"What do you mean?" "Why?"

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Done.

Here's how to get over the "Whys": I went to my boss (back in the days when I had a "boss") and told them "just tell me that it is part of my job to follow these orders without question". Once I incorporated the fact of "no 'whys' allowed" into my schema, things went much better for me.

Here's how to get over the "What do you means": DO NOT ask the question directly. Instead, re-state what the procedure is as you see it. Example follows.



If you were to just ask "What do you mean", then poor JoeBob ain't gonna know what y'all mean by "what do you mean" because you could be meanin' some other part of the explanation.

This question got me in so much trouble when I started at Job Corps. See, I took the Administrative Assistant vocation, and one of the requirements is that AA trainees be able to use the Windows calculator. When my teacher saw that I was using the scientific version, she said that I had to use the standard version. I think you can guess what the first word out of my mouth was.

There was a lot of other problems like that, and it was one of the primary reasons why she would not recommend me for the college program.

Thank you very much, I can tell that this will be very helpful in the future. The advice you gave me was way better than telling me to "just shut the hell up on the job." AND it was great the way you explained it, ahahaha. Many JoeBob's out there

Oh, and I promised atleast one humorous example from my past. Well, last summer I worked at Taco Bell. I hated it and it was the worst job I've had, and probably one of the worst for someone with AS in general.
Well, when someone calls out a particular item to be dropped into the deep fryer, they just yell "I need more (whatever)!" "Drop some (whatever)!"

So, my boss walks up to me and asks:
Manager: "Justin, are you dropping the chalupas when they call them?"

Me: "No, because they haven't called them." (and at that point I hadn't been asked to drop chalupas."

Manager: "Yeah, but when they do call chalupas are you dropping them?"

Me:"........No........because they haven't called them."

Later when I told my NT friend, he explained what my boss meant, and we both had a good laugh.

Awesome!

that's sort of a double-edged sword in my mind for two reasons:

1. Not asking directly to their face due to fear you won't be promoted or something indicates you are agreeing to put your life in their hands.

2. The sad fact is they're always gonna try to save face around you, and never admit the truth...even when the truth makes absolutely no sense.