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Is doing a good job about fitting in? Or doing it well?

longman

I thought it worth posing this questions as it underlies a lot of the problems faced by people on the spectrum in obtaining employment.

We currently live in a society where fitting in is more important than ability to do a good job. The work place is a social environbment. Many hours of productivity are lost by the amount of time frittered away by employees socialising on the job, when they should be getting down to it. Promotion often depends on joining Round Table or Freemasons, whether your partner is a good cook and has people round for candlelit suppers.

The BIG problem for this country atr the moment is the capacity of employees to waste time at work.

People on the spectrum have the unusual and valuable talent of being able to focus on a job and stay with it to completion. They don't need social displacement activity.

Yet often they cannot gain or hold down a job, primarily because they cannot do the social bit.

British employers should wake up to the value of hard working committed employees not being allowed to work just because they cannot socialise.

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  • Former Member
    Former Member

    Hi Longman,

    I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't try and get work. I have enjoyed, and not enjoyed, work all my life and think it can be fun, or awful, depending on the individual workplace and culture. The consultant that diagnosed me said that "the morbidity of an autistic person depends on the context in which they find themselves" i.e. a good environment can result in a happy autie, A bad environment can induce severe mental distress.

    Now that I have a diagnosis, I am sure that I could have had a much lesss eventful and conflictful working life if I had only known how to moderate my aspie tendencies and appreciate how I was different to my colleagues.

    Thus, we can potentially meet the world, halfway, by getting some accomodations from the employers but we can also do a bit to understand how we come across and how we are "difficult" to employ.

    Some firms are more hierarchical than others. Aspies tend to ignore or undermine hierarchy because we don't respect authority for the sake of it. We respect knowledge and intellectual rigour. Maths and Physics departments in universities need (and tolerate) less hierarchy than some other disciplines. Some firms are built on holocratic or adhocracy structures. My current problem in my current job is that we have a very hierarchical management that includes an ex armed forces character who expects obedience because of his position or rank. I don't respect him because he doesn't have the techical background or behaviour that I would respect. We fight because I haven't learnt how to cope with him and he has no idea how to manage me. Who should bend? Probably both of us but I am finding it hard and he has no inclination to change as far as I can see so we may have to part ways.

    This is not black and white! Nothing is simple! We should avoid thinking that there is a silver bullet that will fix things for us. We should, of course, continue to campaign for more awareness and to be accpeted for what we are.

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  • Former Member
    Former Member

    Hi Longman,

    I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't try and get work. I have enjoyed, and not enjoyed, work all my life and think it can be fun, or awful, depending on the individual workplace and culture. The consultant that diagnosed me said that "the morbidity of an autistic person depends on the context in which they find themselves" i.e. a good environment can result in a happy autie, A bad environment can induce severe mental distress.

    Now that I have a diagnosis, I am sure that I could have had a much lesss eventful and conflictful working life if I had only known how to moderate my aspie tendencies and appreciate how I was different to my colleagues.

    Thus, we can potentially meet the world, halfway, by getting some accomodations from the employers but we can also do a bit to understand how we come across and how we are "difficult" to employ.

    Some firms are more hierarchical than others. Aspies tend to ignore or undermine hierarchy because we don't respect authority for the sake of it. We respect knowledge and intellectual rigour. Maths and Physics departments in universities need (and tolerate) less hierarchy than some other disciplines. Some firms are built on holocratic or adhocracy structures. My current problem in my current job is that we have a very hierarchical management that includes an ex armed forces character who expects obedience because of his position or rank. I don't respect him because he doesn't have the techical background or behaviour that I would respect. We fight because I haven't learnt how to cope with him and he has no idea how to manage me. Who should bend? Probably both of us but I am finding it hard and he has no inclination to change as far as I can see so we may have to part ways.

    This is not black and white! Nothing is simple! We should avoid thinking that there is a silver bullet that will fix things for us. We should, of course, continue to campaign for more awareness and to be accpeted for what we are.

Children
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