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Why are you assuming that having poor social skills creates added work for management? I am on the spectrum, have trouble with social skills, and I certainly do

Why are you assuming that having poor social skills creates added work for management? I am on the spectrum, have trouble with social skills, and I certainly don't take "a disproportionate share of a manager's time" as an engineer. In fact, I regularly out perform the rest of my team and get great performance reviews. While everyone else is wasting time socializing I get my work done, and when I do need to communicate with management, customers, peers I suck it up and get it done even if it's uncomfortable/challenging. My manager spends far more time managing the "neurotypicals" than myself

mlyle 7y ago
I'm glad you're getting good reviews. I've had a lot of employees in the past, and a fair number who were likely somewhere on the spectrum. Most did great, sometimes with small adjustments to how I interacted with them. I've also had nightmare employees that have been ineffective because of excessive literalism and that have had troublesome interactions with their peers. (I've also had socially adept employees that have engaged in problematic behavior and expected to get away with it because of charisma. You can "go off the rails" in any direction. But if your peers become scared to ask you for things because they can't figure out how to communicate effectively with you and your answers sound rude, it's a problem).
- okmokmz 7y ago
  I understand, some people on the spectrum or suffering from other disorders can certainly be very difficult to deal with and I can see how this would provide a challenge to management. I just dislike generalizations about people with poor social skills, as that can mean a huge amount of different things, and just because someone struggles socially doesn't necessarily mean communicating with them would be challenging/uncomfortable or they would require micro-management due to being a problem employee

mlyle 7y ago

I'm glad you're getting good reviews. I've had a lot of employees in the past, and a fair number who were likely somewhere on the spectrum. Most did great, sometimes with small adjustments to how I interacted with them. I've also had nightmare employees that have been ineffective because of excessive literalism and that have had troublesome interactions with their peers. (I've also had socially adept employees that have engaged in problematic behavior and expected to get away with it because of charisma. You can "go off the rails" in any direction. But if your peers become scared to ask you for things because they can't figure out how to communicate effectively with you and your answers sound rude, it's a problem).

okmokmz 7y ago
I understand, some people on the spectrum or suffering from other disorders can certainly be very difficult to deal with and I can see how this would provide a challenge to management. I just dislike generalizations about people with poor social skills, as that can mean a huge amount of different things, and just because someone struggles socially doesn't necessarily mean communicating with them would be challenging/uncomfortable or they would require micro-management due to being a problem employee