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“Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

• jdforsythe 4y ago
  I'd say a lot of people experience this and feel this way, whether allistic or autistic. It's just normal office stuff.
• BrandoElFollito 4y ago
  A lot of what your are writing happens to other people as well. For the "I know a lot" part, deep knowledge is open not recognized simply because people do not sense it. Unfortunately being recognized often means doing self promotion. For the "I need to ask questions" part - I do too. And every serious engineer did too. So far it looks tout are in a company that is not a great fit. As for the rest, I am affraid that your may need to study people interactions me. It is not always politics, sometimes the way you engage other people. I know that this is easier said than done, especially in your case but I would take it as a challenge. It cups make your like and intentions much easier.
  • larve 4y ago
    Thanks! I hope you read this. My intent with the article was to say "you might thing someone can't acknowledge when they're wrong, but that's not always the case. here's my experiences." it might or might not help. I am acutely aware that studying people interactions help me. I've lived in 3 countries and passed as native in each. I've come so much further than I ever thought possible because I studied interactions extensively, and practiced them even more. All that "talk to a 100 strangers every week", "learn public speaking," "learn to listen," "watch every possible show in the original language?" "immerse yourself in the culture." I've done it and then some, for years. The treacherous effect of this is that the better you get, the fewer people believe you when you say that you are autistic / have trouble with reading people (I didn't believe it myself), and thus the more it is held against you when you actually make a mistake. "There is no possible way you couldn't know acting like X comes across as arrogant." In fact, it won't even be chalked up to cultural differences because no one realizes I'm french / german. They just think I have a slight speech impediment. There is so much bronze-tier advice in this thread that shows that people have actually never tried or practiced what they are preaching here. There is so much rewording and "have you tried asking the question this way" or "you should do X," when really the words seem to matter the least. It's so much more about posture, demeanor, tone of voice, facial expressions than what you actually say. The irony of people immediately making the boldest assumptions and dishing out advice—all the while having no way of knowing if any of what they say is true (they don't know me)—is quite striking. I tried not to engage on that topic, or bring up how many books about behaviour, workplace dynamics, politics, body language I have gone through because I don't like being combative.
• ljlolel 4y ago
  I vibe with this
• korijn 4y ago
  It's interesting to me that all four examples put the blame with the other party. I hope it's just worded poorly or I am reading too much into it. Edit: I'm not saying that invalidates the article's content (in fact I recognize the situations from personal experience), but it doesn't really put a positive spin on it.
  • philipov 4y ago
    The site is called 'scapegoat'
  • moonchrome 4y ago
    And the OP is never actually wrong, he just couldn't explain himself
    • engineeringwoke 4y ago
      That could be your ego talking? Always re-interpreting reality to put yourself on a pedestal? It is a bit silly talking in circles with people that have theory of mind deficits. You just have to avoid the "correctness conversation" and try to point them in the right direction, but it's honestly like pulling teeth.
      • moonchrome 4y ago
        My comment was sarcastic, not sure it came through.
  • zrail 4y ago
    Not the author but the framing in the article implies that the author would have zero issue acknowledging if they actually were wrong.
    • JackFr 4y ago
      And yet none of the hypothetical examples seem to entertain that possibility.
• h2odragon 4y ago
  Great insights. I often feel like saying: "normal people don't want to think about the details of a question." They grab for the quickest way to stop thinking and label it right or wrong depending on how much they like it. This is of course an oversimplification.
  • roflc0ptic 4y ago
    I really think pinning this on autism is misplaced. Willingness to engage in exploratory conversation is a combination of intelligence and learned habits of mind. If your boss (anyone, really!) comes to you with an idea and he misunderstands the first thing out of your mouth as a rejection, then you probably should work on how you communicate that thing. Or just surround yourself with smarter people. Also if your boss doesn't know anything about technology and comes to you and says "I heard about someone doing this on a podcast, what if we made this arbitrary tech choice that doesn't apparently add any value?" then consider shopping for a new boss. Autism really is orthogonal to that situation sucking.
    • morelisp 4y ago
      > consider shopping for a new boss. Autism really is orthogonal to that situation sucking. The boss is doing absolutely the right thing here! Asking a trusted domain expert for an opinion about whether some technical investment would benefit the business. The alternatives are a) the boss hears the podcast and the next day "rewrite it all in React" is at the top of the backlog, or b) the boss never polls the team about the technical state of things and everyone grumbles there's never enough time for paying down technical debt or experimenting with new ideas.
      • denton-scratch 4y ago
        > Asking a trusted domain expert for an opinion about whether some technical investment would benefit the business. Sure, that's good management - ask the expert. But this manager didn't want to clarify the question, so that the expert could give a considered answer. Perhaps the manager already knew what answer he wanted? There's this estimating technique: it's called "Guess the number the manager wants you to give". It's much less career-limiting than giving an honest answer.
• js8 4y ago
  I think I often do #1, but the point is to get acknowledgment whether I am understanding things correctly, by rephrasing them. The point is not to undermine the train of thought, but rather confirm the agreement before the train of thought leaves to some distant land.
• atwood22 4y ago
  I can’t imagine dedicating this much time analyzing whether or not I can acknowledge when I’m wrong. It’s almost like this entire piece is an elaborate rationalization the author is making rather than admitting they are wrong.
  • midnightmonster 4y ago
    When you notice your self-perception is out of alignment with how other people perceive you, especially on an axis you value (e.g., intellectual humility in the author's case), I think that's a great occasion to spend some time analyzing how much truth there is to each perception. If you discover your self-perception is wrong, the next step might be thinking about how you can change your behavior and clarify your own judgement. If you determine that others misperceive you, the next step might be thinking about how to change that. The author didn't get far into a next step, but the first step is critical and valuable as far as it goes, IMO.
  • feet 4y ago
    Just because you can't imagine a perspective doesn't mean it isn't real, my assumption is that you aren't on the spectrum.
  • mort96 4y ago
    Imagine you hear throughout your life that you can't admit you're wrong or that your _kind of person_ can't admit they're wrong. Wouldn't it be a sign of healthy introspection to dedicate time to analyze whether that's correct? And a fundamental requirement to admit to being wrong is, well, actually being wrong. If you analyze a situation and find that you're factually correct, you haven't failed to admit to being wrong.
    • denton-scratch 4y ago
      > Wouldn't it be a sign of healthy introspection to dedicate time to analyze whether that's correct? I wonder if Author is in fact autistic. It seems (not sure if I've got this right) that author wasn't diagnosed until his forties. I'd have expected a diagnosis of autism to occur pre-teen.
• laputan_machine 4y ago
  Sounds like my experience, too. I'm not autistic.
• thiago_fm 4y ago
  What if you try to get along with others instead of looking at their logical mistakes and fallacies and verbalising them and see where you can both work together. Hopefully this will bring you peace.
• Orothrim 4y ago
  The issue with this article is how the author is approaching all of these discussions. There is no attempt to see the other person's perspective, or evaluate how the author should be approaching the discussion. This is very common among us Engineers but is a massive failure. If a manager comes over and suggests something to you, you need to understand their perspective for coming to that discussion, not asking questions that would make you make the same suggestion they made.
  • themoonisachees 4y ago
    I get what you're saying, but at the same time that is exactly what the author is trying to do, just that they are doing it in their own way, which just so happens to feel adversarial to the manager. There is no right or wrong here. Asking the engineer to "think logically" in terms of how what they're saying might be interpreted is stupid. They are autistic, and you cannot reasonably expect them to do the exact thing autism prevents them from doing. Asking the manager to try to understand is probably more efficient, but the manager might be geared to think the engineer is adversarial already, possibly because of demeanor, or past experiences getting similarly confused. In this case the manager is probably more able to reason logically that their counterpart is autistic and is probably genuinely asking, but that is not a default, and probably requires some diversity training.
  • dghf 4y ago
    > If a manager comes over and suggests something to you, you need to understand their perspective for coming to that discussion Isn't that exactly what the author did, at least in the React discussion? They tried to establish what potential benefits the manager hoped to get from the React rewrite. It was the manager who immediately gave up on the discussion, not the author.
    • Hayarotle 4y ago
      The problem is with the (interpreted) subtext of the question. The question "Is our checkout page not performing well?" might be just a question, but in the context the author was put in, it usually has different implications. Many people would ask such question in order to imply that changing the framework was unnecessary and that the checkout page is already performing well enough. This seems to be how the manager interpreted the question. There are different ways of asking the same question, with different subtext. He could had started, for example, by saying "We should analyze how our checkout page's performance could improve if we switch to React". This way he would be able to ask essentially the same questions he intended to, but without accidentally implying that the switch is undesirable and unnecessary. Now, someone working with someone with autism should understand they have trouble with this kind of subtext, and give them more leeway. But most people don't know how to do this, as they're not used to such interactions.
• W4ldi 4y ago
  It's called narcissistic entitlement to expect the whole world to change their behaviour because of ones own inability to fit in. I'm not saying it is fair. Life is never fair. The only one who has the ability to influence those situations is oneself. You can't rely on other to change - it won't work anyways. You have to be the one that improves those interactions. For your own good.
  • brainwipe 4y ago
    Neuro diverse people can't necessarily change their behaviour because it's how their brain is wired. It's like asking a visually impaired person to just see better. Many neuro diverse people have to force themselves to "fit in" causing untold stress and trauma. That's not for their own good, it's forcing their brains to work in a way that they don't.
    • MichaelZuo 4y ago
      I'm fairly sure everyone alive has a neural plasticity above zero.
      • xSxY3fj5gVCmvWE 4y ago
        Ingenious. Groundbreaking. Whitepaper-worthy. If only people on the autistic spectrum would just simply learn their way out of it. Even better idea: use your neural plasticity and get some empathy.
        • MichaelZuo 4y ago
          Are you trying to mock autistic folks? Anyways judging by your posting history, try reflecting on your own empathy.
    • Beltalowda 4y ago
      That is essentially saying that autistic people can't learn. That's not really the case. Furthermore everyone has to adjust to the people around them, often causing untold stress for everyone. This is one of the aspects of the neurodivergency movement I am less impressed by because I feel it's just handwaving away any issues as "suck it up, not my problem, deal with it". I've worked with a few people like this over the years, which also caused untold stress for the entire team. To give an example from this post, "is our checkout page not performing well?" to the React rewrite manager comes off as a rather dismissive "why would you want to do that?" While certainly a valid question – and I wasn't there and I don't know if it was phrased like that exactly – but I'm sure those questions could have been asked in a way that came off as less challenging and dismissive, resulting in a more constructive conversation. You really can learn these things. Or, maybe the manager was just an asshole/idiot and the unconstructive interaction is all completely unrelated to the author's autism. Could be too. The first point – "the non-autistic person is not hearing what I'm saying" – sounds like the author might benefit from trying to understand why that is, and adjusting the way they say things. Sometimes small changes can make large differences, and it really doesn't need to cause untold stress. Effective communication is hard and also something everyone has to learn.
• josh2600 4y ago
  Source: have worked with many smart and not so smart autistic people over the years. Have many friends “neuro atypical” and think I’m probably somewhere on the spectrum (aren’t we all?). Autistic people have what seems like a much higher tolerance for bullshit both in the context of wanting to argue a point to finality or to obsess over a particularly detail until they’ve reached a shared plateau of understanding. Many times this is actually a very satisfying method of conversation, at least for me. Other times it can feel like talking to a wall. Your mileage may vary.
  • shakna 4y ago
    > think I’m probably somewhere on the spectrum (aren’t we all?). That, right there, is one of the least helpful things that can ever be said in these kinds of circumstances. It's understandable, and it's common, so this doesn't lay blame on you, but on the underlying cultural assumption. "Aren't we all?" Those who have truly neuro-atypical behaviours, to where it can be assessed as placing them somewhere else on the spectrum, will receive less helpful responses when people think along those lines. Their concerns are more easily pushed aside, and the things that can help bridge the gap are less easily implemented. It may sound accepting, but it's a trivialising statement. It makes things harder, for everyone.
    • survirtual 4y ago
      That poster was just trying to be inclusive, not trivialize. You are still part of a society composed of other humans. I think less division and more inclusivity in spite of differences is a good place to be, while still acknowledging the struggles / addressing problems of minorities without making them “special” aka outcasts. Ultimately, you choose how you react to something. You can choose to be offended and look at the surface level of what a person is saying, or you can dig into the essence of the essence and determine the nature, intention, and purpose of a statement. Most people barely have their own lives in order, and I mean that in a neurological sense. Expecting others to also simultaneously keep track of nuanced triggers which are also not universally applicable, more individual situations, when they are operating in good faith is more counterproductive for everyone.
• Overtonwindow 4y ago
  IMO autism causes an absence self-awareness, and because of that inability to recognize and modulate their own behavior, they are naturally defensive when you point out their errant behavior. In a way it's almost cruel. They don't, and can't see themselves the way other people do, and pointing out a flaw just makes things worse. Is it wrong to say that a person with autism can't really help themselves?
  • zrail 4y ago
    Do you know of any research that concurs with your opinion?
  • sascha_sl 4y ago
    That's a bit reductive. I'd say that generally, autistic people have more of an issue getting implicit rules, expectations and social rituals, but that doesn't mean they're not self-aware. In fact I'd argue that they are painfully self-aware, especially when masking - that is actively emulating behaviors expected of them without them being intuitive. It can be pretty stressful to consider the impact of everything you do that other people trivially do automatically.
  • CitizenKane 4y ago
    I'm autistic and it definitely doesn't cause a lack of self-awareness. If anything I'm more aware than most neurotypical folks. I can't speak for every autistic person, but at least in my experience when people do point out our mistakes it often tends to be lacking context. Indeed we don't see ourselves the way others do, but what is sometimes flaw in communication with a neurotypical person is exactly what I would want to do with another autistic person. Pointing out mistakes of this nature in a blunt way is unpleasant, and I've often been expected to be able to intuit the feelings of neurotypical people in these situations even though I literally think and feel differently. It can be quite frustrating, and I've found that many autistic people will become defensive about personal qualities because of past poor experiences in giving/receiving feedback. I wish neurotypical folks could see the other side and experience what it's like to be around mostly autistic people. I have no doubt many would become defensive when they've been told again and again that they're being too loud, that they're not discussing they're ideas in enough depth, that they're not being calm enough, or whatever autistic predisposition they'd end up accidentally bumping up against. Thinking and feeling differently from the majority of folks is difficult, but it's even more difficult when folks expect you to know and understand where there mind is at.
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• dusted 4y ago
  I read this as being strongly opinionated and egocentric.. I want to call it "ausplaining", this tendency to go "no no, YOU don't understand ME (because I'm special, not because I'm wrong)" whenever we get ourselves into situations like the exemplified. I do this A LOT as well, and when people do stick with me for long enough, I often find that I'm either getting my point across by re-framing my explanation, or discover that what I'm pursuing as oh_so_important is in fact not important for the question at hand (then I feel even more stupid, because, not only did I find this of paramount importance, but everyone else didn't even consider it (because it so clearly didn't matter)). > Because I value learning, I read about 50 technical books every year If the author reads this, I'd congratulate them on finding the time to do that, but also advice them to maybe read 40 technical books every year, and then read 10 about the topics they clearly do struggle with (social interactions, politics, negotiation, psychology).. The opinion reads as "I'm right and the world is wrong" to me, maybe because I can strongly relate (except the parts about reading tons of books and being really smart). I think the author would benefit from realizing that these things they dismiss as irrelevant (mind games/politics) are actually important and beneficial to understand and master (I am not saying it should be that way, but merely point out that it is, in fact that way). The author may also benefit from investing some of their mental capital (I'm not being sarcastic, they're obviously very intelligent) into learning how to play the games, to figure out neurotypicals enough to communicate with them on their level/terms. Yes, workplaces need to be accommodating, but in the end, no matter who we are, it's our ultimate responsibility, to ourselves, to learn how to function in this world. As for the situation where the other party is factually wrong.. Well, yes.. I always imagine this situation, where I have the right of way on my bicycle, and it's the semi-truck that must yield.. There are a fair number of times where being right does not matter.
  • q-big 4y ago
    > The author may also benefit from investing some of their mental capital (I'm not being sarcastic, they're obviously very intelligent) into learning how to play the games I am not aware of any good systematic textbooks on this topic. (of course not the author)
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• petercooper 4y ago
  I'm diagnosed and have adopted a sort of "default wrong" approach in situations like these because I realized, well, I am often wrong! Starting from the stance of "This could be wrong but.." and then jointly building upon and testing my hypothesis (that, in the past, I may have declared to be inarguable!) seems to result in far more pleasant interactions and consensus.
• protonbob 4y ago
  This article does give me a little more insight into working with divergent thinkers. However, this one part gave me pause: "Plus, "giving in" does not preserve peace—it simply appeases bullies and makes the workplace toxic." I would have to disagree here. Authority structure is useful and sometimes there are multiple good options. Not "giving in" every now and then can lead to analysis paralysis.
  • larve 4y ago
    Thanks for reading. I did indeed think a lot about leaving this sentence in / writing it like this. What I think you mean is that compromising is necessary to move forward in a team. That is 100% true, in fact most (if not all?) technical decisions are just not based in fact, as much as I would like them to. What matters is that everybody understands why a compromise has been made, and what the pros and cons were that led to that decisions. I am fine shipping the most horrible code if we all agree that we discussed the pros and cons. This also makes it easy to avoid the “I told you so”-trap which further degrades work climate. Instead, we can go back to the original design document, see that a con we expected has happened, and pick the discussion up from there.
    • larve 4y ago
      I realize I forgot the second half. “giving in” without forming a compromise and making sure everybody agrees on what the compromise is however is just appeasing a bully (say “we do it this way because I’m the manager and you’re not” or “we do it this way because I have 10 years of experience and you don’t”). I should probably have given it a bit more context.
      • protonbob 4y ago
        I see. This makes a lot of sense when you phrase it that way.
• melancton 4y ago
  Seems like op can’t acknowledge that they are wrong when they are actually right. As many other things you may never actually do it, but it’s good to have that option.
• gnfargbl 4y ago
  > I needed to understand why our checkout had to be improved; I explained that technology choices made no difference to the user. However, the manager interpreted my words as outright rejecting their idea. That's an exceptionally patronising position to take. The manager almost certainly isn't a fool, and likely understands the author's point already. It's much more likely that the manager was actually asking if the author had reviewed the technology stack recently and considered whether it was still optimal. In other words, they weren't saying that the checkout page was bad, they were asking the author's professional opinion as to whether it could be better.
  • mvuijlst 4y ago
    Heh. "The manager almost certainly isn't a fool, and likely understands the author's point already". Famous last words.
    • engineeringwoke 4y ago
      Also a common trope, playing out the "manager" or "business person" as an idiot when in fact often times there are bigger things at play. Looking down on people who aren't like you is not generally a positive. Understanding them is the source of empathy.
      • shlant 4y ago
        to be fair I am seeing very little empathy for the author in a lot of these comments
        • gnfargbl 4y ago
          That's really fair criticism. OP, if you're still reading, please don't take anything I wrote here as an attack on you. Instead, it was meant to be a reflection on your situation from someone who struggles with many of the same communication issues, in many of the same ways.
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• sascha_sl 4y ago
  > I needed to understand why our checkout had to be improved; I explained that technology choices made no difference to the user. However, the manager interpreted my words as outright rejecting their idea. Let's be honest, that's what happened here. There are many reasons to overhaul a frontend, and performance is just one of them. Maybe the existing checkout is a mess that only OP understands how to maintain. Maybe engineers and designers want to find better common ground to work together and this change could facilitate that. I'm sure you can think of other reasons. The narrow thinking is on OPs side here. They straight up assumed that this change was just chasing shiny new things (and, well, React isn't that shiny anymore), that all changes had to serve the user and not also organizational goals and then shut it down with the nearest plausible excuse.
• moreira 4y ago
  > "giving in" does not preserve peace—it simply appeases bullies and makes the workplace toxic. This doesn’t sound right. You are not going to agree with 100% of someone else’s decisions. No matter how much you discuss something, no matter if you understand all the ramifications, everything there could possibly be. Sometimes you’re just not going to agree with the direction someone else is taking, and you’re going to have to accept it. And that’s okay. It’s not toxic to disagree with someone, or to accept that even though you might disagree, they’re going to do X their way (or that you’re going to have to do X their way because that’s what they want). That’s not office politics, that’s life.
  • mason55 4y ago
    What I’ve found useful is to dig until we understand why we disagree. Assuming the other person reasoned their self into a reasonable position, then if we have different answers then we probably came from different starting points. Usually we can work backwards and discover that we have different starting assumptions or work forwards and discover that we have different goals. Those pieces tend to be more ambiguous and much easier to “agree to disagree”. And it’s why both people can be 100% that they are correct - because in each of their frames of reference they are.
  • username223 4y ago
    This was a big red flag for me, too. There’s a reason the term “bike-shedding” exists among developers. You want to keep the bikes dry, and what color you paint the shed, or whether you call the paint “tan” or “beige,” matters not at all. Labeling people who disagree with you about the paint color as “bullies,” and fighting them to the death, is profoundly useless. Just ask yourself what really matters, and let the rest go.
  • jjk166 4y ago
    If not agreeing means "let's agree to disagree" then that's fine and healthy. If not agreeing means "I need to pretend I agree even when I have good reason to disagreee because this person needs to be appeased" that is not healthy and contributes to a toxic workplace. This post is talking about the latter scenario.
• norwalkbear 4y ago
  I disagree, I work with many. Wrong on a technical thing, no different than most people. Wrong on a social thing, agree. Anything with fluid changing rules and subtle context clues will drive them insane
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• psyc 4y ago
  I’ve acknowledged I was wrong countless times - often readily. I don’t find it inherently difficult or uncomfortable. There have also been many times I’ve refused to concede even a little, because that would have been a white lie (in my mind) even though I knew full well it would smooth things over immediately. Those people probably perceived me as incapable of admitting fault. That’s what they usually yell at me, after all. And I get told I’m arrogant about once a week. I never reply to that, but I’m always thinking in my head, “I never tell anybody that they’re anything (negative). Why is it so easy for other people to tell me I am this that and the other……”. Am autistic.
• lnxg33k1 4y ago
  I don’t know if I am autistic never got tested and I don’t care, but I’ve found myself at the start of my career in some compatible positions and thoughts, which now I have grown away from, are you sure that these things are about autism and not just simple immaturity?
• aurelien 4y ago
  That is the reason why the worlds is going to chaos, we are driven by political autistic necromancer O_O 7000 years after the first pound, we are ending the planet ... and no one agreed that human is wrong ()
• crabbygrabby 4y ago
  My little brother is autistic and admits he's wrong all the time. The title of this is trash.
  • mort96 4y ago
    The title is a quote from other people, and the content of the article is an attempt to explain why the quote is incorrect; that it's just a different style of communication that's being interpreted as not admitting you're wrong.
  • PebblesRox 4y ago
    The article is arguing against the myth that autistic people don’t admit when they’re wrong, hence the quotation marks in the title.
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• ajjenkins 4y ago
  It’s not clear in the article, but if this is all from the same company, this sounds like a really bad company to work for. The author is probably right that they’re being treated unfairly because of their autism (which is wrong), but I’d bet that the neurotypical engineers at the company also have experiences of being dismissed by management. The example that stuck out to me was “should we migrate our website to React”. The questions the author wanted to ask seemed like very normal questions to ask, and good questions that any good engineer would ask before answering a question like that (unless they already have a lot of context about the website in question). I don’t have autism, but I’ve worked with people with autism, and at my job I think they were treated more respectfully than what the author describes. It’s possible that they’re being mistreated but I’m just not seeing it though. I guess what I’m trying to say is that although I can’t directly relate to the author’s experience, I would still recommend that they try to find a new job with a less toxic workplace culture.
• manimino 4y ago
  Oof. This is black and white thinking at its worst. The author perceives only two possible outcomes, one where things go Right (correct according to his perceptions) and where they go Wrong (correct according to the other party's perceptions). There's so much missing from this view of the world it's hard to know where to begin. - The author could be missing some key facts. - The author could be unaware of other priorities. - The author could actually be wrong. It happens to the best of us. - The author may have a history of being Right, getting others to go along with it, and then changing his mind to a different Right. That burns social capital really fast. There are some algorithms for convincing others in a way that allows them to save face. Nemawashi is a good one to start with. "Disagree and commit" is another. Best of luck to the author in developing some workplace skills. Once you're out of school, collaboration is more important than getting things Right all the time.
  • musingsole 4y ago
    I read the outlined scenarios differently. They each speak to me as the other party engaging in black or white thinking while the author is attempting to maintain an open mind. This causes the allistic person to perceive pushback. Neurotypicals expect tribemates to follow along, few questions asked. Every question an autistic mind asks to understand the scenario when the other party is looking for political alliance is a reminder to that other party: the autistic person is OTHER -- or at least more OTHER than Fred in Shipping & Receiving.
• paulcole 4y ago
  > I care more about doing good work than office politics. Interacting well with other people (what the derisive “office politics” actually is) is good work.
• denton-scratch 4y ago
  > my strategy was to leave the room quietly I'm not autistic; but I often just walk away from arguments. I'm an argumentative person, so it runs against the grain; but I don't actually enjoy arguing.
• thatha7777 4y ago
  Hallelujah, as I recently discovered I'm on the ASD, this speaks great truths. Autism is a disability (but it's only a disability because our society is disabled) —— the individual isn't disabled. Obviously, many people don't believe "reasonable accommodations" are to be made and that our society is to be improved and resolve to neologisms such as "ausplaining" which I find deeply inappropriate in our times.
• JackFr 4y ago
  Author might be confusing “autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong” with “you can’t acknowledge when you’re wrong” In all of the straw men he presents, it’s curious that none of them entertain the possibility that he ever is actually wrong. The issue isn’t that he is autistic it’s more likely he's simply insufferable.
• batch12 4y ago
  I have found that sometimes nobody is wrong. Sometimes it is a preference that is being debated (once you dig in). As such, it's not as important to be right as it is to preserve a working relationship. I also try to decide if the thing being discussed the "hill to die on" or is it not really worth debating? Advice I give my kids to think about is- if you think you are right and it feels like the whole world insists you are wrong, take a second and try to make sure you are as right as you think you are. In my experience, it is a rare thing that everyone is totally wrong about something. And- in the end, if you're right, you're right-- but does it really matter? Does being "right" help you or those you are debating in that specific situation-- or is it only pride that motivates you? I think we need to relearn that it's okay to disagree.
• fbanon 4y ago
  >Because I value learning, I read about 50 technical books every year OMG You must be very smart!
  • musingsole 4y ago
    > OMG You must be very smart! You must be very angry.
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• paganel 4y ago
  > Because I tend to think holistically, my questions may seem unrelated to the original question. I reason in terms of systems, networks, interfaces, communication patterns, and feedback loops (...) Often, people will be surprised, not understanding why I am asking a certain question. Queue frustration and the dismissive "you're not getting it." I get this a lot (relatively speaking), or I used to, especially when I was more active on places like reddit. Don't think I'm autistic, but it baffles me nonetheless. I mean, of course that a on-point and very focused discussion may be of value, in many cases it actually may be quite interesting, but imo the point of a internet forum (or of a general discussion, more largely speaking) is to try and reason exactly about these "holistic" approaches, no matter how bad or good the respective takes may be. If it matters I find that people here on HN are a lot more open to that type of holistic/"let's take a step back and look at the bigger picture" discussions, without necessarily resorting to accusations of "you're not getting it" or "you're changing the subject" (which is partially true, of course).
• yieldcrv 4y ago
  > 1. The allistic (non-autistic) person is not hearing what I'm saying. > 2. I need to ask questions before forming an opinion. I'm not considered as being on the spectrum (except when "everyone is on the spectrum" for inclusivity reasons of not alienating a socially inept person) and I've had an experience distinct with workers at big tech firms when I offer a perspective they say I'm being defensive and impossible to help. I think I'm having a conversation, and they think I'm being defensive. does anybody else have this experience? like, I'm presented with a unilateral view/criticism of something I did, and I'm still forming an opinion of it gathering more information and open to correcting myself or the perception, but any response is seen as defensiveness given who this comes from, it makes me think that conversations within these firms go this way
  • scotty79 4y ago
    I encountered some people that percive any discussion as arguing and frame every information exchange in combative terms (defensive, attacking, winning, loosing). They also tend to exhibit some narcissistic behaviors and qualities so I wouldn't think they are the norm. I think you've just met some people from that flavor of assholes.
• hackerlight 4y ago
  > 1. The allistic (non-autistic) person is not hearing what I'm saying. It's possible that they're not smart enough, literally. I find ease of communication is uncorrelated with whether they're on the spectrum or otherwise. It's their raw intelligence level. Somehow the bandwidth between our brains is really high. They often know what I'm saying before I've finished my sentence, because they've already figured it out and have predicted what I'm going to say. But if you're talking to someone with 110-120 IQ, you really have to slow down and spell things out for them, and some things they will actually just never grok unless you have 30 minutes to explain the abstract foundational concepts behind what you're saying.
  • mfcl 4y ago
    Wow.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • asldjajlfkj 4y ago
      He may sound arrogant, but he’s not wrong. I imagine the difference in standard deviations is a good metric for cognitive distance. Mentally retarded people (-2) to ordinary people (0) are like normal people to gifted people (+2). And if hackerlight is more intelligent than that (3+), _smart_ people are dumb to him. Some studies show that mutual communication suffers on specific topics after about a standard deviation of difference. There are people too dumb for addition; why shouldn’t there be a lot of people too dumb to understand hackerlight’s point about computer science?
• felurx 4y ago
  The author explicitly states that "When these conflicts arise, here are some things that might be happening." I think that's pretty important. This is not an article that says "I'm always right, people are just too stupid to notice that, here are mistakes they're making." It says, or at least it reads to me as, "People often think I'm stubborn and can't acknowledge when I make a mistake. Sometimes, not always, that is a result of miscommunication, because my brain works differently from many others. Here are some of the ways it does that, and how it leads to that wrong perception."
• nailer 4y ago
  It's 1:24PM now. Scrolling back in office chat: > But yes Person X / Fund Y is wrong size for us. (11:52 AM) So based on a sample size of one, they acknowledged they were wrong about 90 minutes ago.
• midnightmonster 4y ago
  I don't think I'm (very?) autistic. Still, I share all 4 points of experience with OP, most frequently with one person with whom I've worked off and on for 15 years. We've grown over the years and learned to some extent to accommodate each other's way of thinking and communicating. As I wrote in another comment, I think it's very helpful to notice the mismatch between how I understand myself and how others perceive me. It's also worthwhile to find ways to bridge the gap. E.g., in the "rewrite the checkout in React?" scenario, OP might be perceived as more open to the question if they offered, "That's not a small project, but we could definitely do it" before asking questions or if they started with an open question like "What might motivate us to rewrite the checkout in React?" instead of a closed (yes/no) question. Learning to speak in a way that helps people understand your intentions doesn't require compromising your truth-seeking values: it lets you enjoy the journey more with more companions.
• ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  This seems a good place to ask if other people have issues when people ask them "Is this possible?" but really mean "Would you recommend we do this/is this feasible enough to consider/is this a good idea?". I have to stop myself and mentally translate every time.
• codatory 4y ago
  As a fellow autistic in the industry, I've struggled with these same things as well. The world wants to tell us that it's entirely our responsibity to adapt to it, and there's probably some grains of truth there. But what I've learned from years of working on complicated systems is... nothing is so simple as it seems. I've read dozens of books about interpersonal relationships, taken classes, therapy, etc. and at the end of the day what I end up doing is a lot less than anyone would think is necessary. 1. If someone isn't listening, stop talking. Nobody is benefiting from that, and it's a waste of your time and energy. I get significantly better engagement with people when they can interact with me for information rather than getting an information dump. On rare occasions they ask me something that does have a long and complicated answer, I lead with that fact and ask if they want the full details or as brief of a summary as I can make (-vvv or -q). 2. Let people into your thought process. The way we associative thinkers work is completely different from what linear thinkers are doing. By walking them through your thought process (which is infuriatingly slow this way) they actually can vaguely follow why you're asking what you're asking. It also allows you to give early feedback. "There are lots of concerns that should be considered before re-writing any already working software..." Over time people will begin to understand _why_ they should ask you about certain things and they can be more understanding on what's going on under the covers. 3. I have expressed my concerns and don't believe this is the best strategy, however I will document these and will observe your orders. If it's something that keeps happening, I'm more likely to move jobs than I am to move mountains in an organizational structure. I also think it's worth at least being aware of the game, as someone who's had it played against them to significant detriment before. 4. Honestly, #1 and #2 solve this problem. It's not concincing to most NTs to recite information but allowing them to interact with you to discover the information themselves allows them to realize that you do understand the information at a deep level. We tend to recite things because a scripted response is a lot easier for us to provide, but it's not actually all that useful in the context of conveying information.
• 11thEarlOfMar 4y ago
  For me, the claim is, "Why do you always have to be right?" I've made the mistake hundreds of times in my life where I put a lot of effort into a project, only to discover that I missed something obvious at the start that invalidated the whole approach. Like selecting the architecture-defining processor for an electronics design, completing the design around it, and then discovering weeks later that it's obsolete. It's not about ego. I've tried to explain that I want to be sure I am moving forward on the basis of correct information and reasoning. It's a desire to not risk wasting time & effort.
• davorak 4y ago
  I enjoyed reading the article. I think it does a good job of explaining the authors thought process. I would also like to see the author would write in a "potential solutions"(or similar) section. It sounds like the author has figured out what their next experiment will be: > In the future, I will look for a professional environment that understands and accommodates divergent ways of thinking. but the above mentioned section would offer insight into how the author reached that solution and what other potential solutions were considered.
• dalbasal 4y ago
  I think this is a good/important article. Yes, it is a "POV" perspective, and has elements of defensiveness but it is also honest and open... trying to find better communication. >>>impatient and cut me off or interject with a snap interpretation of what I have said so far. So... this sounds like you have already entered into defensiveness by this point, one way or another. Defensiveness tends to be mutual, so perhaps you are also feeling/presenting defensiveness. For example, in your manager meeting... "I simply need you to answer these questions" can easily seem prosecutorial. It is framed in a way that makes you seem good, and him (or his ideas) seem bad. He is making whimsical decisions based on blog posts. You are focusing on real, important issues like usability. This is a frame, a somewhat combative frame... probably/probably loaded with non complimentary assumptions on your part. Whether these assumptions are true, false, exaggerated or whatnot... It creates a passive aggressive frame. These tend to be stubborn frames. It sounds like you are throwing out questions in an attempt to derail/dismiss the idea, not collaborate. Imagine the tables turned around. Next meeting on the subject. This time, your manager "needs to ask questions before forming an opinion:" (1) What is your objection to the react framework? (2) Why is performance selectively concerning only in this context, but not others?...etc. You can see where I am going. These are loaded questions, passive aggressive. Such questions will almost always elicit a a defensive riposte.
  • denton-scratch 4y ago
    > a somewhat combative frame This is a technical discussion we're talking about. In technical discussions, I don't want to faff around with euphemisms, circumlocutions, or fancy pronouns. It's hard enough to be clear in technical discourse, even if you aren't carrying those burdens. I expect people to speak directly, even if on the face of it their utterances might seem rude if spoken in a social context. If a colleague goes in with both fists and feet in a technical discussion, and wins, that doesn't mean they're no longer my friend - it just means I was wrong, and I learned something. Drawing blood in a technical discussion is just part of the life of a technician.
    • dalbasal 4y ago
      Technical, nerdy people are often combative in passive aggressive ways. Assuming a "I am the objective one" is often just a blindspot. Everyone is subjective to some extent, and admitting that you are a person with a perspective (as opposed to a neutral observer) is useful for avoiding such tensions. Just admit that you have opinions, and present them as such. "I am concerned that we are taking on a risky project, without understanding the implications. I would like to analytically discuss performance, and plan this product to these performance goals. I prefer an approach based on..." Place yourself into the narrative. Not just other people.
• siliconpotato 4y ago
  > 1. The allistic (non-autistic) person is not hearing what I'm saying We are often hearing a lot of unspecific waffle at great expense. The author goes on to say they are spending a few minutes setting the context. I have to deal with this a lot, and in reality, without cutting you off, it often goes on for 30 minutes to answer a simple question poorly. How this looks in reality. The worker wants to move some cables to another switch to install a server but prefers to waffle for 30 minutes instead of drawing a diagram. Typically this consumes the whole team meeting and nobody gets to discuss their items.
  • larve 4y ago
    I agree, communicating efficiently and precisely is key. I work pretty hard at it. Yet still, especially when someone is not conversant in my domain of expertise (real-time embedded systems, data engineering), I do need to give context. I am not talking 30 minutes here, I am talking 5 minutes at most, in the most complicated cases. In fact, this article is me trying to boil down things, and I realized I might have gone too far into conciseness :)
  • puffoflogic 4y ago
    Imagine being so proud of being incapable of systems thinking that you come up with a derogatory term for it.
• cainxinth 4y ago
  His thesis is that autistic people are unfairly characterized as not being able to admit when they wrong… and then he proceeds to explain that he’s almost never wrong.
  • shlant 4y ago
    I don't understand why so many people are saying this. The article specifically says at the begging: "When these conflicts arise, here are some things that might be happening" SOME and MIGHT are being completely ignored and replaced with absolutes by many commenters. At no point does it claim to be an exhaustive list of every possible single interaction, nor does it say that there are no other explanations. If anything, these kinds of reactions are proving the point that the Autistic are being misinterpreted (or in this case completely misrepresented).
    • knaik94 4y ago
      Most commenters are saying this based on the conclusion the author ends with. The lines that stood out to me is "I don't care much for saying false things to appease someone's ego. In cases like this, I'm not the one who can't acknowledge being wrong." They decided that everyone around them needs to change.
      • shlant 4y ago
        1. that isn't the conclusion the author ends with. That quote is addressing example #4. The overall conclusion is under the header "Conclusion" 2. That quote also is not saying "everyone needs to change". It's says they are not going to lie about being wrong just because someone else knows less than them (see the title of example #4). Why should anyone be expected to do this? Why should experts in their field pretend to not know something because of the ignorance of someone else? What does that get us?
        • larve 4y ago
          Thank you! I have indeed tried as best as I could to not prescribe anything, and just present them as “these things have happened, they have not gone well, I think I tried pretty hard, here’s what I think might have been happening”. If anything, I admit I am wrong daily (if not hourly), and I pretty much never blame anybody, because I don’t really understand what that means anyway. Someone could have done something better, sure, but who and how? That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
• sennight 4y ago
  Aren't autists notorious for introversion and a hyper-fixation on logical coherence - to an obnoxious degree? Wouldn't that make them the least likely to engage in self deception?
  • smegsicle 4y ago
    the world is too complex to reason about hyper-logically confusing lack of subtlety with logical clarity is precisely the issue
• tgflynn 4y ago
  Maybe I'm missing something but I have a hard time seeing what any of this has to do with autism. Everything in this article sounds like the lament of an intellectually honest and rational person working in an environment filled with people who are not. I do recognize that we are only getting one side of the story here, but giving the author the benefit of the doubt, that is what I see in this post.
• motohagiography 4y ago
  Not autistic at all, just not actuated by submission. I have compassion for my socially awkward brethren, but sometimes we just need a push. If most self-diagnosed "on the spectrum" people would self-accept instead, it would reduce their neuroticism and agreeableness, and most of their social issues would disappear. The anxiety comes from the double bind of having compromised ourselves into relationships where we can't maintain the dissonance between the agreeable way of relating with "good behaviour" to others that we have structured our personal relationships around - and the self we have diverted and often hidden thinking that's what we needed to do to have healthy relationships and jobs. Chances are they (we) lack personal boundaries because our ability to develop and set them was hampered by early life experiences and parents with poor personal boundaries. If you learned get things by "being good," your idea of "good" may be a transaction, where you expect others to give you things because you are good, and the compromises you make to do it pile up as resentment and soul debt. When you don't have tools to navigate the world without pretending to be "good," (whatever that means), we don't even know we're misrepresenting anymore. Internet pop psychology, but carrying around these self-diagnoses like talismans to ward off disapproval and maintain our perfectionism needs to stop. Be imperfect and accept that you are going suck at anything you haven't actively practiced with intention, particularly something like self acceptance. Anything that looks easy is almost always the effect of a huge amount of invisible work, and by starting with respect for that, it's possible to maybe walk back these protective self-diagnoses and use the same decision power to self-identify as responsible for your own feelings, and self-accept as having a quite complex experience where the journey isn't to mitigate it, but to really fully explore it. It goes so fast. Don't forget to enjoy it.
  • olifante 4y ago
    I found this to be the most insightful comment in the whole thread.
• j-pb 4y ago
  The interesting thing to me is that the statement "autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong" actually holds some truth in my experience, but it's not from some flaw of character, but the result of the more underlying issue "autistic people can’t endure to accept or reason with statements they don't see as bivalent true". For people on the spectrum fuzzy, hypothetical, conjectured, and underspecified statements are physically painful. Bad when uttered by others, hence the need to correct them, unbearable when forced to reason with or produce them oneself. I'm aware that people on the spectrum have a really hard time doing this, but viewing the points from the others viewpoint is still illustrative. 1. The allistic (non-autistic) person is not hearing what I'm saying. They are hearing, but they didn't come for a perfect lecture/monologue with the beauty of a mathematical proof, they came for a conversation where truth crystallises from the exchange of half truths and fuzzy concepts. When they come to you with a question on X, they don't come for your train of thought about X, every fact you've accumulated on X and every bit of reasoning tangential to X, showing the full validity and self consistency of X. They need a conversation where they pose a vague question, get a vague reply with follow-up questions, to which they provide more information, and so on and so forth, until the concepts are crips and bivalent truth can be attained. Because they do a top down breadth first fuzzy search their brain starts filtering out the very information that your brain deems essential to bottom up depth first process of establishing truth. So while you create "context" they are just zoning out, making affirmative noises and nods for you to continue, and hope that you'll eventually divulge information relevant to what they came for. 2. I need to ask questions before forming an opinion. The issue is very similar to 1. People don't come to you in need of a solution, with all conclusions laid out and wrapped up. They might have their own half-finished ideas and opinions that they are in the process of forming, and they are coming to you asking a question to form that opinion. You then attempting to form the same opinion by asking more questions just creates a deadlock. The conversation could have gone like this: "No, that would be way to expensive." - "Ok thanks, then nevermind." "We could, but isn't our current website fast enough?" - "Yeah, but we were hoping to attract some additional talent by incorporating interesting technology into our product." "I guess, but why?" - "I've heard a lot of things about React lately and am not sure what to think of it, but if it's potentially usable for us I should look up on it a bit more." But that requires acceptance that no opinion or truth might be formed at all. 3. I care more about doing good work than office politics. Heres the bummer for people on the spectrum, the world is not made of platonic logic, there are sometimes no rights or wrongs, even with Bayesian reasoning given two different priors the same observation can move those priors in contradictory directions. The world is fuzzy, half truths are everywhere and sometimes a tiebreaker is needed, or the answer to a question is not worth exploring. Giving in acknowledges these simple property of math and the universe, but for a person on the spectrum this is like acknowledging a Lovecraftian horror: “The piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” 4. The person underestimates how much I know about the topic. While people in IT have a general tendency to underestimate others, I'm certain that a lot of them do know. It's just a combination of 1. and 3. They don't require the convex knowledge hull of the topic, because either they know already, because it's not relevant, or because there is no clear cut answer. Sometimes they know that their position is a gross oversimplification, or that their metaphor is actually contradictory, but it helps them think in the context of their self inconsistent reasoning process which, unlike classical logic, might actually come to valid conclusions from inconsistent assumptions. The take away from this is that I can probably help myself and my spectrum colleagues by writing questions and requests more appropriate to them, with clearer mental paths, more crisp concepts, preferably by e-mail with a very explicit description of what response I need. Maybe I should also use the phrase "humor me" a lot more to acknowledge that what I'm asking is inconsistent and doesn't necessarily make sense from their perspective. I'd hope that the author would take away from this, that they don't have to be factually wrong in order to respond in the wrong way. Sometimes giving in and kindness just means having the same non-judgmental understanding for the needs and thought patterns of others, that they expect for themselves. Edit: There's actually research that quantifies this https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028393208004508?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00283...
• CTmystery 4y ago
  Regarding the concrete example: IMO these questions have nothing to do with being autistic. They are product 101 questions to ask before jumping into a rash rewrite, and the manager in this example took the author's sensible questions poorly. Speculation: perhaps it was not the content of the questions themselves that set off the manager? IDK. I'd venture that the majority of mid+ engineers ask these questions out of habit. That is, if such a proposition even makes it to them. A good product manager would ask these questions well before the proposal even made it to engineering.
• knaik94 4y ago
  I read this as writing from someone who has a hard time seeing from other people's perspective. I believe part of the responsibility falls on the author. While they acknowledge that they aren't great at communication, their conclusion does not include working on soft skills. It's something I realized when I started tutoring, if a student fails to understand you, it's not their fault for not understanding. It's on you, as the tutor, to communicate in a way that gets through to them. The ability to communicate your ideas easily and concisely is something you can learn. Here's a good list of books, although I have not personally read all of them. https://socialself.com/blog/books-improve-social-skills/#6 https://socialself.com/blog/books-improve-social-skills/#6 At the end of the day though, real world experience is the easiest. Volunteering has been my favorite thing to do to get to know new people and practice my social skills. I do not agree with the generalization of the author about all allistic people having the exact weakness outlined in the post. Effective communication is skill non-neurodivergent people work on to master too. What I'd argue is that allistic people learn more easily because they have a feedback loop they can rely on to self correct and autistic people need more clear examples to learn from. "I don't care much for saying false things to appease someone's ego. In cases like this, I'm not the one who can't acknowledge being wrong." is just a very cold approach to social interactions. There's a time and place for when that kind of clinical approach is necessary, but it's not appropriate for every social interaction.
  • zamalek 4y ago
    > someone who has a hard time who has a hard time seeing from other people's perspective You're blaming someone for their disability - this is basically the equivalent of blaming a paraplegic for not being able to walk. Social skills are almost entirely an intellectual process (as opposed to an instinctual process) for many autistic people. It's not like learning to ride a bike (as it is for neurotypical people), it's like learning algebra. Here are some resources on accepting neurological differences, as opposed to trying to fix them: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/autism/neurodiversity-and-the-benefits-autism https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/autism/neurodivers...
    • knaik94 4y ago
• cardanome 4y ago
  Most people are just bad at communication. Actually, neurotypical people especially and more so as they had less of the need to develop better communication strategies. That is why they can feel frustrated talking with a neurodivergent person, as it exposes their own flaws. That said, a business is neither a democracy nor a meritocracy. Other than hitting some baseline of required performance, your actually work performance on the job does not matter much for career success. It is all about whether the right people like you or not. You absolutely should be honest and direct when communicating anything that is in your immediate circle of concern. If you estimate the task will take you x time, never give in to pressure to lower it. Be clear what you can do and can't do and how long things might take you. Basically be reliable. Everything else, well you can be right or you can be liked. Yeah, the company might make a mistake but does it effect you personally? If not, why bother arguing? Just go with the flow and enjoy the ride.
• ebjaas_2022 4y ago
  Repost of an earlier comment I made, on a different thread: I think the difference is that an autistic person will see reality like this: | O O | | ----- ( inner landscape (fact) ) ----- | | | | | | / \ / \ | While the non-autistic person will see it like this: | O O | | ----- ( inner landscape (fact) ) ( inner landscape (fact) ) ----- | | | | | | / \ / \ | The non-autistic person will always assume that there are two inner landscapes at play, in any given social situation, two versions of reality, if you will, and two sets of facts. And they will assume that the other person sees it in the same way: They will assume that the other person also allows for two versions of reality, and two sets of facts. The autistic person will, instead, view it as if there is one big unified shared reality between him and the other person, and one true fact, in any given situation. He will also assume that the other person sees it in the same way as himself. The "double empathy problem" is that neither of them can see how the other person views the world. The non-autistic person cannot comprehend that the autistic person sees a single shared reality, and a single fact. Likewise, the autistic person cannot comprehend that the non-autistic person sees two different realities and two sets of facts.
  • pcthrowaway 4y ago
    What makes you think autistic people are more inclined to have the first view, and the neurotypical people the latter?
    • ebjaas_2022 4y ago
      It's my personal experience from interacting with people who are on the spectrum. I generally find it very difficult to make sense of the communication that I have with people who are autistic, especially socially, and especially if I'm close to them. To me it's as if everything is backwards, sort of. But I've come to realize that they also see it in the same way. They also perceive their own communication with non-autistic persons as being backwards. They perceive it as if there's something important that the non-autistic person "does not get". And I perceive it as if there's something important that the autistic person "does not get". The model that I've described above is the only way that I can make sense of it all. I also note that the author of the original post describes himself as being more "holistic" in his approach to problem solving, than his non-autistic co-workers. He has the belief that he "sees the whole picture", while the other non-autistic person "sees only half of it". What autistic people fail to recognize, in my mind, is that it does not matter if you've read 50 books about a topic. Even if you have, you still only own "half of the reality" in a meeting with another person about a topic. You still have to take his world view into account, even if you've read 50 books. You cannot "own" or "control" the reality, or the facts, of a situation, no matter how much you know about it. In a meeting with another person you always own only half of the reality.
• ThrustVectoring 4y ago
  "You can't acknowledge when you're wrong" isn't about whether or not you're actually wrong, whether or not you acknowledge it, or even about you, really. It's often a social ploy to make your agreement unnecessary for the rest of the group to commit to collective understanding and action. "Oh, Jim just can't admit when he's wrong" lets the rest of the group use a "consensus of people we think are behaving reasonably" instead of actual consensus. (The biggest other thing this can be is a complaint that the victim doesn't let the complainant win enough arguments, and that the audience should consider more of the arguments won without the victim conceding and with an extra penalty of being seen as a sore loser.)
• koonsolo 4y ago
  I once worked with someone who was also different in that sense. I'm not sure if he was autistic, but he had a hard time understanding or wanting to understand the business or functional part. His explanations were sometimes hard to understand, especially for non technical people. He would get really frustrated when he would get vague specs to implement. He and I however, got along fine, because I'm also a developer. I see the author of the article is here on HN, so here is my advice: try to set yourself up in an environment where you mainly communicate with technical people, and receive proper specs. You can let the other developers work more closely with functional and business people. I would guess try to program something that interfaces not with users, but with other systems. The "hey I read a blog post that we should use this" would also frustrates me a lot :D. That is the kind of person that should be made clear about where the boundaries are of their and your expertise.
• foogazi 4y ago
  I liked the article > 3. I care more about doing good work than office politics. This whole section illustrates the uncrossable chasm of not “getting” people, while at the same time believing in your own smartness You should strive for general I, not just logical I People are not computers, they don’t share your logic and your own logic is fallible as it runs on top of unreliable wet-ware
• coldtea 4y ago
  >In this particular situation, the discussion never got past the first question. I needed to understand why our checkout had to be improved; I explained that technology choices made no difference to the user. However, the manager interpreted my words as outright rejecting their idea. Well, it was "outright rejecting their idea". Whatever the phrasing used, the actual question wasn't "Would it be technological better and improve the user experience if we use React for our checkout UI?". It was rather "I read about this React thing. Sounds cool. Cool companies use it. Should we use it ourselves too and be cool like them?"
  • aoki 4y ago
    More charitably, there was a pretty good probability that the manager was asking a variant of that question. So the reasonable and respectful response is to invite them to say more about what they are thinking.
• dkarl 4y ago
  There are a lot of obvious questions to ask about a situation that aren't being mentioned. What is my actual power to influence this decision? What would the most effective line of communication look like? What are the motivations behind this? What do different people think is at stake? What kind of appeal will have the most influence on the person in front of me? I don't think autism prevents a person from appreciating the importance of these questions. It might affect your ability to answer them quickly or correctly, but it doesn't render you incapable of posing them and acknowledging them as important influences on the situation. A person who is blind from birth can understand that their clothes have color and that color-coordination affects how other people perceive them. So why do those questions get left out? I think the answer is that some autistic people, including me when I was younger, cling to a very strict idea of what it means to communicate in good faith. I used to assume that if people were speaking in good faith, they would appreciate me taking their arguments at face value and directly addressing the objectives we had in common. They would be rigorous about admitting their motivations and, in general, be willing to be explicit about every factor they were taking into account. I also felt that if they weren't speaking in good faith, I was pretty much screwed and helpless. I didn't have an answer for that. So I handled every situation by striving to speak in good faith, owning my deficiencies in that regard, and hiding any suspicion that the other person wasn't speaking in good faith because 1) I didn't have a game plan for it, and 2) being aware of it made me feel guilty and scared. Over time it dawned on me that this "good faith"/"bad faith" dichotomy, whatever its merits might be in a society that embraced it, wasn't useful in this reality, because most people don't think in those terms. There are a lot of people of basically good will, who aren't overly selfish, who go through life being mostly nice to people, who also violate the rules of good faith argumentation (as I understood them) virtually every time they open their mouths, and are completely un-self-conscious about it. I had to learn that even though they were good nice people, it was okay for me to be aware of "impure" aspects of communication with them. I didn't have to feel dirty about seeing into the mix of motivations of the person I was talking to, even if I liked them and thought they were a good person. That didn't make me immediately better at dealing with people, but it was one of those "oh now I can start learning" turning points. It also led to a big improvement in my personal life. Understanding something about somebody and making use of it without explicitly acknowledging it used to feel dirty to me, but other people want and need you to do it, especially when you're first getting to know them. You need to be able to understand and accommodate people's quirks long before you become close enough to talk about them. That rule turns out to be just as true in business. When it comes to dealing with people's flaws, what's best for the business is usually what's best for them. It's very bad for someone if their flaws cause problems for the company. They need their coworkers to be aware of their weaknesses and adjust for them, but they probably don't like hearing them mentioned unless you have a very close personal rapport with them (and maybe not even then.) Anyway, before I accepted all that, I used to obsess about improving my adherence to the rules of good faith argumentation, assuming that anything outside that scope would be scary if not morally wrong. Really, most of the mistakes I was making were caused by me intentionally ignoring everything I knew about the social context of a discussion because I thought it would be insulting to other people if I did anything that reflected an awareness that they might be influenced by factors that they weren't explicitly acknowledging. How exactly autism or other factors might have got me into that mental cul-de-sac in the first place isn't clear to me. I might have some deficiency in my ability to instinctively read other people's minds and emotions, but in this case, the problem was not lack of insight but a deeply engrained taboo against using the insight that I had. One explanation is that when I was little I wasn't good at observing the taboos around what motivations can and can't be acknowledged, and to protect myself against repeated failures to observe those taboos, I created a blanket taboo against acknowledging people's internal lives. Or maybe my parents instilled some weird stuff in me and I was too autistic to learn different rules for home and school. Who knows.
• jjk166 4y ago
  In one of my first jobs (an internship actually), I had a great manager who introduced me to the concept of active communication. While unfortunately the internet has some terrible articles about the subject, the actual idea behind it is taking responsibility for the whole communication process. I find it is extremely helpful for coming across clearly and effectively, especially as a person on the spectrum. In the case of a disagreement, basically start out trying to figure out where the other person's head is at with open ended, exploratory questions (stuff like "what are you looking to achieve?" or "why do you feel this is the case?"). Avoid accusatory questions like "what makes you think that?" or "do you think X is bad?" Expressing humility by, for example, stating that you don't understand something before asking them to explain their view of it helps. Once you know their starting position, instead of simply speaking at them, instead guide them to reach the conclusion for themselves. Repeat information they've already accepted as true frequently ask them what these givens imply. Always maintain an off ramp. If someone initially disagreed with you, odds are at some point you're going to find a sticking point where one of you is either factually incorrect or you have fundamentally different judgements. This normally is where discussion turns into argument. Give people an opportunity to save face - something like "you know I only very recently learned myself that this isn't actually true" or "you would think that's the case but there's this unintuitive gotcha in this instance" allows a person to change their position without calling their general intelligence or expertise into question. In the case of a judgement disagreement, something like "let's pretend for a moment that you desire this" let's them move forward without having to actually confront the disconnect. If someone is fatigued or aggravated, make sure there's a way for them to blow off steam, for example something like "you're making some good points, I'd like to double check my info, can we revisit this later" let's them walk away feeling good and makes you look humble while also giving them leeway to be more agreeable when you do eventually bring it back up. At the same time, always be responsive to the other person. If they are interjecting, let them speak and take note of what they say. Again it's more important that they feel they've explained their reasoning than that you lay the groundwork for yours. When they legitimately bring up good points, acknowledge them; when it seems like they are holding something back, probe a bit; if their train of thought goes off on a tangent, explore it. While this might sound a bit tedious, especially if you already have a pretty good idea of what specific points you need to convey, a lot of people care more about being heard than the particulars of what they are saying. Ultimately, reel them back in after they've made their point and modify the logic path you're taking them along accordingly. After guiding them through the thought process, then confirm that you have communicated your point by having them repeat back to you their current understanding. If your message was successfully communicated, it should be readily apparent. If not, it should still be evident where the miscommunication is occurring. Recursively repeat the process until the message is completely communicated. You may still not agree in the end, but both of you should be well aware as to why you disagree.
• hzhou321 4y ago
  The author's view is very relatable (to me). I am going to bookmark it since it verbalize my feeling so fittingly. I am not sure I am autistic, but I have to be to some extent. I can see where the essay goes partial. The author focuses on explaining self, but neglect in analyzing why others are having issues understanding the author. And I think I understand the reason -- the author is simply (much) more interested in solving the engineering problems than the political problems. The author probably understand the importance of politics, but simply not interested. I can relate to that. I don't even think that is a problem. If you are happy focusing on technical problems and want to avoid the political side, so be it. However, I am concerned that the author mentions burnout. If you are having risk of burning out, then apparently there is an issue and the author is stubbornly avoid addressing the issue. The answer may not be -- you need learn and play politics. It could be -- you need learn to balance yourself. It depends on individuals, but refusing to address it is wrong.
  • larve 4y ago
    I actually really enjoy the "politics" part of it. I think it's just a loaded word for "get many people to align and work together productively," and it's absolutely fascinating from a technical point of view. So many "technical" problems can be solved by just communicating, the best feature is the one that doesn't need to be written. What I don't enjoy is when politics turns into bullying, where one has to give in to someone without proper reasons. This is for example a manager pushing through a technical decision the team doesn't agree with "because they're the manager", or a senior engineer dismissing a junior engineer "because you're just a kid". Expecting people to go along with that is what I would just walk away from.
• knockoff 4y ago
  Just remove the quotes from the title
• anotherevan 4y ago
  “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong” I have some ruminations on this. My ruminations may be completely wrong. Double empathy problems start from a young age. Those with ASD figure out from a young age that there's a layer of social communication that they are not getting. They are often overtly teased for the faux pas' that inevitably occur. I wonder if this, plus a stronger penchant for black and white thinking does enforce a stronger aversion to "being wrong" then your average person. Possibly even a stress reaction to previous trauma for some (I definitely think I'm on shaky ground there).
• mjfl 4y ago
  Right because “neurotypical” people acknowledge when they’re wrong all the time.
• sebastianconcpt 4y ago
  A lot of the problems mentioned here are absolutely an issue for every intelligent human being, and not at all exclusive to autistic people. It might be more annoying to them? That I don't know but is hell of annoying for anyone that is high in industriousness. I'm specially annoyed when the interlocutor puts the burden of his own lack of understanding in you when you're trying to make a point across. If they secretly declared war on your idea, they can pick the least generous interpretation of anything you're saying and pretend you are an ignorant and pose as dismissive because you or your idea are not worthy of their consideration. Short term they might be appearing smart but you know it was like trying to teach how to play chess to a pigeon that only bumped all the pieces of the board and look you in the eye wondering why you are so stupid. Plot twist: you might be a little bit stupid in a twisted way: you were too generous with the wrong person. Giving too much attention to the wrong toxic interlocutor.
  • Invictus0 4y ago
    I don't think it's fair to assume the counterparty here is a "toxic interlocutor". Communication is hard, very hard, and engineers typically suck at it. And it is absolutely the burden of the speaker to communicate their ideas properly to the listener; it sounds like you're saying "the way I explained it is good enough for me so if you didn't get it you're an idiot". Finally, "secretly declared war on your idea"? This sounds rather overdramatic.
    • sebastianconcpt 4y ago
      I'm with you in not always assuming the worst. Not at all. I'm also with you in that communication is hard and people high in industriousness and analytical can easily have a hard time with communication. Specialist have to pay attention to not forget how is it to communicate with "normal people" and speak more languages than nerdese. Said that, I really don't think that evil has to be underestimated one bit. Ill intentions do exist. Also, political agendas and ideological possession are brutally strong motivators for "secretly declaring war on your idea". Cancel culture is an obvious expression of that once you remove the secretive part of it and becomes overt instead of covert.
• cat_plus_plus 4y ago
  Also good for them if true. Adults must be resistant to worldview challenges or they will be taken advantage of and brainwashed. Admitting that one is wrong should require that: - The case is made through facts and reason rather than emotions - The challenger is willing to invest time into making his or her case and be as open minded about possibly being wrong as he/she wants me to be open minded about me being wrong - Significant practical harm of me continuing with my current position has to be demonstrated When people expect everyone to just change their minds to suit them, the issue is a personality disorder, not autism.
• chrismarlow9 4y ago
  You might be right about the ultimate outcome, but I think the questions you ask may be wrong. In the example of changing the checkout to React I might ask myself would it increase development trajectory and look for numbers related to that. Things like how many features were delivered last quarter and what was the scope size of those features? How might these things fit into a react framework and does it improve delivery times on our future project plans? Is our system a proprietary one and how long would it take to onboard a new developer vs hiring someone that knows React and can add value within a week? It's easy to decipher that nothing is wrong with the checkout page as it exists from performance. What's really being proposed here is an attempt to get ahead of it before it becomes a problem. Keeping the growth needs of an engineering team in mind you have to remember nobody wants to work on a technical stack that uses ancient technology and hasn't been updated because "it's not broken". The evaluation just seems like it's too narrow of a focus the way it's worded here. Just my 2 cents though.
  • asmithmd1 4y ago
    but I think the questions you ask may be wrong Exactly this. You asked one question that you summarized dismissively as "...because they had read a blog post about another company doing it." You could have stroked their ego a little by saying that you don't have the breadth of perspective that they do, before asking questions about what they perceive as the advantages of switching to React. Would it help get the team more visibility or credibility? Would it help advance their work goals? What they should have asked you is: How long will it take to switch? What is your technical opinion of making a switch? They are not asking for push back about what concrete problems need to be solved. There are infinite ways to implement a solution, for some reason a manager focused on this way to create a solution, they want to know how long it will take and if you are interested in doing it, or would hate doing it.
• woevdbz 4y ago
  I'm not sure I understand what this has to do with autism. Eg the "should we use React" situation - I have quite a few colleagues too (presumably not all of them autistic) who tend not to answer directly the questions that they're being asked until they can reframe them in a clean way going back to first principles. I think it serves them well in some instances like systems design where this kind of behavior is particularly useful, and it's very counterproductive in other settings such as dealing with higher level execs, who tend not to ask the "right" questions because they don't have all the context, but feel like they're being stonewalled when asking what (to them) sounds like a simple question. Balancing this is a communication challenge for everyone.
• deleted 4y ago
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• dasil003 4y ago
  Wow, I am floored at so many comments painting an egocentric view of the author. I find it highly ironic that supposedly high EQ neurotypicals would not be able to take one small step back and evaluate what is written with a modicum of assumed good intent. Take this example: > A manager came to me asking if we should rewrite the checkout of our E-Commerce platform using React because they had read a blog post about another company doing it. > [...] > In this particular situation, the discussion never got past the first question. My reaction to this is, yes obviously an engineer should be asking these questions, and it's a huge red flag that the manager didn't entertain even the first one. Obviously we don't have that managers side of the story, so I take it with a small grain of salt, but on the other hand the issue is articulated very clearly, and it is decidedly not personal or egocentric. In fact the questions are exactly what I as an EM expect my senior ICs to be asking. This demonstrates ownership and good thinking about the overall cost and impact of resourcing decisions. Good systems can not be built by managers dictating things without buy in from the expert ICs who actually build and maintain them. Therefore I think it's completely bass-ackwards that we would ding the IC for a communication gap (regardless of neurotype)—I've seen far too many cases of teams just doing what they're told and driving off a cliff because everyone prioritized agreeability and had a very narrow view of their own responsibilities. When the shit hit the fan everyone just throws their hands in the air and says "not my job". So let me first say, kudos to you larve, you are the type of engineer I want on my team. Now that said, some feedback. Describing office politics as "playing mind games" does you no favors in terms of being understood. I know what you mean—office politics often involved bending over backwards and dancing around issues to avoid offending people. This is not my idea of fun either. That said, morale matters, and this song and dance is a big part of how morale is managed for allistic people. Furthermore, there is a fundamentally difficult issue which is if you have 100 smart people, building consensus through complete understanding is impossible. At some point owners need to be identified, decisions made, and progress begun. Some people will need to "disagree and commit" with partial understanding. Given your experience I don't expect you would disagree with that in any way, but when folks are short with you, consider the difficulty of reaching such consensus. I don't think it's an excuse for shortcuts, but this is the art of technical management, and it requires hard work and a commitment to building trust and understanding from all parties to have any hope of realizing large scale technical achievements.
• julianlam 4y ago
  As an aside, can anyone recommend a subreddit or community for parents of children with autism? I feel like it may be a good place to consolidate strategies.
  • anotherevan 4y ago
    Hi Julian. Don't know about Reddit, but you can probably find some groups on Facebook. I'm a member of a few there, but they are specific to my city and/or country (Australia). Some groups can be good, and others toxic, so your mileage may vary. In particular a Dads-only group can be a pretty good low-judgement venue for blokes. My daughter (22) and son (20) are both ASD. My email is in my profile if you want to reach out. E.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• jrochkind1 4y ago
  > However, "giving in" is not the same as acknowledging when you are wrong: it is simply playing mind games—games I am not interested in playing. > There is more to life: I am an engineer; I like solving problems. I embrace fairness and open intellectual exchange. This matters to me a whole lot more than getting promoted. Plus, "giving in" does not preserve peace—it simply appeases bullies and makes the workplace toxic. OK, yes, but, how about: "I am still not convinced, BUT I realize neither of us are going to convince the other one right now, and I've been wrong before, let's try it your way this time." This is not appeasing bullies and making the workplace toxic. Sometimes insisting on arguing everything out forever every time you think you are right is what is in fact accidentally being a bully and making the workplace toxic. (And I have definitely been that person; I am not to my knowledge autistic, although some people have wondered sometimes). I think people can mean either one by "giving in", I am wondering whether the OP, in rejecting "pretending I agree when I don't" is accidentally being the person who "always insists on getting their way every time".
  • bsder 4y ago
    > OK, yes, but, how about: "I am still not convinced, BUT I realize neither of us are going to convince the other one right now, and I've been wrong before, let's try it your way this time." And one of the big things that tech people often don't ask themselves is: "Does arguing over this really matter?" "Winning" an argument almost always costs you some social capital, so save your arguments for the things that are genuinely important. If you've said the "right" answer, people still want to argue, but it doesn't affect you then sit down and shut up. Sometimes you have to let people make a mistake so they can learn. If they're really smart, not only will they learn they were wrong but they will remember that you were right but didn't beat them up about it.
  • maerF0x0 4y ago
    > let's try it your way this time I've never understood why people go along with things they disagree about. It seems people often beat a good argument with the threat of retribution if we dont play along. Doesnt sound like a recipe for well thought out actions or incentives.
• estiaan 4y ago
  The thing is that sometimes people are right about a thing, and they know it, but they're not good at debate or arguing. Other people are good at arguing and they often win debates, but in this hypothetical instance they are wrong. I see this happen all the time, but I don't see anyone talk about it. Like your ability to think logically and express logical arguments doesn't 100% correlate with your knowledge, experience and intelligence, and just because you win every argument doesn't mean you're right every time. That's why it's important to back down in arguments, we're all human and we all make mistakes.
• kitanata 4y ago
  Oh man. Reading this hit hard on so many points for me. I am also autisic. I don’t agree generally with some of the conclusions and approach of the author, but I suspect they are navigating a truely hostile (to them) work environment. Now before you dismiss me, consider that autistic people are generally speaking… awful at recognizing situations that are actively hostile to them. And yes, Neurotypicals are sometime quite hostile to autisic people. I’ve been a victim of discrimination and outright campaigns to isolate and harass me. It happens. Sometimes it’s on purpose, sometimes it is a natural result of repeated conflict. Now, let’s say for example that you had a co-worker who actually had it out for you; would actively undermine your work, sabotage your efforts… for whatever reason. As a nuerotypical you would recognize this behavior quite quickly and develop a strategy around it. Perhaps that strategy involves talking to the right people, executing some kind of trap, confront the behavior head on, or simply walking away. Since an autisic person has difficulty detecting negative intent, they would instead try to puzzle out why the “clearly wrong” person just won’t listen to them. From that they draw these conclusions about themselves and the world around them about their behavior because they cannot understand the behavior of Nuerotypicals (to be fair here NTs don’t understand our behavior either). Trust me, I’ve drawn some pretty wild conclusions myself at times. To illustrate, I recently worked with a very Narcissistic and toxic personality. By all outside observers this was 100% dark triad kind of behavior in this person (I verified it with multiple independent opinions). Anyway, this person was so difficult to work with, so directly hostile, and so stressful to work with that I re-entered therapy where I, at 36 years of age finally learned two very important things. 1. Some people will want to fuck you up, just because they don’t like you. Not everyone is good or does good things. This is “irrational” but it is real. 2. Not everyone had the same capacity as you do… and you don’t have the same capacity as others. For those without your capacity you must teach, and for those that have capacity that you lack, you must learn. These two “rules” have finally demystified some aspects of office realpolitik for me. I suspect that the author, my fellow autistic, has yet to also understand this about people. Their intent might purposefully be to oppose you and undermine you. Ignore it, work around it, or leave. They will never be an ally to you. Stop trying.
  • larve 4y ago
    I recognize myself quite well in those words. Thank god I didn't have to encounter an actively hostile person yet, but my big discovery last year was indeed that not everyone at work is motivated by doing a good job. It obviously sounds obvious when put like this, but it is something I wasn't able to put together in my own life. I have since left this job (my immediate colleagues and most people I worked with were great, it takes just a few individuals to really disrupt and dismantle good engineering), and am now in a place where I slowly had to discover how amazingly efficient and productive things can be when I am given trust and enough autonomy. I think I have 2. pretty well figured out. What I don't know how to handle (as evidenced by some comments here) is when to divulge how much I study / what fields I have a lot of experience in. I never understood where the boundary is between people thinking you are a know-it-all and arrogant, and thinking you are an idiot.
• namlem 4y ago
  How far on the spectrum do you have to be for this to apply? I and a few of my friends are ASD, though very high functioning, and I'm pretty sure none of us have this problem.
  • nomel 4y ago
    Same here, and I'm quite literally the opposite. I'm the first to admit that I'm wrong, and I don't see how one could be logical without that trait. Being wrong is trivial compared to being right. Great care should be taken when presenting something as "correct", and equal care should be taken to communicate uncertainty, when it's present. I try very hard to never be "wrong", because I find it very uncomfortable for everyone involved. It's a waste of time and effort, and often causes emotions. I'm also a person that has "I don't know" in the ready, in my vocabulary, which I've found is somewhat rare in the professional world, especially as education level increases.
• gjs278 4y ago
• ggm 4y ago
  Some non autistic people chose not to acknowledge when they're wrong, as part of their sociopathic dominance behaviour. If you have control, it can be a mode of operation which "works for you"
• aurelien 4y ago
  It depends of the degree of autism. The less autistic one will need proof to accept the true. The hard autistic one will not accept any evidence until his way of think.
• throwawayblah54 4y ago
  What I expected: an article about the common ways in which autistic people don't realize they're wrong and therefore refuse to admit it. For example, autistic people will often optimize their engineering decisions around a performance metric (speed, memory usage, etc) that doesn't matter much, rather than a business metric (ease of use, maintainability) that does. When you push back, they will accuse you of not valuing "good engineering", just like this author does. What I got: an article lecturing neurotypicals about how, whenever they think an autistic person may be wrong, it's actually just because autistic people are more holistic thinkers and know more than them.
• strken 4y ago
  My father does the first and second things. I have no idea whether he has autism or not, but it used to drive me insane. Using the React example, you do not need several minutes to explain why large software projects are a waste of money unless they're pursuing business objectives. It's trivially obvious, just say a slightly more diplomatic version of the previous sentence. The reason I'm not hearing what you're saying is because the question needed a simple two sentence answer, but you turned it into a two-minute rambling monologue involving several anecdotes and then began explaining what Chesterton's Fence is and how the sunk cost fallacy doesn't apply. At that point any reasonable listener would cut into what you're saying with "okay, but back to our shopping cart," and it would be 100% your fault. Another thing my father is awful at is understanding when something is about general fact-finding vs a specific suggestion. If a manager comes up to you in the kitchenette and says "I've been reading about the new React checkout system at Dunder Mifflin and they say it increased ARR by $200k, do you think we should rewrite?" it's probably not a project proposal. It's a fact-finding question. You don't need to go into attack mode and protect your checkout flow from an unnecessary rewrite. Say "Well, React is a great technology for building really big web apps, but our checkout page is pretty small and not a web app, so we'd have to make sure we were solving real business problems." I've worked with autistic people who managed not to do either of these things, I don't think it's inherent to the condition, and I have no idea if this is an accurate description of what the author's talking about. They pattern match very closely to experiences I've had before, though.
  • riwsky 4y ago
    Benefit of the doubt to the author: they caveat the asking-lots-of-questions with "If [they] don't have enough information". Were they familiar enough with the checkout system to answer the question off the cuff, they may well have done so.
• TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  “A manager came to me asking if we should rewrite the checkout of our E-Commerce platform using React because they had read a blog post about another company doing it. I entertained the question in good faith. However, in order to make an informed decision, I needed to understand a few things: Is our checkout page not performing well? Will a new checkout solve our problem? Why do they think a technology change is a solution? Do they understand the implications of such a switch? In this particular situation, the discussion never got past the first question. I needed to understand why our checkout had to be improved; I explained that technology choices made no difference to the user. However, the manager interpreted my words as outright rejecting their idea.” I have this problem which is that I don’t really understand what autism is supposed to be. Because the example of autism described above just seems like sound decision making. The person who wants to rewrite some software because they read a blog post about some programming language is just a person who doesn’t have a good understanding of what engineering and software development are.
• zasdffaa 4y ago
  I've known autistic people and there was a strong tendency to reject what they don't want to hear. I've also met a very autistic/aspergers person who would listen and consider (and there may be more than one, I just can't think of them ATM). I've also met non-autistic people who simply can't listen or accept any kind of 'challenge' (as they perceive it). Not a few of the buggers either. I've come to wonder if bloody-minded utter certitude is in fact a distinct and separate trait that has some positive, but not absolute, correlation with autism. Given the way my exposure to the autistic and the non-autistic-but-bull-headed run parallel sometimes but at others it diverges, perhaps that's a better description of what's going on. Maybe.
• a_puppy 4y ago
  I sympathize with the OP. Particularly this part: > A typical piece of advice I receive is that there comes the point where you need to "give in," especially to people in authority. This preserves peace in the workplace and helps with promotions. However, "giving in" is not the same as acknowledging when you are wrong: it is simply playing mind games—games I am not interested in playing. > There is more to life: I am an engineer; I like solving problems. I embrace fairness and open intellectual exchange. This matters to me a whole lot more than getting promoted. Plus, "giving in" does not preserve peace—it simply appeases bullies and makes the workplace toxic. I've repeatedly been in situations where a person in authority proposed a bad idea, and I tried to push for a better alternative, but I was told I should "give in" to preserve the peace. So I believe the OP. In these comments, a lot of people are advising the OP to learn better soft skills. The implied reason boils down to "Most people are allistic, so allistic people make the world's implicit rules. If an autistic person doesn't learn to play by those rules, they're going to lose." For example, allistic people tend to respect hierarchies, so there's a "rule" that OP should "give in" to the person in authority. I think this advice is correct for the individual; learning better soft skills is the only thing OP can personally do. But, it makes the organization as a whole more dysfunctional. If a person in authority is wrong, then if the "rule" is that OP should give in, then the person in authority will continue to be wrong, and that's bad for the organization! I believe the organization can do better. The "rules" are not set in stone; although they arise from human nature, they are shaped by an organization's culture. For example, many small organizations are less hierarchical, so the "rules" would tend to put more pressure on the person in authority to listen to what OP was saying. If OP was actually right, that would lead to a better result for the organization than if OP gave in.
• 5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
  95% of all people don't. the more you present to them facts the more bullheaded and stubborn they become.
• BubbleRings 4y ago
  And to you with the college degree, that he mentioned. Be aware that, by now, several years beyond typical college age, OP now reads more textbook material in a year than many graduates read in their entire college experience. The wizard has worked much harder than you for many many years. He just doesn't frame it and hang it on his office wall.
• labrador 4y ago
  I had a brilliant autistic girlfriend and everything she said was fine but she would say them at the wrong time. She couldn't read the situation. She would be the kind of person to correct her boss in front of his boss. I learned from watching her and thinking about what she should be doing. For example, I had a altercation with a guy over a parking spot we both wanted. I was alone but he had his girlfriend in the car. I looked at it from his point of view and realized there was no way he was going to back down in front of his girlfriend, so I let him have the space in a friendly way and went about my day.
• lovemenot 4y ago
  >> autistic people cant acknowledge when they are wrong The only acknowledgement made in the article is internally: I read more, I investigate things I don't know. Other than this, the person seems to fail to acknowledge the possibility of ever being wrong to us readers. Indurectltly justifying the presumed prejudice of allistics.
• corobo 4y ago
  > people can become impatient and cut me off or interject with a snap interpretation of what I have said so far. A phrase I've noticed zoomers using recently is "let me land!" if you interrupt them. It's probably not zoomer specific but that's where I've heard it. It conveys that you still have more to say, mildly points out the rudeness of being interrupted, and people seem to understand exactly what you mean without further explanation so you can get back to your thought. Whether it works in the workplace I'm not sure, probably depends on the tone of voice. I would throw a please in there too.
• cthalupa 4y ago
  As best as I can tell, only the first point seems related to autism. All of the questions listed in 2 are things that an allistic person might (should) ask. Plenty of allistic people care more about doing their work than politics. Plenty of allistic people have their knowledge underestimated in the situation presented. Even #1 happens plenty with allistic people, but I do understand that this is more likely to occur when an allistic and autistic person are interacting. In my personal experience, I find it is difficult for people to admit when they are wrong. I've never found it to be particularly correlated with being neurotypical or neurodivergent, however.