Is it normal for aspies to not be "team players"?

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Ever since I was little, I've always hated working with others. I MUCH prefer working alone and only being responsible for myself. In most cases, I've found working with others have just dragged me down and kept me from being able to work to my maximum potential, as well as constantly getting stuck being the only one that has a clue what's going on and being responsible.

Is this an aspie trait?

I've been exactly like that at times, so I'd say that yes it's probably pretty common among us.

definitely!

I work so much better alone! In groups I either end up doing it all or nothing. The only type that works for me, is when we divided tasks between us and then did them separately and delivered them together.

Depends who they are. Most of them expect you to carry the conversation and I'm not really interested in talking if the subject doesn't interest me. The ones are interested in what I'm interested in I'm fine with working with.

Yes, yes, I'm afraid that that tends to be a weakness for autistic folks like us.. I can completely follow what you're saying here, and have experienced it myself; having to adapt my pace to that of others and finding that it's either too slow for me and dragging me down, or sometimes too fast or chaotic and I end up confused. However, I've learned (and continue to learn) to mesh better with co-workers in terms of working methods and productivity. As others have expressed above, I likewise find it nice to work with others if I get along with them well- teamwork can be very cool in those cases. But in general, I'm a loner at work, and I'm usually assigned the 'one-man tasks', which I perform to the full extent of my abilities, so they appreciate that too.

I can't speak for other Aspies, but I work better alone. I don't really like groups because they're too distracting.

well my progression to management in a sophisticated company was halted due to my inability to be a "team" player.
the company was called "infohouse" (which disbanded in 2004), and it had free access to scandata from the biggest supermarket chains in australia. we competed with ACnielsen and we had the leading edge.

i was hired as a software platform support person initially due to word of mouth. the systems analyst for the company lived in one of my fathers blocks of units (his wife kicked him out of their home during a divorce settlement), and he eventually met me and we talked and he recommended me to "infohouse" as a good choice for the "software platform maintenance" position that they had advertised.

i got the job.

after a few weeks, it became apparent that the programmer of their computer systems (who was freelance and never on site) was not eager to drop his other affairs and return to infohouse to address some bugs in his programs. he also charged exorbitant fees for his time.

my boss (judy) was quite impressed with me and asked if i could try to solve a problem for her that was hindering the reports output.

i learned "foxpro" (the language that the system was written in) in a short time and i solved her problem the next day, and she was so excited that my pay went up immediately.

the company never used the services of the freelance programmer again, and i was employed as the sole programmer for info house.

i rewrote his programs so that they would execute in a small fraction of the time that they used to take. for example, the "month end procedure" went from 3 days to 15 minutes after i rewrote it.

they were very happy with me and so they took on more business due to their ideas that their programming resource was many times greater than what they previously relied upon.

my pay went up and up, and judy decided i should join management and she had high hopes for me. i was required to attend board meetings etc, and eventually they had so many programs required to be written that i could not keep up.

so judy employed a few junior programmers which she placed under my control, and she wanted me to delegate tasks to the junior programmers to reduce my coding requirements, but i never was able to rise above that. i always thought about how the programs should be written, and i did not trust the junior programmers (university trained) enough to believe they could write the best code for the requirements at hand. i could not even tell them what i wanted them to do without bamboozling them, and so i tried to write everything myself. they sat and twiddled their thumbs while i was snowed under writing everything, and it was noted that they were getting payed for doing nothing because i did not delegate tasks to them because they looked cross eyed at me when i tried to describe what i needed to be done.

i never trusted them to have the capacity to work out for themselves how to write a solution to a requirement, and that was my downfall.

when the company went bust (due to federal legislation changes) i was working 16 hours per day just to keep up with the workload.

i never got to know the junior programmers and i stubbornly assumed that they would not have the same programmatic creativity as i had, and as a result, my evolution never rose to the level of true management.

Group working is hell. I just can't cope with having to significantly lower my standards. And the complex and painfully slow communication process which "the rest" seem to use frustrates me.

only if i lead, and they obey.

i dislike having to press the escape button to stop your avatar from moving.

When i was younger i wasn't very good in working with a team as i didn't really fit in but nowadays i am a lot more comfortable with working with a small group but working alone will always be my preference as it is my strong point.

Absolutely!! ! I can work with others when absolutely necessary, but for the shortest duration possible, and with anxiety increasing with every moment passing. As far as team sports when I was in school, the way that they could tell who would win whatever the game, was to know which team did NOT have me on it

I do best at most all things while alone and undisturbed. This goes for almost all aspects of life... I like to travel alone; never in a tour group, and I like to shop alone, work alone, and be alone. The exception of course, is that I want my wife with me for most fun things to do, and to go places with. But nobody else.

Charles

I strongly prefer working alone, and getting the best performance. But now looking for a job, that question always comes up: "What is it like to be a team player?" I just can't come up with the "correct" answer they are looking for.

I had no idea that the escape key could be used to stop animated .gifs. Learn something new every day, I guess!

It is normal for Aspies to prefer individual efforts, but I suspect it's more of a communications and processing difference.

Say you (personally) looked at a problem, and wanted to process the issue. Your "teammates" are looking at the problem, and then returning to the regularly scheduled social interaction of the moment. You're going to have a productivity dis-connect no matter what, either less up-front communication (From you to them), or more production (By you).

Throw in enough times like this, and you'll end up with the optimum solution to the problem, which is working by yourself, but that cuts you out of future "upper track" work.

It really depends on the people within your team. Although teamwork can annoy me because some people tend to get a bit carried away