primeideal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
primeideal) wrote2019-08-01 05:26 pm
primeideal) wrote2019-08-01 05:26 pm
Sheep, angels, and autism
One of the famous parables of Jesus in the Bible is about the Good Shepherd. "There was this shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One got lost and he left the other ninety-nine to go and find it. This is a metaphor for God's kingdom, because the angels in heaven will rejoice more at one sinner who repents than ninety-nine righteous people who don't need to repent." (Jesus also said that we're all sinners and there aren't really any truly righteous people, let alone 99% of the population, but you get the point.) Sheep and humans, humans and angels. This isn't just a difference within a group--it's a difference between two different species, with (presumably) two very different sets of capacities.
I've been in this program focused on career skills for autistic people for the last few weeks, and overall I felt kind of disappointed in it. I should say that in many ways it was well-run! Like, as far as I know they did not partner with any skeevy pro-cure organizations, and the housing/food coverage for where we lived onsite was very well-done. So it could have been worse.
However, it was extremely slow-paced and hand-holdy. The virtual skills training was stuff like "how to send a professional e-mail: warning, do not use reply all" and "how to schedule a meeting in our calendar system." The "technical badge" that I earned was two hours of fiddling around in R that I could probably have done in forty-five minutes with Microsoft Excel. And the "how to talk to your colleagues" presentation was like "don't discuss politics or religion, don't infodump everything you know about your favorite subject."
Then we got onsite and it was more micromanagy. "Sit here in these specific seats for the auditorium presentation." "Use post-its to brainstorm ideas for these fictional personas you need to have empathy-woowoo for" (see prior link). "Don't you dare start on the coding, I know you want to, but you need to do everything the proper flowcharty way because buzzwords. Yay business!"
And like...I felt like I did not need so much micromanaging. The thing is, though, a lot of my colleagues...probably did. One person asked so many questions and panicked about "what if we don't have enough time for this, I am falling behind, this is terrible" on a not-that-difficult project. Another constantly sought validation on everything from his graph skills to his saxophone playing ("I'm doing a great job, aren't I? My teacher says I'm good for only playing for a year!"). Another could barely read bullet points off a powerpoint and was like "how do I put this into a sentence." Another, let's call this person #4, DID NOT UNDERSTAND THAT YOU CAN'T TALK LIKE THIS AND MAKE CRUDE HUMOR ALL OF THE TIME.
So today we had our "final presentations," and the company brought in executives from all over to show us off and potentially have us network. And like...I felt like, on the one hand, autistic people as a whole make up a small percentage of the population. Maybe not quite 1 in 100, I think it's more like 1 in 68, but close enough. I was the black sheep, being trotted out and put on display.
But within the context of this cohort, I was more like the normal sheep. The audience watching us are probably going to be more impressed at people who stutter through every other sentence managing to complete a powerpoint, than me doing a quiet and professional job. Or, #4 made a scene of hugging the staff, and then crouching in front for the group picture rather than standing professionally--but like, they probably think that's cute, because he's just a clueless autistic guy, he can't help it, right?
We had a "mentoring lunch" the other day, because there are many people who have been brought in through this program and are now full-time employees (again, this is a laudable goal! they're working on increasing the representation of autistic people! it's just...eh). And then their neurotypical "mentors" who help them. So all of us, interns and full-timers, were going around introducing themselves. One of the mentors was like, "Hi, my name is X, please do take my business card. If you've heard of me" [I had not] "it's probably via my son, Y, who's autistic and has been on TV and stuff, this is a link to his blog." So sure enough it's a kind of garish blog about his ~inspirational~ story and publicity appearances and...I don't know, I just found it kind of cringey. And again, I shouldn't judge, because it could have been so much worse! There are lots of worse organizations to partner with than the ones linked there, it just felt weird.
Similarly, the staff seemed to swing between being buddy-buddy and "you must sit with your group now, move." It's like, you don't need to go to either extreme, just treat me like a colleague.
I know I'm being critical, and maybe I was overqualified for this particular program. It's just kind of depressing that the bar is so low.
Edit: wow almost forgot the punch line! So I have a bunch of skills that my colleagues don't necessarily have, and maybe I don't 'look autistic' at first glance. But where are my social skills lacking? The fact that I write posts like these and have to bite my tongue before being even more caustic to the staff!! There's some irony.
I've been in this program focused on career skills for autistic people for the last few weeks, and overall I felt kind of disappointed in it. I should say that in many ways it was well-run! Like, as far as I know they did not partner with any skeevy pro-cure organizations, and the housing/food coverage for where we lived onsite was very well-done. So it could have been worse.
However, it was extremely slow-paced and hand-holdy. The virtual skills training was stuff like "how to send a professional e-mail: warning, do not use reply all" and "how to schedule a meeting in our calendar system." The "technical badge" that I earned was two hours of fiddling around in R that I could probably have done in forty-five minutes with Microsoft Excel. And the "how to talk to your colleagues" presentation was like "don't discuss politics or religion, don't infodump everything you know about your favorite subject."
Then we got onsite and it was more micromanagy. "Sit here in these specific seats for the auditorium presentation." "Use post-its to brainstorm ideas for these fictional personas you need to have empathy-woowoo for" (see prior link). "Don't you dare start on the coding, I know you want to, but you need to do everything the proper flowcharty way because buzzwords. Yay business!"
And like...I felt like I did not need so much micromanaging. The thing is, though, a lot of my colleagues...probably did. One person asked so many questions and panicked about "what if we don't have enough time for this, I am falling behind, this is terrible" on a not-that-difficult project. Another constantly sought validation on everything from his graph skills to his saxophone playing ("I'm doing a great job, aren't I? My teacher says I'm good for only playing for a year!"). Another could barely read bullet points off a powerpoint and was like "how do I put this into a sentence." Another, let's call this person #4, DID NOT UNDERSTAND THAT YOU CAN'T TALK LIKE THIS AND MAKE CRUDE HUMOR ALL OF THE TIME.
So today we had our "final presentations," and the company brought in executives from all over to show us off and potentially have us network. And like...I felt like, on the one hand, autistic people as a whole make up a small percentage of the population. Maybe not quite 1 in 100, I think it's more like 1 in 68, but close enough. I was the black sheep, being trotted out and put on display.
But within the context of this cohort, I was more like the normal sheep. The audience watching us are probably going to be more impressed at people who stutter through every other sentence managing to complete a powerpoint, than me doing a quiet and professional job. Or, #4 made a scene of hugging the staff, and then crouching in front for the group picture rather than standing professionally--but like, they probably think that's cute, because he's just a clueless autistic guy, he can't help it, right?
We had a "mentoring lunch" the other day, because there are many people who have been brought in through this program and are now full-time employees (again, this is a laudable goal! they're working on increasing the representation of autistic people! it's just...eh). And then their neurotypical "mentors" who help them. So all of us, interns and full-timers, were going around introducing themselves. One of the mentors was like, "Hi, my name is X, please do take my business card. If you've heard of me" [I had not] "it's probably via my son, Y, who's autistic and has been on TV and stuff, this is a link to his blog." So sure enough it's a kind of garish blog about his ~inspirational~ story and publicity appearances and...I don't know, I just found it kind of cringey. And again, I shouldn't judge, because it could have been so much worse! There are lots of worse organizations to partner with than the ones linked there, it just felt weird.
Similarly, the staff seemed to swing between being buddy-buddy and "you must sit with your group now, move." It's like, you don't need to go to either extreme, just treat me like a colleague.
I know I'm being critical, and maybe I was overqualified for this particular program. It's just kind of depressing that the bar is so low.
Edit: wow almost forgot the punch line! So I have a bunch of skills that my colleagues don't necessarily have, and maybe I don't 'look autistic' at first glance. But where are my social skills lacking? The fact that I write posts like these and have to bite my tongue before being even more caustic to the staff!! There's some irony.