NTs Are Weird

My girlfriend and I recently returned from a two week roadtrip, including several days at Autreat.

I’ve been going to Autreat for several years. I couldn’t quite explain why I enjoy it so much - there is certainly imperfections about it, like any gathering, but I finally figured out that it must be the group of people that attend and how comfortable I feel in that group. My girlfriend, who attended for the first time this year, also enjoyed herself, saying that she really felt part of a group of people for the first time in her life.

We spent a lot of time talking about it on the way home from Autreat, trying to figure out the right words to describe it. I still don’t know them, but I think the words “family reunion” come closest to describing what it is like to spend a few days with your own people!

It was a lot of fun seeing friends again. It was also truly a lot of fun to see my girlfriend experience what it is like to be in a place where people are generally accepted as they are. I forgot what a unique feeling that can be.

Oh, did I mention that my girlfriend and I are still in love after living with each other for two weeks continually? We’re taking that as a good sign!

In a previous blog post, I referenced employment being denied to people without prior job experience, as an example when a negative outcome may not be the result of prejudice towards disability, but something else (in this case, something that would have happened whether or not the person was disabled). Some comments asked, “How do people get jobs if everything requires experience?”

The short answer is: It is hard, but not everything requires experience either.

I’ll explain how I got to my current position, in the computer field, but I don’t want readers to lose track of two keys: persistence and luck. I have applied for dozens of jobs I didn’t get, especially early in my career when I was willing to do almost anything computer-related. Heck, it probably took me 30 tries to get a dishwashing job before I did computer work, and those jobs are supposedly easy to get. Unfortunately, when it comes to seeking employment, the odds are that you won’t get a given job, no matter how qualified you are or the amount of effort you are willing to expend, so you can’t give up after a rejection, or even after a few dozen rejections. Know that this happens to neurotypicals, too, not just autistic people (a recent job I hired had over 80 applicants - that means over 80 got rejected since I had only one opening). The other key is luck: there is a lot about a job which isn’t discussed in a job posting. I’ll talk more about this one later.

My first computer job was strictly volunteer. I spent the day reformatting Word documents (something I was good at - probably due to the autistic attention to detail). Over time, I did more and more computer work, and was entrusted with more important tasks. All of the computer tasks were easy for me, and my level of expertise was far greater than needed for that job. But it helped me get “in the door”. Eventually, the non-profit applied and received a grant to employ a disabled or disadvantaged teenager full-time during the summer. I was hired into that position (I remember thinking, “How can they call me disabled?!”).

Over that summer, I learned what work was like, and I learned not computer skills but rather work skills. I actually had to be taught how to answer the phone politely, what questions not to ask coworkers (because they are too personal), how to keep track of what I need to do, etc. The great thing (this is part of the luck I’ve had) is that this organization was willing to do that. Perhaps it was because I was making minimum wage, and thus the expectations weren’t as high as if I was making the normal rate for a computer system administrator, but I think the people there were simply enjoying seeing me learn to fit into an office. These skills are important - probably not important in landing a job, but vital in keeping it. Few employers would have been this patient with me.

After that job, I did some dishwashing jobs (lots and lots of rejection before I got one). Then, I went to college. During this time, I did some consulting work at $20/hour for one of the organizations I volunteered for previously. It turns out that they ran into a bind once I left and decided that paying me $20/hour was way better than paying someone with years of experience $200/hour! So, I earned a great wage for a few hours a week of work, while also gaining more experience. Over time, friends learned of my consulting gig, and talked to others about it.

I also sold computers during this time, to friends and coworkers of my parents. I charged $100 or $200 per hour (depending on how much work it was going to be) to scour different computer deals and help people determine which computer was best for them. It’s amazing how many people will pay $100 for you to tell them what to buy, and it was something I enjoyed.

During the summer of my first year of college, I sought and worked an internship. The internship was at the company my father worked at, and was normally menial labor. One of the perks the company provided to employees was to hire their kids during the summer as temporary help, usually menial labor. One of the people I helped to buy a computer happened to work there, as well. This person, when he found out I applied for the normally menial labor internship, told the director of IT (Information Technology) that I would be a really good fit in that group. So, I was hired as an intern in the IT department, and spent my days doing the tasks others didn’t particularly want to do, such as inventorying software on PCs (to make sure we were legally licensed on all software).

Back at school, I tried, very unsuccessfully, to find work. After months of trying, and being rejected over and over again, a “friends of a friend” called me up one day and asked, “Do you know how to move a small phone switch to a new building?” Apparently, the cost to move this small 10 phone system was going to run several thousand dollars, if a telephone contracting company was used. I previously learned a little about phones at the internship, and explained that I thought I could do it, and would do it for a pretty low rate. So, they hired me to do it and I spent a few days crawling around an incredibly horrible attic running cables. At the end of the weekend, when the phones all worked properly, the owner of this small web design company came up to me and asked, “Do you know how to program?” I told him that I did, and was offered a job as a programmer on the spot, which I accepted (for minimum wage). It wasn’t great pay, but, finally, I was doing something that required a good understanding of computers.

This job grew, and I eventually became the lead programmer at a spin-off of this company. I was approached one day and asked, “Would you take a huge raise, but move to another community, to be part of the spin-off?” I took the chance, and made the move - it was easy at the time, as I had very few roots in my current community.

While working there, I eventually sought other jobs. I still only had a couple years of experience, so it was hard to find great jobs where I could get in the door. But, I found one eventually, an unusual job in e-commerce fraud detection work. A small startup needed someone to write software to detect fraudulent use of their system, something I had never done previously, but which I felt I could do well. It sounded, for some reason, like a really great job for me, so I thought I’d go a bit further than I usually went when applying for other jobs (and getting rejected!). I think the key to getting that job was to “get noticed”, so after hearing nothing for two weeks, I sent a letter and my resume to them via next-day courier - I knew that this type of package would at least get opened and looked at, because it’s an unusual way of applying for a job. Sure enough, I got a call within two days requesting an interview. This is where the luck comes in: I was told later that I was the first employee hired that wasn’t a former friend or coworker of someone already at the company. The reason they were willing to take a chance on me, apparently, was that I “thought very differently than everyone else we’ve seen.” Over time, I found that they were basically - unknowingly - seeking an autistic person, and every autistic trait I had was seen by them as an asset.

After working there, I had enough experience on my resume for the types of jobs I was seeking, so I’ll leave it there.

As I mentioned, persistence was very important for me. Getting the first job was by far the hardest.
In addition, luck was important - but that isn’t as bad as it sounds. When I don’t get a job (and I don’t, even with experience, get interviews everywhere I send an application), I can now think, “that’s just bad luck,” rather than, “I must be completely unemployable.” I also found how one person I helped when they needed to buy a computer might get my “foot in the door” at a company years later when I am looking for work - and I’ve seen that several times in other ways, my reputation as a good employee has helped me get jobs that I would never have got otherwise. Finally, another key was taking opportunities that were one step closer to my goal whenever I could - being open to something that gets me to my goal, rather than having to get my goal at step 1.

I know that I didn’t give a formula people can follow step-by-step. That’s intentional. Employment is hard for us, and luck has a huge part to play. I’ve seen plenty of very qualified people who can’t find work, simply because of bad luck - they do everything right, but aren’t hired. But it is possible to get work, even without experience, and I thought I’d post this because I felt the questions about “How do I get experience” were legitimate queries, not simply frustration at the work world (although it’s okay to be frustrated about this, too - it is hard, and the system is difficult, even broken). The only way I could answer the question was to describe what worked for me - what works for someone else is likely to look very different. Anyone who has a step-by-step approach to getting a job doesn’t know what they are talking about.

Every year, an Ugly Dog Contest is held.

This year’s pick?  A one-eyed, three-legged dog.

One might ask…what does this say about people’s view of disability? If a dog was picked for this based on what sex the dog was, I suspect it wouldn’t be nearly as funny to many people. Interesting.

That said, personally I think the pick was pretty cute.

An article in Harvard Business School Working Knowledge details the Dutch company Specialisterne. This company focuses on software testing, using autistic workers. They have found autistic workers often have very strong software testing skills.

The article assumes that this is due to “routine”, rather than “creative”, work. I’m not quite sure that is the case - I think it is more likely that it picks up on the autistic strength to see the details and the whole at the same time. Many autistic people seem to be able to hold a huge amount of details together at once, without as much need to “group” them into a higher level object. We don’t miss the forest for the trees, we see the forest because we see the trees. It’s not a better way of thinking (there are times when details do get in the way, and it is best to step back from the details and focus on the “forest”), but it also isn’t a worse way of thinking. It is a different way of thinking.

From my personal experience, I know that at least this autistic is pretty good at finding flaws. I’m good at remembering hundreds or thousands of details about a computer network, seeing their interactions in my head, and pinpointing the reason only some packets don’t get between one city and another. I’ve done the same thing with database and programming work, which requires strong abilities to remember the details and see the problem.

I think I would do good in other areas, too - I think I would be a good quality assurance person at a factory (in fact, I know of one autistic person who excelled at quality assurance at a paint factory - he could tell if it was exactly the color it was supposed to be, something that is important to anyone who paints their house). I’ve done information security work, which requires the same kind of “fault finding” abilities. I imagine I could do well as an auditor, provided of course I was being paid to audit, not play politics.

But…that’s the problem with these careers. For instance, consider a food safety inspector: his job, on paper, is to make sure food is safe. The reality of the food industry (as anyone who has ever worked in it knows) is that there are violations of food safety laws at nearly every every food-related establishment. Most of the time, they are relatively minor in the scheme of things, and not a huge safety threat to people eating the food. Still, however, they are violations, and they are a problem. The issue many autistic people face in this type of career is that there is an unwritten expectation with the job. It is, “Don’t give meaningful citations unless the case is very severe or it is politically expected. But don’t close down every fast food restaurant, only close down the absolute worst.” So, now, when the food inspector notices that there is canned food on the floor (instead of on a raised platform), the fridge doesn’t have a thermometer, employees don’t always wash their hands, and some food was left out on the counter at room temperature, he might only give them a minor citation for leaving the food out and maybe one of the other items, but will just verbally tell the manager to deal with the other things. But, that’s not how the job description for this position would read - it would not say “And this position requires judgement to determine which citations fit the current political climate surrounding food safety.” It says that you are to keep the food safe. Absolutely, and there are checkboxes on the form for each possible violation. It’s “yes or no” on the form, not “Yes, this was wrong, but it isn’t a big enough deal for us to actually write it on this form.”

That’s where we can get in trouble. We think we were hired to, say, find bugs in software, audit accounting records, or make sure safe food handling procedures are followed. Yet, what people want is someone to say that the software works (so it can ship and make money), tell shareholders that the books are above-board (so that the board doesn’t get fired), and tell the public that the restaurant is a safe place to eat (so a local business doesn’t close its’ doors). And that’s the challenge.

Yes, there are truly positions out there where our “inspection” skills can be put to great uses, some even in these positions. I imagine, somewhere, there is a food inspector position which truly is black and white. But, unfortunately that type of positions is rare. My biggest question is: how do we find it?

If you interact with others, online or off, long enough, you’ll see personal crusades against “political correctness.” Of course “political correctness” gets defined differently by everyone for, let’s say this gently, political purposes. So it can be hard to know what is being fought against. But usually the political purpose is simply, “Damn it, I’m not wrong.” In other words, it’s about ego.

It’s one thing to debate what words should be used to describe people (provided of course that the people being described have most of the say). It’s quite another to dismiss other people’s views by using one-liners and calling them “political correctness” however.

Words are important. Not because it truly matters whether someone calls me “autistic”, a “person with autism”, a “retard”, a “cripple”, or whatever else. The word itself isn’t important, but the process used to pick the word sure as heck is important. It says a lot about the speakers’ views of me.

Wait a minute, I just said the words both do and don’t matter! Isn’t that contradictory? Not really. It comes down to respect. If I respect someone and their opinion, I’ll refer to them by the labels they want me to use, no matter what the actual label is. If I don’t respect them, I may substitute my own label.

So, when someone refuses to call someone an “autistic” because they “refuse to be politically correct”, they are also saying, “and I don’t respect you enough to value you over political incorrectness.” That says something, doesn’t it?

In addition, it gets personal to the “political incorrect” speaker. Usually this discussion comes up when someone uses the wrong words to describe someone else (not a huge issue in itself), and is corrected by someone else. At that point, a decision must be made: does the person show respect for the idea someone else expressed, or do they fight it to prove that they weren’t wrong? Unfortunately people usually fight it, it seems. And the “political correctness” has given them a content-free way of arguing it with one-liners rather than true thought.

Related is the idea, “I can’t be politically correct, so I’m not even going to try.” In other words, “I’m not listening to what people want to be called, I’m calling them what I want.” The idea here is that nobody can possibly get the labels “right” all the time, so we shouldn’t ever try. Of course there are a lot of areas in life we can’t get right all the time, but we try anyhow (take love, for instance: how many people get that one right all the time, yet most people don’t say we shouldn’t even try). And in the area of labels, it’s far more important what you do after you find you are wrong. I may call someone a “person with autism” and be told that “autistic” is how they prefer to see themselves - right now I haven’t committed a major crime, I’ve just been wrong (or I think they are full of it, which they may be, but I can’t wrangle out of saying I think they are full of it by saying I don’t support political correctness - I should be open and honest here and tell them that, not hide behind one-liners). It’s hard to be wrong, but it happens - even to the best of us. The key is asking, “What now?” I can dig in my feet and insist that I can define people how I want, that I’m right. That of course doesn’t show respect (not that this is always bad, but it certainly is not respectful no matter how you slice it). Or I can say, “Oh, I didn’t know.” I’ve just shown respect: I’ve shown that I’m willing to learn about this topic from someone else, maybe even that I think the other person might be worthy of being listened to. Big difference.

We see this in many other areas of disability, too. Perhaps the largest area is when it comes to intellectual disability - do people with mental retardation labels, for instance, get included in discussion of their label? Unfortunately, not usually - it’s argued about quite loudly by many, but very few take the time to listen. We need to listen. It’s not about what words we say, but rather about what we do when people have issues. It is about who we let define language - the people that it applies to, or ourselves.

And maybe that is the biggest issue with people who insist on “political incorrectness” - the people most affected are ignored, for the sake of ego.

I’m going to officially (well, as official as this unofficial can) declare today “Break a Stereotype Day!”

So, today, as you are going about your business, find a stereotype to break. It doesn’t need to be an autism-related stereotype, although it is fine if it is. It doesn’t need to be a “big” stereotype either, sometimes the small things are where the real prejudice waits. It just has to be a stereotype that people apply to people like you.

Once you break one, tell someone about it - you can do so as a comment to this post if you want, but you can also write about it elsewhere or just call up a friend and talk to them about it. That way your stereotype-breaking does even more: it not only will affect people when they see you doing it, but it will affect others when they hear you talk about it.

For myself, I think I’ll appreciate the beauty in the area of the world I live - it’s amazing high plains landscape. Of course the stereotype is that us autistic people can’t appreciate beauty…

I’ve received several requests to use my writings for various purposes. I’ll reply to everyone on this blog: You are welcome to use my writing, provided you don’t use it to support a pro-cure position and you attribute it to Joel Smith. A link to my site or blog in the reproduced material would be nice.

For years, the standard argument against inclusion of any type has been “it will harm ‘innocent’ people.”

For instance, in the US, the argument against allowing openly gay people into the military is, essentially, it will lower the moral of the troops.  In other words, it will cause others to feel bad if gays are included.  And a soldier who is offended by being in the same army as a gay would, thus, be “harmed” by not having to correct his prejudice.  In this case, the right of the gay person to serve his country is considered less important than the rights of the offended anti-gay soldier.

We’ve seen the same argument whenever a group home tries to create a new home in a residential neighborhood.  While some argue about how much more dangerous a neighborhood becomes with a disabled person needing non-typical assistance living in the neighborhood (not supported by any evidence I’ve seen), most people focus on something else: property values.  However, in both cases, the rights of the disabled person are considered less important than the rights of others.

In education, the same thing happens.  Parents complain that a disabled child “hinders” education of non-disabled children, and this is used to justify exclusion.  I’m not going to argue about whether or not such “hinderence” occurs (although I will say lack of diversity doesn’t exactly help people become educated), but rather where people tend to side in such arguments.  Rather than realizing that both the disabled child and the non-disabled child have rights that should not be violated, often it is decided that it would be “more okay” to violate the rights of the disabled child, to spare the “normal” ones.  It’s not phrased this bluntly, of course, but that’s what is being done.

This has happened with nearly every minority, so we shouldn’t be surprised that disabled people are included in this.  There’s also the next step, which is once people decide that this type of overt prejudice is wrong, they will then start talking about how exclusion is “for the good of the minority.”  This is used with the military (”gays will be beat up, so they should be excluded by law, for their own good you see…”), used in historical times to justify racial segregation in schools (”Blacks have different education needs, they haven’t grown up in the same culture”), and certainly among the disability world (”Disabled people need special services.  They are best served in seperate schools or classrooms”).  But the key to all of this is that often the reason for exclusion isn’t that it is actually better for the minority, but rather because it is better for people who hold prejudice.

Now, I’m not saying that there isn’t a situation where a disabled student wouldn’t be best served in a non-mainstream setting.  Of course non-mainstream is not the opposite of inclusion - both can occur simultaniously - but rather I’m saying that the rights of the disabled student are only taken into consideration when it supports the prejudice of the majority.  Where it doesn’t support the majority’s prejudice, suddenly the rights of the minority are conveniently dismissed (gays in the military, for example).

I’m watching arguments for and against the expulsion of an autistic teenager from a church.

As a Christian, I would suggest the Church seriously take a look at Christian doctrine - 1 Corinthians 6:1-7 is pretty clear: a church should not need the law to resolve an internal dispute. But this is not a blog about Christian doctrine, but rather about disability. So, I’ll move on.

Every account of this incident in the media has mentioned one thing: that the child weighs 225 pounds (well, not every account - some list his weight as 235 pounds). In other areas, facts are missing from some accounts. But every account thinks the child’s weight is a huge factor, even accounts that don’t mention - at all - the child’s acts or behavior.

Let me ask this: Why? Is it perhaps that the child is large for a 13 year old? Could it be a subtle hint that the parents might not be properly raising their child, as they have raised a “fat” child? Might that being used to show, “Hey, if they don’t do this right, they probably aren’t in the right elsewhere?” I don’t know, but I do know that the weight of the child has pretty much no bearing.

What matters is the Church’s claims. First, they claim he urinated in Church - okay, whether you are 225 pounds or 5 pounds, urine is urine. Not knowing the circumstances (is this just a matter of bladder control? Or is it someone intentionally urinating to destroy things? Or something else?), it’s hard to tell if there is reason to exclude. But many people have bladder control issues, and most are not excluded from Church.

Another claim is that he nearly injured people. The question here: What is “nearly”? Is it that people felt that they were in danger? Or is it that they actually were in danger? Too often these get confused, but unfortunately autistic people usually lose on this one. If we make people feel uncomfortable, we are treated as if we are an actual danger - whether or not we truly are.

Regardless of the circumstances, however, what matters is whether or not someone is a danger. A 60 pound child can be dangerous, as can a 225 pound child. I should know: I remember my life being in danger from normal sized children (strangely I very much doubt they were excluded from church or anywhere else - despite trying to kill me and coming quite close to managing that). Weight doesn’t make someone dangerous, actions do.

We need to get past the stone age where people feel threatened if they are unable to beat a child up. That doesn’t make the child more dangerous, and should not be the primary point of discussion. I know they were trying to make their case - “See, this isn’t a tiny 13 year old an adult could beat up, this person is large enough to do damage.” But this ignores the dynamics of actual risk - and what even a very tiny child can do to another.

Finally, I suspect the church would not extend the same courtesy to the autistic member that was extended to the rest of the church - that of being free from feelings of danger. A child who bullies may be just as dangerous as a 225 pound 13 year old - bullying behavior can have effects that last a lifetime (as an example, Herschel Walker, known for playing American sports, recently disclosed recently that he has DID, caused by bullying he received as a child). Yet very few churches seem as concerned about the possible danger of normal-looking children as they are about the possible danger of someone who doesn’t fit. I wonder why that is…

Once again, I don’t know if the church was right or not. I do know that another church apparently does not have the same problem with this family. But, regardless of whether or not this person was truly dangerous to others (instead of just a perceived danger), his weight shouldn’t be a key decision point: his actions and behavior should be, evaluated with an understanding of the difference between perception and reality.

I wrote about autism “gurus” previously - you know, the people peddling secret knowledge of dark conspiracies. There’s another formulaic approach to autism - it isn’t always sold as secret knowledge.

The approach is, essentially, that happiness can be achieved for an autistic person if she follows a given set of rules. She needs to follow specific scripts to get employment, friendship, and romantic relationships. And, if she gets these things, she’ll suddenly be happy.

There’s a couple problems with this theory. First, having a job or a romantic relationship isn’t necessarily going to make your life better. I realize that someone without a these things may very much be miserable and want them - it’s one of the biggest things we have to work towards in autistic circles. There are too many lonely and unemployed autistic people - it’s a real problem. But not everyone who has a job and a spouse is happy, either, and we need to recognize that. Even neurotypicals can be severely depressed, we don’t have the only valid right to misery.

But, greener grass aside, the very things that formulas and scripts are supposed to provide are the very things that formulas and scripts can’t possibly provide.

For example, we can talk about employment - too often, autistics are told, “Go to college, get a degree, you’ll have employers lining up to hire you.” This doesn’t work for neurotypicals, so why would it work for us? It is much more complex than that. There are principles to get work, sure: You’ll have to work for less money when you are inexperienced than when you have formal experience, you should take the best job you can get - but don’t have so high of requirements that you never get a job, always try to leave all jobs on decent terms because you never know who in the future will know someone at your current job, etc. But even these principles are complex - you can’t exactly just “follow” them in a black-and-white sense, and there are certainly exceptions.

We’d be better served in employment with less formulaic responses. There isn’t some magic combination of factors which will result in someone always being hired, and it isn’t necessarily anyone’s fault when someone does follow the principles and is still not hired.

Even sadder, there is an idea that romantic relationships will make people happy (this is not necessarily true - some of the saddest people on earth are those with bad relationships), and that this can be achieved through a formula. In other words, you find a pretty woman you think is attractive. Then you introduce yourself to her, using a set script. Then you ask her out, using a script. Eventually you become intimate with her, maybe getting married somewhere in there.

While I absolutely won’t discount how serious loneliness is, I also cannot support the script theory to finding a relationship. Maybe it worked for someone, but I don’t know anyone who found someone that way. Instead, there is no way to completely hide yourself behind scripts for the rest of your life, especially with a romantic partner - so she either has to like who you are (not your scripts!) or it isn’t going to work.

Likewise, even neurotypicals can’t seduce everyone they might find attractive. People are far more complex (yes, neurotypicals too) than simple computer programs - you can’t provide a set of inputs and expect a certain result. Certainly, there are - once again - principles that apply, and that can help predict outcomes (some I can think of off the top of my head: it helps to have happiness to give prior to having a relationship as it makes you more desirable; if someone has hundreds of people asking them out daily, your chances aren’t nearly as good as someone that has a few people asking them out; if someone doesn’t like you when you are first dating, they probably won’t like you years later when they know you better and aren’t glossing over problems). But, even with a huge set of “principles”, it is still more complex than providing certain inputs to get certain results - heck, even the principles can be violated sometimes.

I realize this is very complex, and makes things sound very difficult. But it is hard to get employment, a relationship, build friendships, etc, though. When we’re talking to each other about life strategies, we need to acknowledge this, for a few reasons. First, nobody is a failure as a human for having trouble with these things (even neurotypicals who fail at these things are not a failure as a human - and, yes, even neurotyipcals can fail at these things). They are very difficult for anyone to find. More importantly, though, we need to teach each other how the world works, not a simplified form of how the world works. We have the most chance of getting what we want out of life when we are seeing life the way it is, not some sort of idealized and simplified binary logic view.

Even more importantly: I encourage professionals who read this blog to think twice about how they work with autistic people on social skills. There is no step-by-step manual for getting a wife! Please don’t teach that there is!