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No wonder there's an AS epidemic!! !! !! !

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ManErg
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27 Jun 2009, 5:40 pm

Greentea wrote:
Now hear this: in the "How to interview successfully" workshop last week, the trainer said (and I quote textually): "Fortunately, at last employers have started to realize that job skills can be learned but personality can't be changed, and so now they're putting all the focus on the candidate's personality and not on work skills." She was talking about the importance of fitting in as the first and foremost value. 8O 8O 8O


I'm glad you enjoyed these courses! They can be interesting - although I'm not sure of the real value, mainly because they are so biased towards teaching us how to comply with the aims of the employers. These aims are not always in alignment with out individual aims.

Still, better to have done it as every bit of knowledge helps. However, I totally disagree with the idea that "skills can be learned". Only in 'unskilled' work perhaps, but it takes only a few seconds consideration of 'real people' to realise we all have *vastly* different aptitudes. Some people will have long retired by the time they hit the level others are at after a year or two. If employers are happy with this so long as those people are pleasant around the office, well, at least the office will be a happy place as the company slowly but surely fails.... :)


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27 Jun 2009, 5:49 pm

Greentea wrote:
so now they're putting all the focus on the candidate's personality and not on work skills.
Yep. That's what public education is all about. Defining which personalities are acceptable and which are not. That which it can't assimilate, it must destroy. It's part of that whole fascist thing that's been creeping up for the past century. And snowballing in the past decade.

Acacia wrote:
I demonstrate just enough life skills to have my difficulties be perceived as laziness, incompetence, and self-absorption instead of some kind of disability.
Me, too. Except that none of it is true. It's just the perception of people who are
lazy, incompetent, and self-absorbed.

Tantybi wrote:
I don't think this causes that plague of people being diagnosed AS, but it is one of the biggest reasons why our economy is turning to sh**.
It's both. The culture has become so corrupt and twisted and convoluted that nobody knows what's real anymore.

Remember the old saying, "You can't cheat an honest man?"
This world is going under very soon, and they're taking us with them.

ignisfatuus wrote:
We are perhaps the most openly discriminated against group right now, and what's more, we have no voice pleading our cause (the few that do are questionable. I don't like Grandin, she seems to be cashing in on her pseudo advocacy with little benefits for the group she pretends to champion).
I wouldn't say "cashing in," but I do have a few subtle arguments with her.



Last edited by Tahitiii on 27 Jun 2009, 6:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

TPE2
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27 Jun 2009, 5:50 pm

Perhaps this article could interst you:


http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com ... ersus.html



zen_mistress
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27 Jun 2009, 6:13 pm

Unfortunately I have both the unsettling personality and the lack of skill employability.



Tahitiii
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27 Jun 2009, 6:35 pm

TPE2 wrote:
Perhaps this article could interst you: http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com ... ersus.html
Good article.

Quote:
The report actually claims that 12% of people *diagnosed* with AS are employed. But I'd expect the proportion of AS 'sufferers' in work to be much higher once you include those who unwittingly, or unofficially, have the same syndrome.

I've met many people who matched the symptoms of Asperger Syndrome perfectly, but whom I doubt have ever been professionally diagnosed with it. The proportion who have been will basically be a self-selecting sample who encounter the greatest problems in everyday social interactions and seek solutions and diagnoses from there. You'd rather expect them to do less well than those who are able to get on with their life, and, dare I predict, earn quite a lot with their high intelligence and great technical skills.

But there's another angle. While there's probably a lot of undiagnosed Aspies in Silicon Valley, I'm sure there's a lot more living under the bridge downtown, who have never heard of Asperger's and would not be able to get a diagnosis if they did know about it. Shrinks are for rich people, or for people with rich, open-minded parents. Jail and tent cities are for poor people.



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27 Jun 2009, 7:52 pm

I think first off, the idea of what employment is has changed in the last 100 years. At the turn of the 20th century, most people either owned their own labor or their own business. Many people like us were successful because it was simple and expected of those with intelligence to start their own business. Today however, we are taught that the best way to get ahead is to literally be a wage slave. We are being taught to work for a large company or the government and they will take care of you. Now we are learning that they will not take care of you but that will only cause people to jump from one large company to another.

At a large company you are simply a number to most people there. To be honest, when you walk into the interview, they already know you have the skills to do the job. Your resume (if accurate) told them that already and they already weeded out those who do not have the job skills or those who were not bothered to do up a resume properly (and also, those previously interviewed and not acceptable). The purpose of the interview is to see if you will mesh up with the rest of the team members as part of the group. That is why job interviews are 90% personality.

I think the first thing we need to do is unlearn what was taught at school about employment. There are many methods of becoming employed, of which schools teach us only one. If you notice, most of the great innovators of our time (such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs) did not have much of a structured education beyond High School. Bill Gates was a college drop out and Steve Jobs structured his own education as a non-matriculated student. Some of the major studies about American millionaires also disprove the theory that to be rich, you have to have a good education. Read the works by Dr. Thomas Stanley to understand that phenomena.

I really think that the best method for aspies to become employed is to completely circumvent the system that is in place. Don't learn it and don't try to change it (as through government laws which we see how well the ADA and EOE really work). I once say a comic where one guy states "I climbed the mountain because it was there!" to which the next guy states, "Because the mountain was there, I went around it!" Rather than try to climb the mountain, lets simply go around it and see what happens.

The best way to do this in the employment field is self-employment. This either means starting your own business or doing freelance/independent contractor work. This lends to us being able to do the work in the way which works best for us and removes quite a bit of the office politics. Yes, there some issues that will need to be ironed but I think that with some work, it will work out better for aspies than traditional work. Also, if the work is done well and long enough, it may lead to full employment. If a customer does not want the risk of losing your skill set (which when self-employed, that is the risk they take in return for being able to cut you lose quickly), then they will consider hiring you, even if you do not interview well. This is actually how I obtained my current position. After 3 years as an indie, I told the client I needed full-time employment and would elsewhere, letting them decide if they wanted me bad enough. They decided that they did and the interview was more a formality than a check on my personality.

Please consider what I am saying. To continue to fight corporations and make them change for us will be an exercise in frustration. If they do not want to hire you, then make them realize that you will be competing with them. Maybe then, the attitude of personality over ability will go away.



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27 Jun 2009, 8:15 pm

Greentea and others

The God's honest truth is none of us can be what we're not. I have tried and I'm almost to the point of wanting to kill myself. I have so much hate and anger inside of me.

I am 30 years old now. I wanted to end my life on March 28, 1979. One of the main things that kept from doing this was a dream I had when I was 19. This is what the dream was.

I ended up kicked out of my parents house and I ended up the streets. I met people like myself. They were aspergians but I did not have that term. It wasn't given to me. We started to discuss things. We started to discuss the state of this world. We started to discuss philosophy. We decided unanimously that we needed to form a new society that was based upon our thought processes and our own values.

We formed it in central Europe. Guess what happened afterwards. A loud and thundering voice said these things would happen in some form. It told me that you and people like you would never fit into their world and I was to help form this new society.

There are those who want to cure us. They want to make us like them. I say this is an honest and direct threat. They seek to change who we are body and soul. The truth is excellent values like responsibility have become corrupt.

I know what needs to be done. This new society needs to be built. I cannot do it alone. I need help to do so. Will you all help me and join me? I don't know how to be a leader and I don't know if I am capable of it but I have to try. The NT society is eventually going to collapse in on itself starting with the fall of America. We need to prepare for this. We need to build anew. Ephemerella and Greentea has been studying the psychology of the NT mindset. Ephemerella I believe was in the US military at one point. Ephemerella may know military defense stratagies just in case we have to defend ourselves. Ephemerella I think has been canning and stocking up food to prepare for this fall. Ephemerella would probably make a good military general of our defense forces.

Here is one of my postings I said about her at http://cubedemon.blogspot.com/2009/04/e ... quote.html

"When a Man Stares Into the Abyss and sees nothing but darkness, this is the time that he finds his character. And it is his character, that keeps him from falling into the abyss."

I have stared into the abyss and I saw nothing but darkness for a long time. I say we need to form this society not only for ourselves but for the NTs as well. I say we need to be a light that shines out of the city and into the darkness of this world. I say we need to implement dynamic honesty into this world which means we not only try to save ourselves but we save the NTs as well. We need to show them by benefitting everyone you benefit yourself as well. We need to negate the narcissim and the psychopathy of this world and invert it into dynamic honesty. This is bigger than Neurodiversity. The truth is our world has become a charnel pit and the world is upside down. We need to flip it up. We all have to purge ourselves of the dishonesties we have tried to use to fit into this world. We all have to purge ourselves of our hate and our anger. We need to fill ourselves not only for ourselves but for all of humankind. This is not easy but we all must try.

Negate the world's evil. Step with me into a better world.



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27 Jun 2009, 8:31 pm

demeus wrote:
I think first off, the idea of what employment is has changed in the last 100 years. At the turn of the 20th century, most people either owned their own labor or their own business. Many people like us were successful because it was simple and expected of those with intelligence to start their own business. Today however, we are taught that the best way to get ahead is to literally be a wage slave. We are being taught to work for a large company or the government and they will take care of you. Now we are learning that they will not take care of you but that will only cause people to jump from one large company to another.

At a large company you are simply a number to most people there. To be honest, when you walk into the interview, they already know you have the skills to do the job. Your resume (if accurate) told them that already and they already weeded out those who do not have the job skills or those who were not bothered to do up a resume properly (and also, those previously interviewed and not acceptable). The purpose of the interview is to see if you will mesh up with the rest of the team members as part of the group. That is why job interviews are 90% personality.

I think the first thing we need to do is unlearn what was taught at school about employment. There are many methods of becoming employed, of which schools teach us only one. If you notice, most of the great innovators of our time (such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs) did not have much of a structured education beyond High School. Bill Gates was a college drop out and Steve Jobs structured his own education as a non-matriculated student. Some of the major studies about American millionaires also disprove the theory that to be rich, you have to have a good education. Read the works by Dr. Thomas Stanley to understand that phenomena.

I really think that the best method for aspies to become employed is to completely circumvent the system that is in place. Don't learn it and don't try to change it (as through government laws which we see how well the ADA and EOE really work). I once say a comic where one guy states "I climbed the mountain because it was there!" to which the next guy states, "Because the mountain was there, I went around it!" Rather than try to climb the mountain, lets simply go around it and see what happens.

The best way to do this in the employment field is self-employment. This either means starting your own business or doing freelance/independent contractor work. This lends to us being able to do the work in the way which works best for us and removes quite a bit of the office politics. Yes, there some issues that will need to be ironed but I think that with some work, it will work out better for aspies than traditional work. Also, if the work is done well and long enough, it may lead to full employment. If a customer does not want the risk of losing your skill set (which when self-employed, that is the risk they take in return for being able to cut you lose quickly), then they will consider hiring you, even if you do not interview well. This is actually how I obtained my current position. After 3 years as an indie, I told the client I needed full-time employment and would elsewhere, letting them decide if they wanted me bad enough. They decided that they did and the interview was more a formality than a check on my personality.

Please consider what I am saying. To continue to fight corporations and make them change for us will be an exercise in frustration. If they do not want to hire you, then make them realize that you will be competing with them. Maybe then, the attitude of personality over ability will go away.


I have considered what you're saying and you are correct. It's become a Captain Ahab type of journey. This is what I said in my previous post. We need to go around the NT world entirely. In fact, even if we don't form our own society why can't we form our own neighborhoods and communities. If we try to learn it and try to fake our way through it they will spot it in an instant. In fact, why can't we have our own mini-economy and free lance to each other. We all have strengths and weaknesses. For instance, some of us hate to clean but some love it and take it as a special interest. Why can't those of us who hate it pay for services from those who love it. Why can't we complement each other with our special interests and our weaknesses.



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27 Jun 2009, 8:47 pm

Greentea,

There is an OLD saying in the US. "It is not WHAT you know, but WHO you know.". In other words, SKILLS don't matter, friends and acquaintances can get you where you want to be.

LUCKILY, my current employer knows a bit better, but STILL.....

OH WELL.... I AM shocked that they know about this, admit it, and support it!



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27 Jun 2009, 8:52 pm

Greentea wrote:
No wonder suddenly so many people, like a plague, are being diagnosed with AS and applying for social benefits.


Actually, the problem is that modern employment practices focus on touchy-feeling crap like emotions when not long ago the emphasis was on ability to do the job and personality was secondary.

Those NTs displaced into the labor market have not had to interview for a new job in many years and aren't "hip" to the new trend. They go in focusing on their skills and don't realize that the lemmings are running the asylum...now employers will hire a lesser qualified person who "feels right" for the job versus hiring the person who can do the job even if they aren't the nicest guy in the world.



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27 Jun 2009, 9:16 pm

Tahitiii wrote:
Tantybi wrote:
I don't think this causes that plague of people being diagnosed AS, but it is one of the biggest reasons why our economy is turning to sh**.
It's both. The culture has become so corrupt and twisted and convoluted that nobody knows what's real anymore.

Remember the old saying, "You can't cheat an honest man?"
This world is going under very soon, and they're taking us with them.



Most people now a days just believe the world owes them a living, especially in the states where we are drinking up on self indulgence, instant gratification, laziness, greed, and gluttony. Now if you were a company like Walmart, and you wanted to sell quality products really cheap, you are almost forced into buying them overseas where productivity is higher and people do work, and people are hired for their abilities rather than personality. The U.S. right now has nothing to offer the world but a personality on a company expense account, and we think we aren't getting paid because of the economy, like it's an evil cosmic power that just has it in for us.

But I still don't see this affecting the amount of people diagnosed AS. The diagnostic criteria is the same, and it is new to most people as many people who were misdiagnosed ADHD and many who thought they were just weird are now discovering what AS is. I do think, however, that this might be why many AS find it difficult to obtain or keep employment which would cause an increase in AS trying to claim disability for it.



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27 Jun 2009, 9:21 pm

Acacia wrote:
Greentea wrote:
"Fortunately, at last employers have started to realize that job skills can be learned but personality can't be changed, and so now they're putting all the focus on the candidate's personality and not on work skills."


Finally, the answer to my confounding unemployability!
Employers aren't ignoring the fact that I am comprehensively qualified...
They recoil in disgust from my unsettling personality!

:?

Unfortunately, there's basically no such thing as AS benefits where I live.
Even if there were, I think that I demonstrate just enough life skills to have my difficulties be perceived as laziness, incompetence, and self-absorption instead of some kind of disability.

:?


I live in Florida and am on dissablity. you can start by applying for SSI at your local socal security office. Then try getting disability .

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OP_Home/h ... toc21.html

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OP_Home/h ... toc06.html

Click the links , hope this helps!



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27 Jun 2009, 10:03 pm

demeus wrote:
The best way to do this in the employment field is self-employment.
That's good if you can do it. Not everyone can. Remember, you're talking to a bunch of Aspies and Autistics here. It's just not going to happen.

The underlying problem is that the system just can't support everyone. All you're doing when you talk like that is working the system a little differently so that you win and someone else loses.

It's still about competition. There simply isn't enough traditional work to go around. When you compete, someone must lose. Making sure that the loser is someone else doesn't solve the problem, it just makes you part of the problem.

It doesn't have to be this way.

What we really need to do is restructure the whole society. We will have an opportunity to do that very soon, when the whole thing colapses anyway. But humans are probably not smart enough to do that. More likely, we'll enter a new dark age and most of us will starve or whatever. (If you happen to have a relative with a fully paid-off mortgage, now would be a good time to get friendly, since that's the only kind of wealth that ordinary people will be able to hold.)

cubedemon6073 wrote:
a dream I had...
Yes and no. There's a lot in there that should be developed. I'm out of time right now, but I'll be back.



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27 Jun 2009, 10:05 pm

ignisfatuus wrote:
Another option, although it's largely unpopular, is affirmative action. I don't think any minority can match our employment statistics (10-12% employed full time, inferior jobs, etc.). We are perhaps the most openly discriminated against group right now, and what's more, we have no voice pleading our cause


In my Political Science class, we had to come up with a bill for a mock Congress. I proposed granting autistics minority status. It was quite a learning experience. The main problem the people in my "committee" seemed to have with it is that they were sure that there were already resources preventing discrimination.

As far as affirmative action goes, I'm against it both on an ideological basis and a legal basis. The Supreme Court has quite clearly stated what they think of when it comes to affirmative action: It's discrimination as well, just a different kind. Heck, one minority (Asians) actually do better without affirmative action in place.

As far as difficulty in keeping a job, I'd like to state again the option of Americans to seek employment with the federal government. As I understand, it's not only difficult to turn away a highly qualified individual because of personality, but it's also difficult to fire them for this.

As for me? I hope to never work in a standard environment again. I hope to finish writing an epic fantasy novel by the time I'm done at Job Corps. I will be working as a tutor at Truckee Meadows, but I don't think that's really a standard environment, and I wouldn't have much interaction except with those I tutor, which generally takes about 10-15 minutes per person to make them go from D to B in math.


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27 Jun 2009, 10:30 pm

Tahitiii wrote:
demeus wrote:
The best way to do this in the employment field is self-employment.
That's good if you can do it. Not everyone can. Remember, you're talking to a bunch of Aspies and Autistics here. It's just not going to happen.

The underlying problem is that the system just can't support everyone. All you're doing when you talk like that is working the system a little differently so that you win and someone else loses.

It's still about competition. There simply isn't enough traditional work to go around. When you compete, someone must lose. Making sure that the loser is someone else doesn't solve the problem, it just makes you part of the problem.

It doesn't have to be this way.

What we really need to do is restructure the whole society. We will have an opportunity to do that very soon, when the whole thing colapses anyway. But humans are probably not smart enough to do that. More likely, we'll enter a new dark age and most of us will starve or whatever. (If you happen to have a relative with a fully paid-off mortgage, now would be a good time to get friendly, since that's the only kind of wealth that ordinary people will be able to hold.)

cubedemon6073 wrote:
a dream I had...
Yes and no. There's a lot in there that should be developed. I'm out of time right now, but I'll be back.


You're correct. There is. I need help to do that though. We all have to do it together. I don't have the ability to do it alone. I'm a pessimistic person as well. I'm probably more pessimistic than you are Tahitiii.



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27 Jun 2009, 11:04 pm

And this is where the true issue lies. If you are going to be pessimistic and use loser language (and yes, I will call it that), then you are not going to go anywhere except where you predict. I am an apsie but I refuse to be a loser. If someone else happens tom become a loser due to my refusal than so be it.

As for someone losing because I won, if they refused to hire me because of my personality even though I was the most skilled person, they deserve to lose. That is the capitalist system and Darwin system at its finest. Enough people losing because they hire based on personality and not skill and it will bring that system down by default. I really do not care if someone lost because I won in the same way that I hope someone better than me can beat me.

And yes, I understand that I am talking to aspies and auties. That does not mean that something like self-employment is out of reach for the group automatically. I know a few aspies who have been successful with self-employment, including one who is independently wealthy. Simply put, the resources are there if you are willing to say that I will do this in spite of society rather than listen to society put you down at every turn and start to believe it.