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“Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

the.scapegoat.dev

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Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#251

Post by larve »

dalbasal wrote: post #132

I think this is a good/important article. Yes, it is a "POV" perspective, and has elements of defensiveness but it is also honest and open... trying to find better communication. >>>impatient and cut me off or interject with a snap interpretation of what I have said so far. So... this sounds like you have already entered into defensiveness by this point, one way or another. Defensiveness tends to be mutual, so perhap…

Thanks for reading.

The thing is, I’m absolutely not passive aggressive when asking these questions. On the contrary, I am engaged, asking them for their point of view and expertise, and actively trying to work in the same direction.

I would have zero problems answering the questions you bring up as a hypothetical. In fact these sound like great and interesting questions.

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#252

Post by shlant »

larve wrote: post #244
shlant wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. that isn't the conclusion the author ends with. That quote is addressing example #4. The overall conclusion is under the header "Conclusion" 2. That quote also is not saying "everyone needs to change". It's says they are not going to lie about being wrong just because someone else knows less than them (see the title of example #4). Why should anyone be expected to do this? Why should experts in their field pretend…

Thank you! I have indeed tried as best as I could to not prescribe anything, and just present them as “these things have happened, they have not gone well, I think I tried pretty hard, here’s what I think might have been happening”. If anything, I admit I am wrong daily (if not hourly), and I pretty much never blame anybody, because I don’t really understand what that means anyway. Someone could have done something b…

I appreciate how much patience you've had in these comments. There are so many uncharitable and dismissive responses from people who clearly are not interested in understanding your perspective. I appreciate you sharing so much. I think it's really important we have more people providing these viewpoints. You communicated what (I believe) you intended to very effectively and sometimes you will still be misunderstood (and misrepresented) but IMO it's important you keep expressing your experiences. Thanks for the insightful read!

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#253

Post by larve »

protonbob wrote: post #23

This article does give me a little more insight into working with divergent thinkers. However, this one part gave me pause: "Plus, "giving in" does not preserve peace—it simply appeases bullies and makes the workplace toxic." I would have to disagree here. Authority structure is useful and sometimes there are multiple good options. Not "giving in" every now and then can lead to analysis paralysis.

Thanks for reading. I did indeed think a lot about leaving this sentence in / writing it like this. What I think you mean is that compromising is necessary to move forward in a team. That is 100% true, in fact most (if not all?) technical decisions are just not based in fact, as much as I would like them to. What matters is that everybody understands why a compromise has been made, and what the pros and cons were that led to that decisions.

I am fine shipping the most horrible code if we all agree that we discussed the pros and cons. This also makes it easy to avoid the “I told you so”-trap which further degrades work climate. Instead, we can go back to the original design document, see that a con we expected has happened, and pick the discussion up from there.

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#254

Post by Beltalowda »

brainwipe wrote: post #54
W4ldi wrote: post #12

It's called narcissistic entitlement to expect the whole world to change their behaviour because of ones own inability to fit in. I'm not saying it is fair. Life is never fair. The only one who has the ability to influence those situations is oneself. You can't rely on other to change - it won't work anyways. You have to be the one that improves those interactions. For your own good.

Neuro diverse people can't necessarily change their behaviour because it's how their brain is wired. It's like asking a visually impaired person to just see better. Many neuro diverse people have to force themselves to "fit in" causing untold stress and trauma. That's not for their own good, it's forcing their brains to work in a way that they don't.

That is essentially saying that autistic people can't learn. That's not really the case.

Furthermore everyone has to adjust to the people around them, often causing untold stress for everyone. This is one of the aspects of the neurodivergency movement I am less impressed by because I feel it's just handwaving away any issues as "suck it up, not my problem, deal with it". I've worked with a few people like this over the years, which also caused untold stress for the entire team.

To give an example from this post, "is our checkout page not performing well?" to the React rewrite manager comes off as a rather dismissive "why would you want to do that?" While certainly a valid question – and I wasn't there and I don't know if it was phrased like that exactly – but I'm sure those questions could have been asked in a way that came off as less challenging and dismissive, resulting in a more constructive conversation. You really can learn these things.

Or, maybe the manager was just an asshole/idiot and the unconstructive interaction is all completely unrelated to the author's autism. Could be too.

The first point – "the non-autistic person is not hearing what I'm saying" – sounds like the author might benefit from trying to understand why that is, and adjusting the way they say things. Sometimes small changes can make large differences, and it really doesn't need to cause untold stress. Effective communication is hard and also something everyone has to learn.

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#255

Post by larve »

larve wrote: post #253
protonbob wrote: post #23

This article does give me a little more insight into working with divergent thinkers. However, this one part gave me pause: "Plus, "giving in" does not preserve peace—it simply appeases bullies and makes the workplace toxic." I would have to disagree here. Authority structure is useful and sometimes there are multiple good options. Not "giving in" every now and then can lead to analysis paralysis.

Thanks for reading. I did indeed think a lot about leaving this sentence in / writing it like this. What I think you mean is that compromising is necessary to move forward in a team. That is 100% true, in fact most (if not all?) technical decisions are just not based in fact, as much as I would like them to. What matters is that everybody understands why a compromise has been made, and what the pros and cons were tha…

I realize I forgot the second half.

“giving in” without forming a compromise and making sure everybody agrees on what the compromise is however is just appeasing a bully (say “we do it this way because I’m the manager and you’re not” or “we do it this way because I have 10 years of experience and you don’t”).

I should probably have given it a bit more context.

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#256

Post by knaik94 »

larve wrote: post #244
shlant wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. that isn't the conclusion the author ends with. That quote is addressing example #4. The overall conclusion is under the header "Conclusion" 2. That quote also is not saying "everyone needs to change". It's says they are not going to lie about being wrong just because someone else knows less than them (see the title of example #4). Why should anyone be expected to do this? Why should experts in their field pretend…

Thank you! I have indeed tried as best as I could to not prescribe anything, and just present them as “these things have happened, they have not gone well, I think I tried pretty hard, here’s what I think might have been happening”. If anything, I admit I am wrong daily (if not hourly), and I pretty much never blame anybody, because I don’t really understand what that means anyway. Someone could have done something b…

Reading your comments I understand better now where you're coming from. My suggestion is maybe look into the best way to respectfully disagree with someone. I am not implying or suggesting you don't, I am just thinking of new approaches to this situation. I know most of us want to avoid conflict at all costs, but being able to debate without becoming frustrated and affected is a skill as well. I am unsure if it's necessary, but I can't think of another direction you could go.

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#259

Post by larve »

siliconpotato wrote: post #143

> 1. The allistic (non-autistic) person is not hearing what I'm saying We are often hearing a lot of unspecific waffle at great expense. The author goes on to say they are spending a few minutes setting the context. I have to deal with this a lot, and in reality, without cutting you off, it often goes on for 30 minutes to answer a simple question poorly. How this looks in reality. The worker wants to move some cables…

I agree, communicating efficiently and precisely is key.

I work pretty hard at it. Yet still, especially when someone is not conversant in my domain of expertise (real-time embedded systems, data engineering), I do need to give context. I am not talking 30 minutes here, I am talking 5 minutes at most, in the most complicated cases.

In fact, this article is me trying to boil down things, and I realized I might have gone too far into conciseness :)

Re: “Autistic people can’t acknowledge when they’re wrong”

#260

Post by larve »

shlant wrote: post #252
larve wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! I have indeed tried as best as I could to not prescribe anything, and just present them as “these things have happened, they have not gone well, I think I tried pretty hard, here’s what I think might have been happening”. If anything, I admit I am wrong daily (if not hourly), and I pretty much never blame anybody, because I don’t really understand what that means anyway. Someone could have done something b…

I appreciate how much patience you've had in these comments. There are so many uncharitable and dismissive responses from people who clearly are not interested in understanding your perspective. I appreciate you sharing so much. I think it's really important we have more people providing these viewpoints. You communicated what (I believe) you intended to very effectively and sometimes you will still be misunderstood…

Thank you, this means a lot. I don't really take these uncharitable comments as dismissive, instead it's a good sounding board to see what different things I could try to do differently.

The real value I hope is that it resonates with people and it makes them feel less alone / allows them to reframe past interactions. A trait I have heard about often in autistic communities is how hard it is to let go of something if you can't explain it. That is definitely very true of myself. Being able to contextualize and reframe a problem from incomprehension to "here is a path forward" is so helpful.

The fact that so many comments here are evidence of a "problem" thus is a great opportunity in disguise.

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