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Dell Autism Hiring Program

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Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#151

Post by alanh »

jmkd wrote: post #129
badpun wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this theory, given the scale of Facebook’s success, Mark Zuckerberg should be a super-emptathetic person.

Ha, but that wasn't quite the theory I espoused... 1. Facebook was social at the core, and succeeded while still small. 2. Their efforts in this space were proactive 3. Google tried to add social much later, while already massive. 4. Their efforts were reactive. I was referring to large companies initiating projects in response to perceived market conditions. What I saw in 5 years at Google was engineers who didn't k…

I agree Buzz was probably the best example

https://alanhogan.com/buzz-is-already-dead (About the UI/UX nobody wanted)

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/technology/internet/13goo... (Failure to respect users and imagine any blowback from violating trust and privacy)

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#152

Post by mcguire »

pjc50 wrote: post #93
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…

> says something that makes someone uncomfortable and that gets reported to HR If it's a one-off, not part of a pattern of behaviour, and the person is willing to apologise, they can usually be forgiven. (Doubling down on "I'm right and they were wrong to be offended", on the other hand, is a terrible idea) If you want a visible physical disability analogy, imagine that someone with a wheelchair runs over someone els…

"> says something that makes someone uncomfortable and that gets reported to HR

"If it's a one-off, not part of a pattern of behaviour, and the person is willing to apologise, they can usually be forgiven.

"(Doubling down on "I'm right and they were wrong to be offended", on the other hand, is a terrible idea)

This is true in almost any situation.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#153

Post by close04 »

zachruss92 wrote: post #125
wrnr wrote: post #71

The way our industry treats neuro-diversity is autistic. I am very dyslexic, the other day I misspelled the word TAB as TAP when implementing an event listener in a codebase +100K lines. It took me half a day just to find this bug. At LastCo I heard the project manager and scrum master joke behind my back "we'll just have the autist with OCD do the programming" while referring to me. In their mind lacking a "theory o…

That is just sad. Even if you weren’t dyslexic everyone messes up by misspelling a word and spending much more time than they should debugging. As a manager I would spend my time trying to figure out how we can help you reduce the likelihood of this happening again and not make fun of you for a mistake that everyone makes. As an example, my first hire was an immigrant from Africa. He can speak English, but his spelli…

That kind of people will always find something to jab at. If it's not this it's that. They're very willing to throw such insults as "innocent jokes" but when they're at the wrong end of one they never find it acceptable and will complain till the end of time.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#155

Post by booleandilemma »

ziroshima wrote: post #142

Tangentially related, as someone who is almost certainly "on the spectrum", but has never been diagnosed, is there any benefit to having this diagnosis? Is there any point in seeing someone about it?

Is there an objective test for autism or is it just a matter of convincing an expert that you’re autistic?

I’m asking because, if society provides enough benefits for people “on the spectrum” how do we prevent people from gaming the system?

When benefits are involved at all, people act funny. I’m reminded of people misusing handicapped parking placards, for instance.

I’ve also known people with perfect vision to wear eyeglasses because they found them fashionable.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#156

Post by wolfgke »

CSMastermind wrote: post #100
Sniffnoy wrote: post #74

Here's what I'm wondering: if they think this separate process is more reliable than traditional interviewing... why keep it a separate process rather than using it for everyone?

I've encountered this type of program before. The interviews often include tasks that traditional candidates would find boring and lots of repetition.

> The interviews often include tasks that traditional candidates would find boring and lots of repetition.

Intuitively this sounds like many programming tasks (I still like programming, but admit that many tasks in programming are quite repetitive) - thus good questions for neurotypical candidates, too.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#157

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

ThrowawayP wrote: post #140
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #80

A recent article posted on HN offering funding to women to study programming sparked a flamewar, with many users claiming that special hiring policies for women in the tech industry discriminate against men. The current article is about a special hiring policy for autistic persons in Dell. Luckily there doesn't seem to be a flamewar this time around. Of course, I wonder why. To be honest, I don't understand why so ma…

I think suggesting that the disadvantages of gender are in any way comparable to the considerably greater disadvantages of being mentally or physically disabled is in extremely bad taste. I would not hesitate to change genders, not for an instant, if it would free me from my disabilities.

>> I think suggesting that the disadvantages of gender are in any way comparable to the considerably greater disadvantages of being mentally or physically disabled is in extremely bad taste.

I don't understand what this has to do with my comment. Are you saying that I'm comparing gender with disability?

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#158

Post by ThrustVectoring »

ziroshima wrote: post #142

Tangentially related, as someone who is almost certainly "on the spectrum", but has never been diagnosed, is there any benefit to having this diagnosis? Is there any point in seeing someone about it?

Autism and ADD are fairly often co-morbid, and ADD is the most treatable mental condition (via stimulant therapy). If you have executive function issues (procrastination, losing things, inability to remain focused on boring tasks, self-medicate with lots of caffeine, etc), you can get a combined Autism + ADD diagnosis and try out amphetamine or methylphenidate.

As far as the autism itself, what a diagnosis gives you is access to talk or group therapy, possibly accommodations at work or school, and maybe classes for picking up social and coping skills.

Workplace accommodations are a mixed bag: you have to tell your work about your autism and implicitly threaten a disability lawsuit against them to get them. If you're in software and you need to have a desk without rear-facing traffic, you often have the negotiating power to just ask for that as a thing that helps you do your job better, so the diagnosis isn't particularly useful. Oh also, the "just ask for things you need" works better for smaller accommodations at smaller companies, the diagnosis is way more useful for the more bureaucratized environments at large companies.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#159

Post by gizmo686 »

loriverkutya wrote: post #76
inertiatic wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because you think disability is insulting in itself. It only implies a reduced ability, beyond the person's control, to perform in certain circumstances, to a degree that warrants consideration (from society, from the law, whatever). Autism and similar conditions are by that definition disabilities.

So how you call it, when I have the ability to perform social interaction as a neurotypical person, because I learned how to do it, but I choose not to do it in certain situations, because I don’t see any advantages? Also, do you consider it a disability that my hearing is much more sensitive and I can hear the buzz from the old light panels and I need to wear noise cancelling headphones to be able to concentrate?

Yes. You had to learn social interactions which are innate behaviours in most people. The fact that you are able to compensate does not meen it is not a disability. And, consider that there are those with the same condition who cannot compensate.

Re: Dell Autism Hiring Program

#160

Post by gizmo686 »

soberhoff wrote: post #150
mcguire wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know all those people who worry about sexual harassment overreactions? A diagnosis might help in those situations.

You're saying you should get diagnosed as a form of legal protection in case you accidentally have a weird interaction with the other sex?

Not just legal. People are much more forgiving of innapropriatw behaviour if they can point to a disability outside of your control; as opposed to you just being a jerk.

No one complain about a blind man staring at them if they know they are blind.

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