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So...lots on the value of soft skills today. It’s true: they are super-important!
Bad news on the “just learn lol” front: there are lots of autistic people in tech and we don’t “social” the way you do.
I’ve spent 15 years learning, and still rub people the wrong way sometimes.
Bad news on the “just learn lol” front: there are lots of autistic people in tech and we don’t “social” the way you do.
I’ve spent 15 years learning, and still rub people the wrong way sometimes.
It takes an enormous amount of effort for me to think through all the ways something might sound to other people and the meanings they might read into my communication that I don’t intend.
I can do it—in writing, slowly, with repeated reading—but it’s very hard in real time.
I can do it—in writing, slowly, with repeated reading—but it’s very hard in real time.
Of course, non-autistic people tend to prefer in person or face to face communication because they feel like it’s a higher bandwidth communication channel where nuances aren’t lost and flattened like written communication has a tendency to do.
But my experience is the reverse: in written communication, people have to say what they mean and not rely on facial expressions and intonation and unstated implications, all of which I have difficulty processing, in part because they are fleeting by their very nature.
The point isn’t that being autistic gives anyone a pass for being an asshole. It’s that the bi-directional communication difficulties make it very easy for either party to be perceived as an asshole when trying exceptionally hard to both be kind and communicate well.
I guarantee -that if you haven’t intentionally and explicitly practiced, your “interacting with autistic people” soft skills leave something to be desired, and learning won’t necessarily be easy because so much of it runs counter to the way you interact with neurotypical people.
But you are the majority and we are not, so you get to fault us for how we interact—which works great between autistic people!—and have people back you up and concur with your preferences and tell us we need to learn soft skills...and we don’t.
For example: I’m sometimes direct and honest in a way that people find offputting or rude. I don’t mean to be but it happens.
Sometimes people value this about me, because someone has to say the hard things and name the elephants in the room, and I do more often than not.
Sometimes people value this about me, because someone has to say the hard things and name the elephants in the room, and I do more often than not.
When I step on people’s toes this way: my fault.
When other people are indirect, tell white lies, and sugarcoat a situation, it’s distressing for me because I often find the communication unintelligible and have no idea what they actually mean. You guessed it: also my fault.
When other people are indirect, tell white lies, and sugarcoat a situation, it’s distressing for me because I often find the communication unintelligible and have no idea what they actually mean. You guessed it: also my fault.
Have you ever tried to coax someone to more direct, straightforward, and explicit when they’re used to softening everything by being indirect, roundabout, and implicit? It’s uh...very hard.
Net result: having spent enormous amounts of time trying to learn local communication customs in what is still a foreign culture to me, I mess up regularly, other people aren’t very helpful, and all communication difficulties are my responsibility to resolve.
So...maybe consider tempering your contempt for people who have difficulty with soft skills a little bit. I get that it’s part of an acknowledgement of how important soft skills are, but...it can also be exclusionary.
Post-script: this was the first tweet I saw after writing this thread. The situation that sparked the tweet involved completely unacceptable conduct that I absolutely do not condone, and...messages like this still hurt to read, because I’ve been struggling with this for decades.
