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Dell Autism Hiring Program

jobs.dell.com

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Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#21

Post by jedberg »

BadassFractal wrote: post #10

I'm curious to see what's going to happen when an employee, secretly part of a neurodiversity hiring program, says something that makes someone uncomfortable and that gets reported to HR. Will someone's comfort levels take precedence over the desire to employ someone with difficulty with social cues? Or will we visibly "tag" employees who are neurodiversity hires so that you know that if they somehow offend you, that…

Imagine someone with an obvious physical disability. Like being in a wheelchair. They can't really hide that, and we (hopefully) make accommodations for them. People are generally pretty great if you know the accommodations necessary. And if they hit you with their wheelchair by accident, you probably will feel bad for getting in their way instead of reporting them to HR for workplace violence.

So I imagine if you have a hidden disability, if you need accommodation, it's in your best interest for people to know that, so they can accommodate you. I can understand hiding it in the outside world because you never know how people will react, but at the workplace, people will figure it out, and if they treat you poorly because of it, then they get the boot, so it's probably a win all around to make it known.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#22

Post by IntelMiner »

ReturnToVoid wrote: post #19
dang wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry for your suffering, but please don't take HN threads on tangents like this, so we don't have to ban you again. This is in the guidelines: " Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If you have an alternative outlet to suggest then I'm all ears.

The perceived validity of your opinions does not automatically mean they're welcome in unrelated places

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#23

Post by dbg31415 »

BadassFractal wrote: post #10

I'm curious to see what's going to happen when an employee, secretly part of a neurodiversity hiring program, says something that makes someone uncomfortable and that gets reported to HR. Will someone's comfort levels take precedence over the desire to employ someone with difficulty with social cues? Or will we visibly "tag" employees who are neurodiversity hires so that you know that if they somehow offend you, that…

ASD isn't anything new, you're comments act like this is something we haven't ever had to face before. Turns out a lot of developers have some form of ASD, it's very common in the industry. Odds are you already have someone on your team on the spectrum.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#24

Post by ReturnToVoid2 »

IntelMiner wrote: post #22
ReturnToVoid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have an alternative outlet to suggest then I'm all ears.

The perceived validity of your opinions does not automatically mean they're welcome in unrelated places

Do you know where I live or do you just believe that no single "developing" country is currently being exploited by the West?

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#25

Post by chess93 »

ndnxhs wrote: post #14
newnewpdro wrote: post #4

Wow, this strikes me as unbelievable. How things have changed since the industry was up in arms over Alex St. John's "Recruiting Giants" PDF [1] where he explicitly called out the "holy grail" employee: Be on the look out for the holy-grail... the undiscovered Asperger's engineer. (usually found on open source forums) * They have no social skills * They generally marry the first girl they date * Can't make eye contac…

Wow, I used to work with someone who ticked every one of those boxes. Incredibly knowledgeable and spent all of their free time reading spec documents and programming. Unfortunately they could be emotionally unstable at times which was had to work around.

Its not really relevant but the list seems to not actually describe Asbergers but some other collection of symptoms that results from being socially deprived. (However, this probably matches up with popular conception of Asbergers individuals.)

I think the "key" is finding people who deal with their problems by diving deep in to technical tasks and becoming absorbed in minutiae. An unnaturally small interest set combined with a lack of interest in people.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#28

Post by BadassFractal »

jedberg wrote: post #21
BadassFractal wrote: post #10

I'm curious to see what's going to happen when an employee, secretly part of a neurodiversity hiring program, says something that makes someone uncomfortable and that gets reported to HR. Will someone's comfort levels take precedence over the desire to employ someone with difficulty with social cues? Or will we visibly "tag" employees who are neurodiversity hires so that you know that if they somehow offend you, that…

Imagine someone with an obvious physical disability. Like being in a wheelchair. They can't really hide that, and we (hopefully) make accommodations for them. People are generally pretty great if you know the accommodations necessary. And if they hit you with their wheelchair by accident, you probably will feel bad for getting in their way instead of reporting them to HR for workplace violence. So I imagine if you ha…

It's a little more nuanced than that, and it does depend on the condition in question. Autism in SV has a reasonably benign reputation, but other mental "abnormalities" not so much.

An SO of many years had bipolar disorder, and it helped me get a deep appreciation for the amount of game theory that goes into disclosing one's condition to others, especially at work. Most of the "reaction" from people doesn't have to be explicit, nobody is going to call you "the crazy girl" to your face at work.

BUT, given the reputation and stigma that something like bipolar disorder has, you're never sure how exactly you're implicitly (as in, implicit bias) being treated differently by your peers.

Did your company pass on giving you a certain role because they're not sure you can handle the pressure with your condition? Are peers and managers looking at your behavior through the lens of someone who is not in control of their mental states? How many years will it take for you to establish a reputation of someone who's reliable and fight against the natural inclination of those around you to distrust your equanimity? Are people going to interpret your shortcomings through the lens of "she must be off her meds"? Will someone be able to use your condition as leverage over you in a competitive environment and how do you prove discrimination against you in that case?

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#29

Post by tdfx »

dbg31415 wrote: post #23
BadassFractal wrote: post #10

I'm curious to see what's going to happen when an employee, secretly part of a neurodiversity hiring program, says something that makes someone uncomfortable and that gets reported to HR. Will someone's comfort levels take precedence over the desire to employ someone with difficulty with social cues? Or will we visibly "tag" employees who are neurodiversity hires so that you know that if they somehow offend you, that…

ASD isn't anything new, you're comments act like this is something we haven't ever had to face before. Turns out a lot of developers have some form of ASD, it's very common in the industry. Odds are you already have someone on your team on the spectrum.

I think OP has a valid point. How do we differentiate the discourageable bad behavior from someone's disabilities? Trying to draw a line there is almost an exercise in futility. I would not want to be the HR person that has to handle a situation like that.
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