24 Results in Work

Impatience vs attention to detail

I often find myself in a bit of a dilemma. Like many autistic people, my natural way of being is to be a perfectionist with a strong attention to detail. Through working, I have learned that the primary problem with being this way is that it can slow you down and really halt progress. This… Join The Curly Hair Project Community Today This article and our podcasts are available only to members of our community. If you would like to continue to read this article, along with receiving…

How could the challenges of autism be seen as strengths instead?

I have a bit of a problem looking at a lot of the literature and listening to people talk about “the positive traits of autism”. Whenever I hear or read these lists I usually largely disagree with them, because I feel that what is being listed is actually more to do with an individual’s personality rather than… Join The Curly Hair Project Community Today This article and our podcasts are available only to members of our community. If you would like to conti…

How to support autistic people through change

I’ve learned a lot through running my businesses. An idea I’ve come across is The Kubler-Ross Change Curve* (this is actually the same idea as the 5 stages of grief, which I’ve talked about before but in a different way). The Change Curve is used to understand how people might respond to and move through… Join The Curly Hair Project Community Today This article and our podcasts are available only to members of our community. If you would like to continue to r…

Why am I so critical and how to manage it

The most common definition of to criticise is: "to express disapproval of the perceived faults or mistakes of someone or something." People on the autistic spectrum are often described by other people, as being too critical. Someone who is too critical can be a difficult sort of person to be around. I know that I have a tendency to annoy people by pointing out their mistakes all the time, and that I can ruin other people's enjoyment or experiences if we are out somewhere or doing something and all I do is find faults with the situation...

To lead or to follow?

I am probably the perfect example of the classic stereotype of autism. I am very, very solitary - through choice and also because of my quite complex social difficulties. Any involvement with others generally makes me uncomfortable. This experience might be similar for neurotypical introverts so I think that neurotypical introverts will also find this article helpful. One major barrier to being this way is it makes it very hard to work with others in both leader (employer/manager/teacher) and follower (peer/classmate/colleague/team member) roles.

How do I know if someone will want to talk to me?

I sometimes want to interact with someone but I am unsure how to. There are lots of worries that go through my mind any time I am about to initiate an interaction with someone (be it a colleague or even a friend). 'Working' interactions By 'working' interactions I mean interactions with colleagues, peers or strangers rather than friends. These interactions are most difficult when face to face in a public setting and there are lots of other things going on (for example, we're in a shop, in the office, or in a doctor's waiting room). I cannot read a person's body language to be able to tell if they are going to hear what I say, if they are even going to recognise me (if it's someone I don't know/know well), or to work out whether they are busy or not and therefore do they even have time to speak to me, or will I just be disturbing them?

Improving productivity using routines and schedules

I had a brief conversation with someone recently and, like lots of things, it annoyed me (lots of things annoy me). The person was asking me what I was up to. When I listed what I was doing and the time I was doing it at (I said something like "I'm going home now because I'm going to be late for dinner, which I like to eat at 5pm"), she did a big grin and said, "It's all about schedules with you!!!" The reason this comment annoyed me was because it reminded me that lots of people play down a very serious matter. Note, this was all in my head, she hadn't given me any true reason to think that she was playing it down. However, I do know that many people I've come across in the past have made similar remarks to me and it always ends up with a bit of banter and teasing by them, because they think my "like" of schedules and routines is a bit of a laughing matter. I understand that people are trying to be friendly and affectionate with me, but I do sometimes wish that people took my "like" (which, if they took the time to find out more, they would realise is actually a 'need') of schedules and routines more seriously. Maybe I just wish that people took a bit more time to understand why schedules and routines are so important, so that they had more empathy, and then I wouldn't mind the teasing so much. But so many people view schedules and routines as very superficial, flexible things... "It's only a few minutes late, stop worrying!" or "Come on now, it's good for you to do things outside your comfort zone sometimes!"

How to be a team player at work

I am naturally a very, very solitary, self-motivated, intuitive person and generally I try to avoid collaborating with others on anything. A lot of other autistic people also greatly struggle working with other people and prefer to work on their own. Realistically however, when you work, you may well end up having to work with other people on occassion. I am learning to be a bit more of a team player. Here are some of my tips on how to better work with other people when it's very much out of your comfort zone and against your natural way of being. My conclusion is that you don't have to change your personality or pretend to be something you're not, but you could adjust your behaviour a little instead.

The 4 types of communicator

I've been reading a lot about communication (not specifically in regards to autism, just general communication) recently and through my research I discovered that there are considered to be 4 main types of communicator according to something called the VAK model. They are: Visual Auditory Feeling Auditory Digital Each type can be further broken down into 1) the choice of words somebody uses and 2) how they best understand information. Let's look in more detail about this.

Customer service training is conflicting!

I think it's quite interesting that in traditional customer service training, people who work directly with customers (such as receptionists, shop assistants, checkout assistants, etc.) are trained to use language in ways that are generally quite conflicting to the usual ASD-friendly communication guidelines! I also work in veterinary marketing and we work a lot with improving client communication. That inspired this article. I thought you'd find it interesting too.