y ago
The article mentions how a very small fraction of adults have jobs, and who are diagnosed with being on the autism spectrum. I wonder how accurate that number is, or how far on the spectrum the individuals in that study are. It seems like a lot of great tech minds have some form of autism.

gist 7y ago

Love the way people seem to believe they have to walk on eggshells when someone is 'on the spectrum'. I wonder what is done if a person on the spectrum is accused of some form of sexual assault or reasonably offensive language. Do they get a pass because of that behavior?

dymk 7y ago
I've never, in my life, seen or heard an individual with Aspergers getting a free pass on sexual assault. James Damore was fired from Google for his offensive language.

thtthings 7y ago

Please enlighten me. I want to be educated. According to me our mind is very fluid. We can teach it to behave a certain way. I do not believe that someone is awkward socially or cannot get caught in mania etc just because they are the way they are. All of this is learned behavior according to me. Why is it that most of these people are in the US? It seems to me because the environment makes people act this way. I do not think that this is because of genetics. If we mediate then we can look at the mind as an observer and change most if not all of our behavior. When someone gets a diagnosis for say ADHD. Then they exhibit those symptoms even more because they reinforce that behavior. put these people in a situation that the only way to survive is to socialize, i am pretty sure they will be very charming because we are capable of doing a lot if our survival is at stake. Here i am not talking about people with mental illness. Those i understand. Please help me understand this

munificent 7y ago
> According to me our mind is very fluid. According to science and medicine, our mind is a combination of plastic learned behavior and innate physiologically determined capabilities, strengths, and preferences.
- thtthings 7y ago
  how has science determined that? consciousness is subjective so they are depending on what people have said to them. The mind of scientist and the person they are observing are at play here.
  - jaggederest 7y ago
    There's a lot that can be done purely mechanistically, if you're super concerned about consciousness interfering with accuracy. For example, in the extreme, fMRIs show different activation patterns for people with different developmental disabilities. It's extremely clear and not at all subjective.
freehunter 7y ago
What you're claiming is that every mind, absent of mental illness, can behave exactly the same way given the same set of conditions. To start with, I'd like to see any proof that you have saying this is true. As far as I know, we don't know the brain well enough to say that is true, but also as far as I know we know enough about the brain to say that is likely not true. If you know otherwise, feel free to link some sources. The second thing I see wrong here is that you say "I'm not talking about mental illness" but you're talking about ADHD which is a mental illness [1] as is austism [2]. Brains are fluid, yes. Up to a certain point. At a certain age, brain plasticity slows down and changing behaviors becomes harder. This is why kids can learn so fast, but adults have a harder time. Other behaviors are subject to environment yes, but are still difficult to change. If I talked to a stranger and was then mugged by that stranger, I am going to be less likely to talk to strangers in the future. There is a whole field of science dedicated to overcoming these kinds of learned behaviors, and it is very difficult and time consuming. It is very difficult to unlearn behaviors we have already learned. But ultimately, "if our survival is at stake" isn't the situation most people find themselves in. If I am socially awkward, I'm not likely to die because of it. I might be uncomfortable, but survival is not at stake. 100 years ago we would tie the dominant hand of left-handed people behind their back and force them to write with their right hand. Did it work? Sure. Was it necessary for survival? Not a bit. Did it cause more problems than it solved? You bet it did. [1] https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/ADHD https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/ADH... [2] https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/autism https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/aut...

turk73 7y ago

"People with Asperger’s syndrome, the term still commonly used for one of the most well-known forms of autism spectrum disorder, bring serious advantages to the financial markets: extreme focus, a facility with numbers, a willingness to consider unpopular opinions, a strong sense of logic, and an intense belief in fairness and justice. But, like other autistic employees, they often feel alienated from their managers, colleagues, and clients. Sometimes they simply get fired." I'm definitely one of these. I've never been fired, but have voluntarily left plenty of developer jobs out of sheer frustration. And then I fall right back into the same bs over and over again until I'm just at the point where I don't give a damn about any of it. What is wrong with fairness and justice, btw? Oh, I forgot, business is really about how hard you can screw everyone else! Sure... Unpopular opinions? Again, that wouldn't be a problem if the so-called geniuses could themselves get over their own egos. What's really wrong here isn't people like me, I've been enormously flexible, it's that the biggest asshole always wins in the business world. THAT is what needs to end. It's not my ethics that are challenged. I have upheld my ethics. And it's not fair that people like me are considered to have some kind of "syndrome" when in fact it's the other way around. Am I perfect? No. But I realize that and understand that.

wst_ 7y ago

The web page got really slow. I suspect it got viral and can't handle the traffic.

wisty 7y ago

> Statistics I uncovered were deeply disturbing — fewer than 16 percent of adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder were employed full-time, for example. Autism has changed its definition though. Adults with autism are often diagnosed under the old criteria and are extreme, often barely verbal. Now that Asperger's (and a couple of other milder types) are rolled into autism (stuff that older people didn't bother diagnosing - functional people didn't need diagnoses back before every kid with a diagnosed got funded) you'd expect better outcomes because it's not just the extreme non-functional ones getting diagnosed.

tabtab 7y ago

Vulcans in the world of Ferengis.

einpoklum 7y ago

> People with Asperger’s syndrome... bring serious advantages to the financial markets: ... a strong sense of logic, and an intense belief in fairness and justice. If that were true they would never accept work in the finance sector. Or would resign in disgust soon after being hired.

thundergolfer 7y ago
Even if it were true I’m confused about how it’s an advantage. Maybe it leads them to seek out financial foul-play more enthusiastically and thus more often profit when they find it and short it?