Social Skills have too high a premium in the workplace?

I think im task orientated. Ive had a handful of jobs and stayed in them a good amount of time. I go to work to earn money. In my retail job as deputy manager i felt awkward a lot of the time as i didnt want to go for after work drinks which the manager was used to doing with his previoys deputies. If it was my best friend or partner of coyrse id go for drinks but i wasnt prepared to put myself into an awkward situation. During quiet periods he was always wanting a laugh etc. It was ok ar first but as time went on it got harder for me. A lot of the time it was just the two of us. He would go chatting to the shop staff next door. I can talk amd chat and have a laugh but in short bursts and ideally while doing a task. (This is why i like board games. It gives you socisl interaction but with a purpose!)

In another job i CBA with the social hierarchy. An office at a large college. I could see right throygh my manager and tolerated her. She was duplicitous. (Her manager however was very "to the point and straightforward" a lot of people didnt like her because of this but i did. She was straightforward. She called a spade a spade. What you see is what you get.)Anyway in my office lots of gossip politics and greasing the wheels. Not to mention people whittering on inanely about nothing in particular while we were trying to work. I dont know how ppl manage to work in open plan offices and actually do work. I also wprked in an office with only one other person. We got on grest but it was boring.

I think ive found my value at work as a worker and people respect me for that. My current job is great cos everyone just wants to do their best. We only have one social do a year but its not expected you go. My manager is wonderful and im really thankful to her. She looks out for her staff. She sets a great example to follow and has integirty which is most important to me in a manager.  I work in education and i think differences are appreciated.  My role means my work is individual to me but i can interact mostly on my terms. I dont have a formal diagnosis. I do struggle though with ppl who just want to chat when im trying to do marking or photocopying tho! But thats a multi tasking issue rather than social. Although when ppl start telling me aboyt something i dont care about, i have to say sometimes i just want to quote (its either Patsy or Eds off) Ab Fab "youre mistaking me for someone who gives a f***" But i know the other person has good intentions is nice and ive learned its just what ppl do to pass the time.

One of my good friends seems to go to work to chat by the water cooler and attend do's. She doesnt have much fulfilment. I get enjoyment and fulfilment out of my job but am not bothered as much by the social aspect.

I would agree with socially different. Ive seen a couple of colleagues outside of work time becayse we are very similar and on the same level. Im happy to do this cos its on my terms "fancy a brew on friday afternoon?" rather than imposed "you are invited to the christmas meal"

I don't know how much this is me, and how much this Autism, but I tend to be task/project focused.  Plus, once I've done something I want to move on and do something else, rather than continually have to do the same stuff over and over and over again.  I'm always looking for problems, things to improve etc. etc.  But norms don't seem to be interested much in fixing problems and improving things, my observation has they generally seem to be happy with the status-quo.

I also don't think I'm un-social, I think I'm differently-social.  The biggest problem isn't a lack of wanting to socialise, it's the difficulty of finding suitable people to socialise with.

As far as I can tell from observation, your typical norm group are basically hairless two-legged wolves.  There appear to be ones that the norms perceive as leaders, those that are lieutenants, those that are at the bottom of the food chain etc.  Most of their effort seems to revolve around trying to work out where in that grouping they fit in each place.

That's fine if that's what they want to do, but I don't feel that.  Often the ones that the norms seem to perceive as leaders I have little regard for.  Mostly because they don't tend to exhibit the behaviours, skills etc. that I perceive as being worthy of respect.  And the whole social hierarchy thing just doesn't interest me.  It's not that don't like what the norms perceive my position in their "pack" to be because I always see myself as not being in their pack.  It's that I think the whole thing is a gigantic waste of time and uninteresting.  I like to socialise on the basis of shared interests, shared experiences, respect for what people do etc.

I'd be interested to hear how many other people think they're more task oriented and whether other people perceive the whole norm social hierarchy thing?

Indeed.  Although I've only just been diagnosed, I always knew that I needed a job for an introvert.  There werent very many when I graduated in the 1980s and even then I found myself pretending to be an extrovert for job application and interview purposes. 

Over the years, though, these jobs seemed to become fewer and fewer on the ground and my work situations became more and more uncomfortable for me.  Noisy, open plan offices, harsh overhead lighting, no natural flow of air and humming fans in the summer, plus hotdesking so that even our desk spaces weren't really our own.  This formed the background.  In terms of the actual jobs and person specifications, I somehow needed to become more and more outgoing - team meetings and briefings, training courses which just happened to involve overnight stays in different parts of the country, inter-departmental meetings, involvement in training exercises, presentations, telephone skills etc.

I'm not sure my ideal job exists.  Dickensian bookkeeping (in a silent office where only my maths and penmanship count), lighthouse keeper, gardener, artist, writer, beekeeper, archivist, data analyst (but please will someone else share the results)...  Something solitary and quiet.  All I was met with on the jobs market were descriptions like "team player" "shirt-sleeves approach" and "dynamic individual required" etc etc.   I knew this wasn't me but I needed an income so I had to pretend.            

Have you ever read about the Bank Wiring Room experiment that was part of the Hawthorne management / productivity studies? It is absolutely fascinating. An indivdual who tried to increase productivity was given 'flak' by the rest of the group of workers: 

http://www.analytictech.com/mb021/handouts/bank_wiring.htm

Organisational politics is normally quite damaging for everyone. Interestingly, I was once told by a Equality and Diversity Practitioner that the Private Sector assess Equality and Diversity on how it affects its bottom line. I find this odd as this presumes it will be a detriment rather than an asset and fails to note that there are many other factors (non-disabled employers conduct and performance) that really effect the bottom line. I don’t hear many companies going bust because they employed too many disabled employees who underperformed.

My personal view is that the job landscape has changed so that a typical autistic career does not exist. All jobs seem to insist on ‘excelllent communitcation skills’ these days. At the moment, the only real opportunities specifically for ASD is in IT. Whilst this is always welcome, it does not help the vast majority of those on the spectrum who have a variety of interests and careers.

The next decade needs to be one where nureodiversity is accepted. It will require a significant push, but one that needs to be done. 

Fully agree.  In many ways I feel misled as throughout my education teachers insisted that good qualifications will lead to a "good job."

Unfortunately I never thought to ask them about what they thought was a "good job" or to really examine my own thoughts and inclinations.  Somehow (and I don't know whether this is a common experience), I thought they were telling me what would be best and it came as a surprise when careers advisors seemed to suddenly switch to asking about what we liked or were interested in.  At all previous levels of education we basically had to do stuff irrespective of whether we were interested, on the basis that these were somehow the "best" things to learn.   Naturally, after clinging on to various courses for as along as I could (I had been taught to get 10/10 for much of the time), I fell off the end of the education system  ill equipped to survive.

I had a whole rake of qualifications but hardly anything in the way of interpersonal skills.  I also discovered that, given the pressures of the job market, the boot was very firmly on the foot of the employers and I had hardly any choice anyway.  It was more a case of taking what I could get and, in order to even get that far, working  out how to appear to be "the right person for the job."  I quickly learnt how to fake this for the duration of an interview, but could see people becoming puzzled by the very different person who then turned up to do the job. 

Later in life, in my 40s, I found myself in a position where I was advising people over the phone and, realising that I had no specific training, I enrolled for an interpersonal skills course at the local college.  I didn't expect much and it was very basic but I actually came away wondering why on earth this simple training couldn't have been given to me at the age of 14!  It might have made such a difference. 

It all perplexes me though.  A part of me is still hoping to trade in my excellent qualifications for the "good job" I always imagined I'd have. 

Depends where you are in the org chart - at the very top, integrity is everthing - the lower you go, cover-ups, bullying and manipulation becomes more likely.

An interesting way of looking at this is that integrity has too low a premium in the workplace... 

Yep.  That's why I can already smell something burning...

And that's what I did, at my supervision.  I brought up a lot of grievances.  Staff always playing with their phones.  Cleaning not being done properly.  Paperwork - which is mandatory - not being completed.  I guess they didn't like being told that they weren't doing their job properly.  But the thing is... if CQC paid a surprise visit and found a dirty kitchen, food improperly wrapped and dated, paperwork incomplete, the place could be closed down and they'd all lose their jobs.

This is a good point. The real asset of ASD employees is that they do things by the book and well. If an department is in trouble, this creates problems.

Just be frank about your struggles. Robert.  Some of them are human.  One I saw once, after mum died and I needed to get back to work, actually advised me to go sick to give myself a breathing space.

I agree completely - I have seen many similar situations in all kinds of work settings. Anyone perceived as being 'different' is more at risk. The targets of the bullies have been disabled colleagues, BAME colleagues, LGBT+ colleagues, autistic colleagues and people with too much integrity to stand by when other people are denied dignity and respect. There seems to be an almost complete lack of civility in many workplaces, which has been identified as a factor which contributes to 'burnout'.   

I think that's because the high risk of you accidentally mentioning all of the fraud, incompetence, manipulation, lying and generally poor service and standards to upper management. You are a HUGE risk to the status quo.

I’ve come across this too. If you don’t play the game and do the job, you are seen as a ‘problem’.

There should be dedicated autistic-led specialist employment support to help autistic people find and retain appropriate employment. The initiatives I have come across are usually set up by NTs.

Because of stress caused by lack of accommodations in more senior roles we often end up in jobs we are over-qualified for. Together with our autistic traits of conscientiousness and honesty this really threatens colleagues, making us targets for bullying.

Engineering and the Sciences are regarded as Austitic friendly environments however, politics and discrimination is still reported. This suggests that ASD is not the problem rather, the failure of modern workplaces to treat employees with respect and dignity.

I know exactly how you feel.  And I can put myself into your shoes.  And I can just feel the environment you are working in. The bullying, the cliques, team work that usually means turning a blind eye to other people's mistakes.

I'm out of that environment.  But the alternative is worse.  Job centre appointment at 1:20pm today with a workcoach I haven't met before.  I'm stressed.

Your raise some really important points and I agree that the recruitment process is multilateral. I think Equality and Diversity is too slow in implementation in many organisations and enhanced legal protections would help focus attention. Of course, many will attest that since the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, real challenges persist regardless of whatever legal instruments are in existence. In terms of culture, there are a number of things that need to be done not short of:

• Training on neurodiversity;

• Moving away from traditional interview models and accommodating different assessment methods;

• Considering work trials for certain roles;