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I have perhaps an unusual personal perspective on this. I'm not diagnosed but have several aspergers/autism traits. The ones relevant to this are... I don't

I have perhaps an unusual personal perspective on this. I'm not diagnosed but have several aspergers/autism traits. The ones relevant to this are... I don't make eye contact and am largely blind to all but the most blatant nonverbal communication (ex: sobbing). Additionally, I have a flat affect (don't express emotions through facial expressions the way others do and have a monotone voice). At my current work no one uses a camera, so there's not even the chance of seeing facial expressions or making eye contact either direction, though presumably people notice my monotone voice. I feel like this work environment has finally putting me on a near level playing ground with my coworkers. I've never been "liked" so much by people, coworkers or otherwise. Last week one told me I was the nicest person he'd ever worked with. Normally people perceive me as uncaring due to my personality/behavior quirks. I tend to have less social needs than most people, but it's still nice to be thought of positively rather than negatively. It never occurred to me until reading the threads here that people would have feelings about these communication attributes they are missing out on. I often forget that people communicate on more layers that I do.

dusted 6y ago
I also prefer the virtual meetings without camera, it does indeed level the playing field. I find it very nice to use skype voice + text chat, depending on how important I think my n cents are, I can chose to speak it or write it in chat instead.. I can also express myself more clearly, because I don't have to talk, but instead can take my time formulating what I want to say. And I can use links and pictures to support what I want to communicate.
goblin89 6y ago
I often find text exchanges to be lacking in cues, feeling anxious about being misunderstood, but I also avoid 1:1 videocalls with customers as I (1) find faces and visual cues distracting and (2) am not very good at facial expressions. My preferred medium is voice: I still find it easy to tell whether the person is paying attention, get the synchronicity and the information throughput that make it possible to ensure we’re on the same page, all while dealing with less noise. That said, many-to-many conference calls… I dislike those generally, video or audio.
ladyanita22 6y ago
Sorry for hijacking this reply, but I happen to have an acquitance (former friend) with some of those symptons. He has almost no interest in people except for his partner and sometimes his family, although I'm not sure if this is self-imposed or he really has interest in these people. He laughs and feels comfortable some times, but he doesn't express love, not even his family, except for his partner (sometimes?). He has suffered previously from a psychologically abusive partner who has made him cry and suffer, but during his relation with her, he has not showed any symptons whatsoever, and insists that although he cried back then, he insists he has never felt happiness or sadness. During our friendship, I tried to make him feel better and support him, maybe helping him feel something. The truth is that it ends up being just psychologically exhausting, and despite being the only person he trusted, once I decided to insist in having contact with him, he just didn't even try. For long I have thought he was just a jerk who doesn't care about people, but your comment makes me wonder if there was something wrong with him (not trying to be offensive, I just don't know how to make a difference between being a jerk vs. having some kind of dissability/difficulty/handicap). Seeing that you (may) be knowledgeable about asperger/autism, I wonder what would be your take on this thing.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  I dunno what's going on with your former friend. Based on your description it could be lots of things. Off the top of my head there's: aspergers, depression, or result of abuse (dissociation, etc). Did your friend actually ask you for help? Or did you just decide on your own you needed to "make him" feel things to your satisfaction? Why would you feel like "insisting" on more contact from someone than they want is a healthy thing to do? Frankly your second paragraph sounds awful.
  - ladyanita22 6y ago
    > Did your friend actually ask you for help? Or did you just decide on your own you needed to "make him" feel things to your satisfaction? Why would you feel like "insisting" on more contact from someone than they want is a healthy thing to do? Frankly your second paragraph sounds awful. While I'm not intending to start a heated conversation here, I don't know what you have gone through and I'm pretty sure I make mistakes, but I do feel your tone is accusatory and definitely inappropriate when you don't know the full context of anything. In hindsight, maybe asking someone on the internet about this was not the best thing to do. Thank you anyway, I appreciate your time.
mcv 6y ago
I came across an article recently (on HN perhaps?) that explained that now that all meeting are online, and all work is remote, different employees rise to the top than in the old situation with everybody present in the same location. Social or dominant manners are less important, and actually doing the work counts far more. So it's quite likely that people who tend towards Asperger's or autism not only deal better with working from home, but will also be more successful in their organisation than they'd be under different circumstances. So milk this while you can, I guess.

dusted 6y ago

I also prefer the virtual meetings without camera, it does indeed level the playing field. I find it very nice to use skype voice + text chat, depending on how important I think my n cents are, I can chose to speak it or write it in chat instead.. I can also express myself more clearly, because I don't have to talk, but instead can take my time formulating what I want to say. And I can use links and pictures to support what I want to communicate.

goblin89 6y ago

I often find text exchanges to be lacking in cues, feeling anxious about being misunderstood, but I also avoid 1:1 videocalls with customers as I (1) find faces and visual cues distracting and (2) am not very good at facial expressions. My preferred medium is voice: I still find it easy to tell whether the person is paying attention, get the synchronicity and the information throughput that make it possible to ensure we’re on the same page, all while dealing with less noise. That said, many-to-many conference calls… I dislike those generally, video or audio.

ladyanita22 6y ago

Sorry for hijacking this reply, but I happen to have an acquitance (former friend) with some of those symptons. He has almost no interest in people except for his partner and sometimes his family, although I'm not sure if this is self-imposed or he really has interest in these people. He laughs and feels comfortable some times, but he doesn't express love, not even his family, except for his partner (sometimes?). He has suffered previously from a psychologically abusive partner who has made him cry and suffer, but during his relation with her, he has not showed any symptons whatsoever, and insists that although he cried back then, he insists he has never felt happiness or sadness. During our friendship, I tried to make him feel better and support him, maybe helping him feel something. The truth is that it ends up being just psychologically exhausting, and despite being the only person he trusted, once I decided to insist in having contact with him, he just didn't even try. For long I have thought he was just a jerk who doesn't care about people, but your comment makes me wonder if there was something wrong with him (not trying to be offensive, I just don't know how to make a difference between being a jerk vs. having some kind of dissability/difficulty/handicap). Seeing that you (may) be knowledgeable about asperger/autism, I wonder what would be your take on this thing.

Consultant32452 6y ago
I dunno what's going on with your former friend. Based on your description it could be lots of things. Off the top of my head there's: aspergers, depression, or result of abuse (dissociation, etc). Did your friend actually ask you for help? Or did you just decide on your own you needed to "make him" feel things to your satisfaction? Why would you feel like "insisting" on more contact from someone than they want is a healthy thing to do? Frankly your second paragraph sounds awful.
- ladyanita22 6y ago
  > Did your friend actually ask you for help? Or did you just decide on your own you needed to "make him" feel things to your satisfaction? Why would you feel like "insisting" on more contact from someone than they want is a healthy thing to do? Frankly your second paragraph sounds awful. While I'm not intending to start a heated conversation here, I don't know what you have gone through and I'm pretty sure I make mistakes, but I do feel your tone is accusatory and definitely inappropriate when you don't know the full context of anything. In hindsight, maybe asking someone on the internet about this was not the best thing to do. Thank you anyway, I appreciate your time.

mcv 6y ago

I came across an article recently (on HN perhaps?) that explained that now that all meeting are online, and all work is remote, different employees rise to the top than in the old situation with everybody present in the same location. Social or dominant manners are less important, and actually doing the work counts far more. So it's quite likely that people who tend towards Asperger's or autism not only deal better with working from home, but will also be more successful in their organisation than they'd be under different circumstances. So milk this while you can, I guess.