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> when you get asked why you did apply. What they're really asking, translated to "blunt and frank communication" mode is: "Why should we even care that you ap

> when you get asked why you did apply. What they're really asking, translated to "blunt and frank communication" mode is: "Why should we even care that you applied?" Then saying "hey, I need money for blah whatever" is non-responsive, but you can just talk about why you think you might be a good fit for them after all. Much of this stuff is just cultural anyway. There are Western societies where being "blunt and frank" like that is quite accepted or even expected, unlike the U.S. and the Anglosphere more generally.

saghm 2y ago
> What they're really asking, translated to "blunt and frank communication" mode is: "Why should we even care that you applied?" Then saying "hey, I need money for blah whatever" is non-responsive, but you can just talk about why you think you might be a good fit for them after all. Yes, and that's exactly what's confusing to people like me who have autism; the question being asked isn't actually the question that they're looking for the answer to, and it's up to us to figure out what they actually mean. In this context, it might seem obvious to someone neurotypical, but I don't think I can easily articulate just how common this type of thing happens on a regular basis. The problem for me is that while I might understand what to do in this circumstance due to having encountered it before, it feels impossible to extrapolate what people mean when I'm in a new situation that I haven't had a chance to learn the "rules" for yet. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've had to separately learn what the expected norms are for pretty much every circumstance I've ever encountered when people say one thing but assume that it's clear that they mean something different. The fact that most of this stuff is cultural doesn't really change the fact that implicitly learning rules like this is something that most people don't struggle with to the extent that people with autism do. To me, the issue isn't that I specifically want people to be "blunt and frank" or not, but that no one directly communicates what the expectations are, and that it's not as simple as a binary of whether to be blunt or not. Most people might struggle if they suddenly found themselves in a culture where the expectations were different than they were used to, but they probably didn't struggle to learn the expectations of their own culture. For me, learning the expectations of the culture I've spent my entire life in is still an ongoing process after over three decades, and I don't expect that it will ever really be complete. An culture of all autistic people wouldn't be identifiable merely by how blunt they are, but by the giant binder they give everyone who comes to visit with all of the expectations written out to avoid any confusion. The reason I struggle with communication every day of my life is because I never got that binder, but everyone else seems to already have it memorized.
- zozbot234 2y ago
  I think I've made the case above that it's not merely about "being neurotypical", it's also about being steeped in a very specific culture. That peculiar use of "why did you apply" might as well be described as an idiomatic expression, a play on words that happens to be common in that well-defined context. If you aren't familiar with that usage because you are from a different cultural context (or even something as simple as a different "low-class" socio-economic stratum in the same society), you might misunderstand the question in the exact same way - or perhaps you'll grok it but you'll still be bothered by the implied "dishonesty" in it and be inclined to subvert expectations by starting with a straight and to the point answer, and then getting into the actual topic of why you think you were right to apply.
  - saghm 2y ago
    My point isn't that neurotypical people will always be familiar with whatever idioms they encounter, but that learning those idioms is way easier for them. It seems like you're misunderstanding what I'm saying as the struggles of not understanding specific things as being specific to autistic people, and that's not the case; I'm saying that while neurotypical people might have to deal with specific cases of idioms or figures of speech, autistic people will often struggle with the meta-problem of struggling with idioms or figures of speech as an entire category rather than with not being familiar with individual ones. I don't just struggle with understanding language like that when dealing with people who come from a different background than me; I struggle to understand language like that when talking to my parents and my brothers and my wife, despite having talked with them more than anyone else in my life. That's not something that most people would struggle with, but it's something that I suspect a lot of autistic people would relate to.
    - quinnirill 2y ago
      As someone having experienced (and of course still experiencing) similar struggles as a person with ADHD, the Heureka moment for me was realizing that the difference is I'm overthinking it. In quite a lot of the situations, there's no right answer people are looking for. There's no strict protocol, people just say whatever random stuff that comes into their mind and it might not even be related to what the other person said, then the other person builds on from there or says their own random stuff. Sometimes they strike a chord, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they end up saying the completely wrong thing and then they may or may not attempt to correct the situation. Trying to attribute a system to it is mostly just my own desire for order that probably doesn't exist. Like most things in life, the system is so complex that it might as well be random in some aspects.
eptcyka 2y ago
Lmao, then ask ”Why should we even care?”. I will filter people who lie or can put things straight regardless which side of the interviewing table I am sat.
sickblastoise 2y ago
Chat, are Dutch people autistic?
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  4chan seems to privately believe that Germans and all Germanic groups are plagued by ethnic autism. I tongue in cheek believe it given how dry their humor is.
wisty 2y ago
> What they're really asking, translated to "blunt and frank communication" mode is: "Why should we even care that you applied?" I think you just made that up. There can be plenty of things the interviewer could be fishing for. They may want to hear that the candidate really wants to work at this job (and have a "correct" reason - the company, the team, the nature of the job ....). They might want to hear about how it's similar to your previous jobs. It's quote possible they want a specific response, and it's either an intentional or untintentional gotcha. The interviewer might just have heard it's a good question, and is filling in time, or faking being a good interviewer. They aren't "autistically" trying to get the best candidate, maybe then your interpretation is right and you want to say why you're a good candidate for the job.
- zozbot234 2y ago
  Why are you assuming that being a good fit would not also include things such as liking the company, the job etc? It's all the same thing anyway, you're right that there might be some cases where that becomes quite relevant. What's not going to be helpful though is answering "hey I just want to make some money and pay my rent" - even though in some sense, that answer might be quite reflective of reality!
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - wisty 2y ago
    Yes. But the interviewer isn't asking something in "non-autistic language", they're farting out their mouth, and you need to just fill the space with something that sounds good.

saghm 2y ago

> What they're really asking, translated to "blunt and frank communication" mode is: "Why should we even care that you applied?" Then saying "hey, I need money for blah whatever" is non-responsive, but you can just talk about why you think you might be a good fit for them after all. Yes, and that's exactly what's confusing to people like me who have autism; the question being asked isn't actually the question that they're looking for the answer to, and it's up to us to figure out what they actually mean. In this context, it might seem obvious to someone neurotypical, but I don't think I can easily articulate just how common this type of thing happens on a regular basis. The problem for me is that while I might understand what to do in this circumstance due to having encountered it before, it feels impossible to extrapolate what people mean when I'm in a new situation that I haven't had a chance to learn the "rules" for yet. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've had to separately learn what the expected norms are for pretty much every circumstance I've ever encountered when people say one thing but assume that it's clear that they mean something different. The fact that most of this stuff is cultural doesn't really change the fact that implicitly learning rules like this is something that most people don't struggle with to the extent that people with autism do. To me, the issue isn't that I specifically want people to be "blunt and frank" or not, but that no one directly communicates what the expectations are, and that it's not as simple as a binary of whether to be blunt or not. Most people might struggle if they suddenly found themselves in a culture where the expectations were different than they were used to, but they probably didn't struggle to learn the expectations of their own culture. For me, learning the expectations of the culture I've spent my entire life in is still an ongoing process after over three decades, and I don't expect that it will ever really be complete. An culture of all autistic people wouldn't be identifiable merely by how blunt they are, but by the giant binder they give everyone who comes to visit with all of the expectations written out to avoid any confusion. The reason I struggle with communication every day of my life is because I never got that binder, but everyone else seems to already have it memorized.

zozbot234 2y ago
I think I've made the case above that it's not merely about "being neurotypical", it's also about being steeped in a very specific culture. That peculiar use of "why did you apply" might as well be described as an idiomatic expression, a play on words that happens to be common in that well-defined context. If you aren't familiar with that usage because you are from a different cultural context (or even something as simple as a different "low-class" socio-economic stratum in the same society), you might misunderstand the question in the exact same way - or perhaps you'll grok it but you'll still be bothered by the implied "dishonesty" in it and be inclined to subvert expectations by starting with a straight and to the point answer, and then getting into the actual topic of why you think you were right to apply.
- saghm 2y ago
  My point isn't that neurotypical people will always be familiar with whatever idioms they encounter, but that learning those idioms is way easier for them. It seems like you're misunderstanding what I'm saying as the struggles of not understanding specific things as being specific to autistic people, and that's not the case; I'm saying that while neurotypical people might have to deal with specific cases of idioms or figures of speech, autistic people will often struggle with the meta-problem of struggling with idioms or figures of speech as an entire category rather than with not being familiar with individual ones. I don't just struggle with understanding language like that when dealing with people who come from a different background than me; I struggle to understand language like that when talking to my parents and my brothers and my wife, despite having talked with them more than anyone else in my life. That's not something that most people would struggle with, but it's something that I suspect a lot of autistic people would relate to.
  - quinnirill 2y ago
    As someone having experienced (and of course still experiencing) similar struggles as a person with ADHD, the Heureka moment for me was realizing that the difference is I'm overthinking it. In quite a lot of the situations, there's no right answer people are looking for. There's no strict protocol, people just say whatever random stuff that comes into their mind and it might not even be related to what the other person said, then the other person builds on from there or says their own random stuff. Sometimes they strike a chord, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they end up saying the completely wrong thing and then they may or may not attempt to correct the situation. Trying to attribute a system to it is mostly just my own desire for order that probably doesn't exist. Like most things in life, the system is so complex that it might as well be random in some aspects.

eptcyka 2y ago

Lmao, then ask ”Why should we even care?”. I will filter people who lie or can put things straight regardless which side of the interviewing table I am sat.

sickblastoise 2y ago

Chat, are Dutch people autistic?

Der_Einzige 2y ago
4chan seems to privately believe that Germans and all Germanic groups are plagued by ethnic autism. I tongue in cheek believe it given how dry their humor is.

wisty 2y ago

> What they're really asking, translated to "blunt and frank communication" mode is: "Why should we even care that you applied?" I think you just made that up. There can be plenty of things the interviewer could be fishing for. They may want to hear that the candidate really wants to work at this job (and have a "correct" reason - the company, the team, the nature of the job ....). They might want to hear about how it's similar to your previous jobs. It's quote possible they want a specific response, and it's either an intentional or untintentional gotcha. The interviewer might just have heard it's a good question, and is filling in time, or faking being a good interviewer. They aren't "autistically" trying to get the best candidate, maybe then your interpretation is right and you want to say why you're a good candidate for the job.

zozbot234 2y ago
Why are you assuming that being a good fit would not also include things such as liking the company, the job etc? It's all the same thing anyway, you're right that there might be some cases where that becomes quite relevant. What's not going to be helpful though is answering "hey I just want to make some money and pay my rent" - even though in some sense, that answer might be quite reflective of reality!
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- wisty 2y ago
  Yes. But the interviewer isn't asking something in "non-autistic language", they're farting out their mouth, and you need to just fill the space with something that sounds good.