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

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And as far as discrimination and being labeled a minority, the laws will not help us.

1) Most companies (even large ones), hire not by job postings but by word of mouth. In other words, the managers tend to hire those that they know or are known by people that they know. This affects all groups too. I have even heard a major talk show host practically admit that he discriminates at their company but because of the words they use and the company's methods of finding people, it cannot be proven which leads me to.....

2) You have to prove the case. Remember, you are the plaintiff and as such, you have the prove that the defendant is guilty. It is one of the basic rights we have in court. Not only that but the defendant does not have to help you prove your case and all they have to do is bring in proof that the other person was better qualified than you (which is easy to do if it gets to court).

3) Finally, have you ever experienced a lawsuit. Even if you win you lose. First off, you have to pay out quite a bit of money for the lawyer which you may get back if you win (then again, maybe not). Also, your name is now in public records as someone who will sue their employer and you can be sure other companies at least to a cursory look at public records as part of their employment practices. Finally, do you really want to go back to work for someone who does not want you around?

Again, the solution to this issue is not for force the other party involuntarily but to go around the other party.

ManErg, that's what I thought. I was shocked, because I know that skills for a specific job is not something that can be learned quickly, and aptitude even less so. I don't know how organizational counselors arrived to this conclusion that job skills are not very important. And most of all, I don't understand why "fitting in" has become such an important thing. I don't have a clue why it's so.

As for "niceness", no, it's not niceness they search. I wish. I'm a nice person. And the workplace hasn't become a more pleasant place since they've screened for personality. It has nothing to do with being nice, but with being a natural at herd life.

What you describe about lawsuits is a pyrrhic victory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory This is why I'm so pessimistic about even my own pessimism. In effect, I negate my own pessimism. This means you are correct and I agree but from different premises than you. Demeus, you're right we do need to go around the other party. Personally I think we need to help each other out and help empower each other.

The truth we have a ton of hate for the NT world but I don't think our hate will help us. As I said one way that is possible to go around them is to form our own communities and our own society. Actually, this is what we aspies are naturally good at. If we can't solve a problem we go around it.

I totally agree with you. I'm a stay at home mom and have been for 2 years now (I got fired for being pregnant 9 months pregnant,so the jerk thought about it for 9 months before letting me in on it). Anyway, now that my kids are 1 and 2, I figured now is a great time to re-enter the workforce. I really think that the military has helped me through a lot of my aspieness that gets in the way of work, and I haven't tested it anywhere but Wyoming which is like trying to be Alice in Wonderland because I have too much an east coast attitude. Well, the last job I interviewed with, we got along great. We had two interviews, and it was like cocktail hour more than an interview. He still hired another person who wasn't more qualified or better personality, but because her skills better matched what he wanted her to do. But he called me and asked if he could keep my information handy to contract me later for projects that match my skills and which also happen to match what I'd rather be doing (graphic design). Now that I found out I'm pregnant again, I'm just going to do a small business in graphic design and marketing. I like that idea better because I get to do what I want to do, something that is a special interest and hobby, but also, my main problem with the work place is the 8 hours of dealing with the same people as opposed to short spurts of contact. So, that eliminates the 8 hours of dealing with them. I do have to deal with myself, and that can get just as annoying, but I'd be doing that anyway Now, I'm not talking get rich quick. Small businesses are not like that, in fact, you will probably never get rich. But, when you weigh out the options, if you have a skill that you can sell, I think it's worth it for Aspies. And, there's a "for dummies" book out there on every subject, and those are the best IMO for like a home based class on something you're weak at (i.e. sales and marketing, accounting, etc.). There's also books out there on starting businesses on a shoe string for those who aren't sure how to start with little to no capital.

You know Sam Walton, the guy that started Walmart, was a manager at a place called Ben Franklin. He wasn't anyone incredibly special except that he was an average guy that created an extraordinary thing. Same with Famous Amos. When the economy recovers from a bad period (like the depression for instance), it's like a bunch of the big ones go under while some of the smaller ones become big. Only way you can tap in on that is to have something small in case 10 years from now someone offers good money to turn it into something big. But you will never be that person unless you have something to offer.

Considering Aspies tend to observe NT's like they belong on National Geographic, it shouldn't be hard for us to pick up on the pattern of what's going to be the next trend, or what they really want in a product. For instance, a lot of us knew how the media was going to handle Michael Jackson's death. Any writer on here could have jumped on that. In fact, you don't have to know the guy or ever talk to him to write a biography and watch it sell. Look at biographies on Michelle Obama.

In all honesty, what separates these successful entrepreneurs from the rest of the world? They are innovative, think outside the box, break the rules, and they never give up on their dream (slightly obsessive). Hmmm...sounds pretty Aspie to me.

Did you not see the episode of Spongebob where Squidward moves to a Squidlike society? Oh, he was so happy at first with all the others doing the same things he loved...clarinet, interpretive dance, strolls in the park, and even canned bread. Then, he went crazy because there was no spongebob disrupting his day with the leaf blower. Sounds crazy, but metaphorically, it's true. NT's add to the diversity no different than anyone else. May I also suggest reading the book called "The Giver?"

Demeus hit the nail on the head. If you think someone sucks at what they do, go out there and do it better. At some point, the people that suck will either have to adapt or die. If enough of us out there doing the job right exist, that will save this society from falling and reshape it into something that you might prefer to be a part of.

Those are two huge parts of a problem with many huge parts.

How do you combat denial?

My brother-in-law was on the 26th floor when those planes hit the World Trade Center. He came home. He was so traumatized that he didn't talk for a week. Then, when they set up the new office, he went right back to work as though nothing had happened. He's an Ashley Wilkes (from "Gone With the Wind"). He has too much invested and is making too much money to question the system. The old system worked too well for him, and he can't imagine any other way of life.

There's just no room in his brain for the fact that his own government tried to kill him for the sake of a cheap PR stunt. It's too horrible to be true, therefore it simply isn't true. If that didn’t wake him up, I can’t imagine what would. The public education system has been doing such a good job for such a long time that no one can think at all any more.

From the top of the pecking order to the bottom, nobody is willing to admit that the emperor is naked. If you're at the bottom, you're too busy trying to stay alive to look up and be philosophical. If you're in the middle, you're too busy beating down those below you.

There are a bunch of other huge parts of the problem. The whole system sucks, and each component depends on the others, so that you can't do anything about it. The economy, education, healthcare, the nuclear family, criminal justice, eternal war, political corruption, greed...When you put them all together, understand them all at the same time, possible solutions emerge that would not be possible if you try to solve one problem at a time.

Aspies are going to feel it first, even if they don’t understand it. With every generation for the past century, the attempts to assimilate have started earlier and earlier. Trying to find a place in a system that is totally dishonest and irrational and brutal just brakes your mind, before it even has a chance to develop.

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The economic basis of life has changed. We had the Hunter-Gather age, the Agrarian age, the Industrial age, and now we are approaching the end of the AGE OF BS. Sure, everyone likes to call it the “information age.” They lie. It’s all about who can scam who and for how much. There’s no room today for anyone who wants to make an honest living.

What has changed, specifically? Well, a couple hundred years ago, you had one man with a plough, breaking his back trying to support one nuclear family. Today, you have one guy sitting on a tractor, supporting hundreds of families, leaving hundreds of people with nothing better to do than to call me at dinner time, trying to persuade me to part with money that I don’t have in exchange for goods or services that I don’t want, can’t use and won’t improve my quality of life. The machines have taken over all the grunt work, and there’s nothing left to do that this sick society values enough to pay you. (There’s plenty of important work that is being neglected, but no one is willing to admit that it’s valuable.)

Everyone wants to sell you books and seminars on how to win within the current system, but you’re not going to get anything out of them. Those who know are not going to tell you the truth. How stupid would they have to be to give info like that away? The only way to win is to scam someone. To become a smarter liar than everyone else.

Or to join a conspiracy of liars, like Greentea’s workshops. All they do is teach you how to be more competitive, which is the disease, not the cure. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take their advice. You need to if you want a job. But know that your feelings of revulsion are legit. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do to stay alive, but you don’t have to like it.



I don’t know how to do that. We’re not pretty or glamorous or popular, and we have nothing to say that will feed the egos of people powerful enough to get anything done.

I’m not saying that it’s impossible. I’m saying that it will be impossible if we insist on focusing only on a lot of happy-sappy “positive” crap.

We need to allow each other to acknowledge the truth. It’s gotta start with straight up, objective reality, whether it’s pretty or not.

The problem is that in the USA it is not the federal government's job to employ people. In fact, the more people work for the government, the more taxes are needed to pay all those paychecks.

Unlike business enterprises that make a product, government jobs are usually about doing some resource-wasting chore that we could really do fine if it wasn't there in the first place.

I stand by my conviction that food and clothing, possibly even building, production can be automated. Tha is practically the definition of a post scarcity society. If I knew how to do it, or if I had more money, I'd build a fabber at home.

Then you have all these people who have to live off government checks. But hey, the government can afford it, because they're taxing the robots (technically).

Actually, the government bureaucracy wastes less money than private bureaucracies. It's just that people are a lot more interested in where their tax dollars are going than where the money they spent on a car goes.

And if a thousand people got jobs with the government, that doesn't mean that a thousand new government jobs are created, it means a thousand government jobs are filled. Jobs that are needed to fill vital roles in the way government functions.

Not really. Most government jobs are listed as "non-essential." That means if something bad happens and there's no money to cover the payroll, all those people go home. Every time a new program is created, new agency, etc. they wind up creating jobs that need to be filled for as long as the money flows to write the checks.

If the average government employee was sent home and the work never done, hardly anyone would notice.

Like those really efficient sweat shops that hired children to do piece work for a few cents a day?

The US economy is traditionally fueled by consumer leisure spending. Lower wages significantly and you shrink the economy. The US economy simply cannot be sustained without strong wage and salary earnings to distribute wealth sufficiently to fuel widespread consumer spending that drives the economy.

Government, private sector, off-shore, it's still the same competitive game.
It's like throwing out a scrap of food and watching a bunch of animals fight to the death over it. It's amusing to those above the fray. Or simply uninteresting. The winners get to feel victorious, even as they are being exploited. The losers get to lose.

Almost none of the jobs today are "necessary." It's all glorified welfare or scams. Some are just better dressed up than others.

No matter how much you raise the bar, no matter how competent or talented or dishonest or pretty or connected we become, we will still only have so many legitimate jobs.

Competition should be for those who want to play. For the ambitious, ego-driven, power-hungry, competitive, whatever. The rest of us just want to find a way to live. The system could be set up so that everyone can find a valued place in society.

By the way, people in the US are a lot of despicable things, but the one thing you can't say is that they are lazy. They are more willing than most to work hard. That's not why the jobs are going off-shore.

Nice to know its all about how you can talk to someone instead of your ability to do the job nowadays

And just look at what the easy-to-get-along-with "Team Players" have done to finance and the global economy in the last few years!

Wasn't one of the space shuttle crashes traced (by Feynman) largely to poor management handling of technical issues? When lives are at risk, I want the most anal-retentive nerds possible doing the work and I don't care about their social skills one jot.

I knew someone was going to say that, and originally I already replied with it and then deleted it. Not all overseas products come from sweatshops. And many products that do come from sweatshops can easily be from US companies with sweatshops overseas as much as foreign companies all together. I'm not talking about that percentage. I'm talking the higher percentage that just about anything you want done can get done better just about anywhere outside of the U.S.

The problem with the wages is that our wages are set low so that upper management can afford their raises and ridiculous spending. Every company's annual report, the largest spending generally is salaries and wages to include all the things paid out in relation to benefits and taxes. Of course, the guy in charge wants more money so he's going to give it to himself, but the guys below ask for it, but well, it's not always in the budget because stocks go down when profit margins go down. Everybody, from the guy on top to the guy below wants more money, more benefits, more breaks, and less work as well as less responsibilities. A small business manager will discover quickly how hard it is to get people to show up to work on time and actually, dare I say, work rather than do homework or play solitaire. Then you get a high level of people who don't know how to do their job. See, this thread ideally starts with the concept that they are qualified for their job based on the resume to do the work, but then interviews pick the one that fits with personality. Unfortunately, a lot of award winning personalities who can't do the job get hired instead of people who can do the job. How many people in this world love to say, I don't know how to do this, so I'm going to find out how? So now you have a large amount of staff who isn't qualified doing jobs. Also, jobs like accounting takes a different personality than other jobs, but management that hires accounting staff rarely know much about that. One thing I see a lot of is that people who do a great job, who up the bar, are generally not wanted because managers are afraid they are going to take their job. So for job security and ego purposes, managers generally prefer someone who isn't qualified, who is a little lousy at their job, etc. Either way, mix that with the concept that companies treat their machines better than their people, money being the only thing to make the world go round, and superficial qualities outweigh morality... you got a real life version of shows like the Simpsons, Family Guy, and Southpark. Look at the US from a far and we look like a parody. It's amazing how I can watch a show on TV and say that's only funny because it's so true, but when I look at life and see it resemble that show, it's not so funny anymore.

Tantybi, the honest truth is I have so much confusion in my head as you will see on my postings on my blog. http://cubedemon.blogspot.com/ You have given me a lot of data as well. So has Tahatti, greentea and others.

My postings on my blog may come across like they're very beligerent and angry. If you ever get the time will you please answer the some of the questions on my blog?

The truth is American society is confusing for me. I don't understand the social aspects of it at all. What gets me so angry is most NTs will not answer my questions. One NT said that it's because most NTs do not know.

They tell me to:

1. Quit being negative and be more positive
2. Be more responsible
3. Quit blaming others
4. Listen and Follow instructions
5. Quit making execuses

None of this tells me anything and it's vague. It doesn't give me the detailed rules and instructions of how to be responsible in America. How can I follow instructions when the instructions are vague and have multiple meanings? I have no idea on how I'm supposed to qualify any of the criteria on job postings at all even in the non skilled labor jobs. They'll also tell me to read Steven Covey's books like 7 habits of highly effective people. To me this book is so vague. It goes into theory but tells me nothing practical of how to do things step by step.

In a supermarket job like kroger how is one supposed to follow instructions that are given by multiple supervisors which may be contradictory? Who am I supposed to follow? It is so confusing to me. This is one main reason I wanted to put a bullet to my head.