Asperger Syndrome – A unique contribution to the workplace

I had spent all day with him in a workshop. The purpose of the workshop was to identify ways in which we could measure the culture of our company to track changes/improvements. He joined us at the request of the CEO and he made connections from company data to organisational culture that we HR/OD professionals would not have looked at in that way. His insights were ingenious really.  He was a short and stocky man with quite wild dark hair. His name was Douglas and he was a Business Analyst. He was a clean chap, but he was also very dishevelled and unkempt. Someone jokingly once asked him if he owned an iron, and he answered smiling “I do own an iron, but it’s not a very good one.” He seemed neither up nor down about being asked the question. I would have been mortified.

I worked with him throughout that day in small breakout teams, and together we painted a very measurable landscape of our culture, finding measurements that were both quantitive and qualitative in their nature. We spoke, shared insights and I laughed a lot. I don’t know if you have ever met someone who looked at life so differently and matter of factly that it brought you joy in the form of laughter, but that was my experience that day, and I enjoyed his company immensely. I felt we had made a connection, so imagine my surprise when the very next day, he walked passed me in the canteen without acknowledging me in any way.

The Stroke Economy, as explained in Transactional Analysis, is that Strokes are given and received as a forms of recognition. We give and receive dozens of Strokes a day: Leaving your home you may greet or nod at a neighbour, thank your bus driver, acknowledge the security guard at the gate, nearly collide with someone and smile an apology, on and on it goes.  The rules say that if you have never ever met someone, then you don’t need to acknowledge them in any way, shape or form, (unless you are propelled into close proximity with them) but if you know them, or have spent time with them, then you owe them a Stroke!

In those days I had the same insecurities as everybody else, because like everybody else, I did a whole lot of thinking. What did this ‘snubbing’ mean? Was I not high enough up the food chain to receive his recognition? Had my laughter and light nature the previous day offended him,? I entertained a good few thoughts as I sat in the canteen drinking my coffee, and then, as all thinkers do, I hatched a plan. I would be ‘just passing’ his desk and then would casually speak to him and see how he responded. I made an excuse to go and see the Exec PA’s about a room booking, and then I casually stopped by his desk on my way back out.

“Hello Douglas,” I said, as I got close to his desk.

“Hello,” he said, without looking up from his notebook. While thinking of something else to say I saw that he had a Stoat or something as a screensaver. Short of any other ideas I pointed at his screen and said, “Nice Stoat.”

He looked up at me this time long enough to say “It’s not a Stoat” and then he turned back to his notebook.

“Weasel then?” I said thinking, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound.’

“That’s a common two that people often get mixed up about,” he said, and without pausing went on to explain the difference between a; Weasel, Stoat, Pine Marten, Ferret, Polecat, Polecat-ferret and a Mink. He told me where they lived, what they ate and the state of their welfare, and that the picture on the screen was of his own Ferret playing in the snow in his back garden.  People around us visibly stopped typing and making/taking calls in order to listen to him.

He spoke for ages then as suddenly as he started, he stopped and quickly excused himself saying that he had a meeting to go to. He picked up his notebook and started to head for the office door.

Me too,” I said, startling back into life, and followed him quickly to the door, thinking as we went, ‘well that went well,’ so imagine my shock when he made no attempt to hold open the door for me and let it close right in front of my face.

This was my first encounter with Asperger syndrome, well that I am aware of anyway.  I didn’t have an understanding of any of this stuff at that time, I hadn’t even heard the term. I just came around to the fact that Douglas was; an original thinker, very ‘matter of fact’ about life and didn’t bother with the niceties. He wasn’t being rude, he just didn’t seem aware of the social dancing going on.

I subsequently had a crash course in understanding Aspergers when my brother married his fiancé and we gained a fabulous new niece as part of the deal. Learning how she looked at the world and walked within it to the beat of her own drum was fascinating to me. I learned how to form a loving and close relationship with her.

Much later in my career and a great deal more knowledgeable about spectrum behaviour and it’s unique strengths and challenges, I hired a system tester named Leah, whom I knew to have Aspergers. She had unwavering concentration and a methodical approach to completing test scripts. She never faulted or tired, in fact, my biggest challenge was trying to convince her that 93% was enough for a pass. She solidly rejected this and worked each piece to 100%.

At her ‘one to one’ meeting, I asked her how she was settling in. She said fine and spoke about the job and her thoughts on what she’d been tasked to do.  I asked her if she had made any friends within the department yet and she said no, that she had not really had a chance to socialise with any of them yet. Checking that she wasn’t being left out, I asked her if she’d received the email about Richard’s retirement lunch. She said she had received it, but had forgotten, and had eaten a sandwich an hour before so didn’t go. I smiled understanding that because the invite said lunch, and she had eaten, she could see no other reason for going.’  I suggested that next time she should go along whether she’d eaten or not, and maybe have a coffee or a juice and just get to know people. She nodded and said “good idea” and I found myself smiling again when she left the room.  Aspergers manifests differing characteristics in different people, but that ‘matter of factness,’ and lack of understanding about social norms, is usually present.

The next day I invited her to join a few of us who were heading to the canteen for coffee, but she shook her head and said: “I’ve just had one thanks”.  The others went to walk away  but I lowered my head and smiled saying “how about you just come for a chat then?” Remembering our conversation from the previous day she locked her PC and reached for her handbag saying “well I can’t waste more than 10 minutes because I have so much to do.” Did that make you smile? It did me, all the way to the canteen.

Leah sat there amongst us and listened to Susan prattling on about the pavements in her street. She smiled awkwardly whenever anyone looked at her and when the 10 minutes were up she rose up from her chair and said “Thank you, I’m going back to my work now”

The general consensus from her co-workers after she left was that she was a nice girl but a strange fish. I pointed out that she just looked at the world differently and that I would love to be that black and white about things and not to overthink things. We all nodded and agreed that this would be a gift and then we all went back to pretending we cared about Susan’s fight with the Roads and Lighting department, each of us wishing she would hurry up as we really did have a lot to get through that day, but unlike Leah, our social awareness kept us at the table for a whole 10 minutes more.

Any of the autism organisations would welcome the opportunity to support people with autism in the workplace, and they can offer support and advice on how to integrate and manage an autist.  If you could see a place for original thinkers in your organisation, then why not reach out to the National Autism or Scottish Autism societies who would be happy to help and advise you. My old mum used to say ” the world would be a hell of a boring place if we were all the same” I am sure that goes for the workplace too.