Autism, aspiration, enterprise.

I've been thinking about this on and off for ish a year I guess.  I've come to the conclusion I'm not very good at working for norms in a norm environment.  They can't understand how I think and the fact that it's always me that has to do the adjusting is, shall we say, sub-optimal health-wise.  Also, they way they seem to want to structure their environments - e.g. no written down agreements, make everything up randomly as you go along, open plan offices etc. etc. etc. really don't work for me and I suspect that's the same for most ASD peoples.

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that if I want to have a happy work-life where I feel I'm contributing something as a valuable human being then I really need to be doing something for myself and with a group of people of similar mind where we:

* all have buy-in to what we're trying to achieve,

* actually work together to achieve things rather than everybody doing their own thing and either:

- try and do as little work as possible, or

- just end-up competing and nobody helping anybody because there's no incentive to do anything other than let other people fail since you want to make sure to look better than them.

I have an idea for something I'd like to do, it's really just the getting going bit.  I was thinking some sort of social enterprise model since I think that would work best for the idea I had in mind.

You sum up the negatives of working in an NT dominated environment so well! I am amusing myself thinking how much NTs would struggle if the situation were to be reversed! 

Because I've got relatively few career years ahead of me now what I do with  them seems even more important. 

It's just as you describe - I could make great efforts to adapt and fit in or I could use my time and energy to move in a different direction. 

Everything in me already knows what the better option is! 

Sunflower,

I really don't think that a lot of NT's would cope anywhere near as well as most neurodiverse people have to - just to get through the standard day.

A prime example would be the line manager at my last place of employment - he wouldn't have a clue; especially as it was ALWAYS that had to adjust, change the way I spoke to people, managed my workload etc etc etc

A big YES to this! I much prefer working according to proper systems and processes even though I'm not in IT. So much less stressful and much more efficient. Haven't had the opportunity to work systematically for a few years now (NTs seem to like things being inefficient and chaotic!). 

In terms of general management style, I'm interested in the Kepner Tregoe stuff:

The New Rational Manager - An Updated Edition for a New World.  Charles H. Kepner, Benjamin B. Tregoe.

The Thinking Manager's Toolbox - Effective Processes for Problem Solving & Decision Making.  William J. Altier.

Agreed processes for dealing with problems, making decisions, assessing potential problems/opportunities, working out what needs to be done and in what order.

Everything clearly written down, everybody can have engagement in the things relevant for them and it's clearly documented why things are done the way are, and where things are "parked" if they've been decided not to proceed with yet or have been binned for whatever reason.

I work in IT.  Pretty much two of the most fundamental things in Computer Science are the concept of an algorithm, and the concept of processes.  But the norms who are paid and supposedly professionals in this area have no buy in to the idea of processes except when they are useful to them to use to beat people down with.  But the moment they're not immediately convenient to them, at that particular moment in time because they'd actually have to do something, they go straight out of the window.  And they can vary the processes to suit them, but you can't vary them to suit you.  How can you work in IT and not believe in the value of processes/algorithms and understand why they work?  AAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!

In terms of general management style, I'm interested in the Kepner Tregoe stuff:

The New Rational Manager - An Updated Edition for a New World.  Charles H. Kepner, Benjamin B. Tregoe.

The Thinking Manager's Toolbox - Effective Processes for Problem Solving & Decision Making.  William J. Altier.

Agreed processes for dealing with problems, making decisions, assessing potential problems/opportunities, working out what needs to be done and in what order.

Everything clearly written down, everybody can have engagement in the things relevant for them and it's clearly documented why things are done the way are, and where things are "parked" if they've been decided not to proceed with yet or have been binned for whatever reason.

I work in IT.  Pretty much two of the most fundamental things in Computer Science are the concept of an algorithm, and the concept of processes.  But the norms who are paid and supposedly professionals in this area have no buy in to the idea of processes except when they are useful to them to use to beat people down with.  But the moment they're not immediately convenient to them, at that particular moment in time because they'd actually have to do something, they go straight out of the window.  And they can vary the processes to suit them, but you can't vary them to suit you.  How can you work in IT and not believe in the value of processes/algorithms and understand why they work?  AAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!

A big YES to this! I much prefer working according to proper systems and processes even though I'm not in IT. So much less stressful and much more efficient. Haven't had the opportunity to work systematically for a few years now (NTs seem to like things being inefficient and chaotic!).