Business problem

[supergee]

Brilliant jerks

Thanx to andrewducker

Comments

[weofodthignen]

But what about Aspies?

[arlie]

I got about halfway through the article, and concluded that while the author *may* mean well, many people on the autism spectrum are going to read it as "we don't want no stinking Aspies", with a side order of "'jerk' is the polite word for Aspie, but the more accurate term is 'asshole'".

Of course given lived Aspie experience, "empathy" quickly becomes seen as a code word for "mind reading the NTs" and/or "making the NTs comfortable/happy at the expense of yourself and anyone else on the autistic spectrum". If I had a dollar for every time some NT has touted their own "empathy" at some Aspie like a badge of honour, while denigrating the Aspie for lacking it - and at the same time demonstrating that the NT has zero empathy for any Aspie - I'd be richer than Warren Buffet.

Frankly, the author is doing some of what they complain about, right in the article. In particular, name calling. That's probably one of the things he means when describing Alice as "direct and honest". If you honestly want people to change, describing them as assholes is not a great way to start. No, what this author acts like they want is for people who make the author uncomfortable to be demonized and banned from wherever they work. Yes, there's some lip service to getting them to change - but telling Alice to "be empathic" won't work; she's quite likely treating others as she prefers to be treated herself.

Even people seen as "Bob" may be doing what various "how to succeed in business" books have told them to do - taking them quite literally, of course. And frankly each of them is probably harming far fewer people than the typical sociopathic executive - with their great "empathy" as they kindly and tactfully refer to "work force realignment" instead of "layoff", offer "market" salaries and benefits (i.e. attempt a race to the bottom), etc.

That's not to say that I appreciate a rabidly selfish coworker, and I celebrated when the only really bad one I've had to work with was shown the door. (He wasn't very skillful, and his attempts to set up other people as his fall guys resulted in a complete lack of support from his coworkers, which led to a really visible failure of his assigned project. Oops ;-()

But the specifics here - and the specific recommendations - took me back to what, for me, was the employer from hell.