When I first heard about AS and suspected that I may have it, I scoured the internet for more information. I came across this list which seems to have disappeared or been censored because it makes us look bad. When I first found this, I showed it to my boss and we both agreed that I exhibited all of them to some degree. I for one don't believe in sweeping the negative aspects of AS under a rug. I think it's much better to accept them and learn ways to work with and around them.
Work Characteristics
Many of the manifestations found in the categories above can immediately translate into work behaviors or preferences. Here are some additional ones:
Difficulty with "teamwork"
Deliberate withholding of peak performance due to belief that one's best efforts may remain unrecognized, unrewarded, or appropriated by others
Intense pride in expertise or performance, often perceived by others as "flouting behavior"
Sarcasm, negativism, criticism
Difficulty in accepting compliments, often responding with quizzical or self-deprecatory language
Tendency to "lose it" during sensory overload, multitask demands, or when contradictory and confusing priorities have been set
Difficulty in starting project
Discomfort with competition, out of scale reactions to losing
Low motivation to perform tasks of no immediate personal interest
Oversight or forgetting of tasks without formal reminders such as lists or schedules
Great concern about order and appearance of personal work area
Slow performance
Perfectionism
Difficult with unstructured time
Reluctance to ask for help or seek comfort
Excessive questions
Low sensitivity to risks in the environment to self and/or others
Difficulty with writing and reports
Reliance on internal speech process to "talk" oneself through a task or procedure
Stress, frustration and anger reaction to interruptions
Difficulty in negotiating either in conflict situations or as a self-advocate
Very low level of assertiveness
Reluctance to accept positions of authority or supervision
Strong desire to coach or mentor newcomers
Difficulty in handling relationships with authority figures
Often viewed as vulnerable or less able to resist harassment and badgering by others
Punctual and conscientious
Avoids socializing, "hanging out," or small talk on and off the job
This quite well describes me at work. Not just now but since 1995 when I first started working. Varies from day to day but generally I survive a day at work and not much more. It doesn't seem to matter what I am doing either because I am never at ease.
I have most of these (the ones in bold):
Difficulty with "teamwork"
Deliberate withholding of peak performance due to belief that one's best efforts may remain unrecognized, unrewarded, or appropriated by others
Intense pride in expertise or performance, often perceived by others as "flouting behavior"
Sarcasm, negativism, criticism
Difficulty in accepting compliments, often responding with quizzical or self-deprecatory language
Tendency to "lose it" during sensory overload, multitask demands, or when contradictory and confusing priorities have been set
Difficulty in starting project
Discomfort with competition, out of scale reactions to losing
Low motivation to perform tasks of no immediate personal interest
Oversight or forgetting of tasks without formal reminders such as lists or schedules
Great concern about order and appearance of personal work area
Slow performance
Perfectionism
Difficult with unstructured time
Reluctance to ask for help or seek comfort
Excessive questions
Low sensitivity to risks in the environment to self and/or others
Difficulty with writing and reports
Reliance on internal speech process to "talk" oneself through a task or procedure
Stress, frustration and anger reaction to interruptions
Difficulty in negotiating either in conflict situations or as a self-advocate
Very low level of assertiveness
Reluctance to accept positions of authority or supervision
Strong desire to coach or mentor newcomers
Difficulty in handling relationships with authority figures
Often viewed as vulnerable or less able to resist harassment and badgering by others
Punctual and conscientious
Avoids socializing, "hanging out," or small talk on and off the job
Some characteristics some bosses want in employees:
Great concern about order and appearance of personal work area
Perfectionism (ever heard of quality assurance)
Excessive questions
Reliance on internal speech process to "talk" oneself through a task or procedure (is the boss the "thought police" anyway?)
Strong desire to coach or mentor newcomers
Punctual and conscientious
Avoids socializing, "hanging out," or small talk on and off the job
You must have had some crap bosses in your time.
Most of my bosses work areas have been the messiest about.
Quality assurance has nothing to do with perfectionism (though there are certainly some complete tossers working in that field who think that is what it should be about). i feel rather strongly about this one as I report to my companies quality director, so I do work in the QA deparment, and am a lead auditor.
Most of my bosses haven't minded small talk etc as long as the work gets done.
It really comes down to who you work for I suppose. The lower down the management chain you go the worse the bosses usually are, supervisors are usually the worst in my experience.
The other items seem quite familiar though.
Conformance to a standard or specification is not perfection. A spec maybe 15um +/- 3um. Perfection would be to have all pieces at exactly 15um where QA, or specifically QC in this instance, is ensuring only parts that fall within this specification go onto subsequent processes.
QA is certainly focussed at improving processes to minimise the number of non conforming parts produced by a process but this is not in the pursuit of perfection. Looking at standards whether it be ISO 9001:2000, ISO/TS 16949, ISO 13485 etc do not mention perfection. Even improvement programs like Six Sigma don't mention perfection and recognise that non conforming parts are going to be produced. It's because these standards recognise perfection is not attainable that they have strong section on corrective and preventive actions.
Even gurus of the quality world such as Juran, Crosby, Deming, Shewart etc never mention perfection as they know it is not attainable.
Oh yeah my boss on the work placement i'm on HATES me talking to other people whilst i'm working.
And I do seem to get stressed with people telling me what to do and berating me for the pettiest of things ;p
Guess thats why I want to be my own boss...
Ian
well, most bosses don't know what quality assurance is anyway and demand perfection. Of course, when someone tries to obtain perfection that they freak out. I really meant, the boss's idea of perfection.
Thank you for the definition anyway.
I must have been lucky in the boss's I have had, as long as the work gets done none of them really care what else I get upto. Either that or it may be dependant on the job role you have witihin a company. Whether it is fair or not a shop floor operator will never be treated the same as a design engineer.
For this reason I hate doing those "personality quizzes" that people want to give to "find out more about you" because they are going to show that I have these characteristics that they don't want. I won't get hired or I will get fired. So really it is discrimination against people with autism although no one really will admit it. It is hidden discrimination.
Deliberate withholding of peak performance due to belief that one's best efforts may remain unrecognized, unrewarded, or appropriated by others
Intense pride in expertise or performance, often perceived by others as "flouting behavior"
Arent these two contradictory?
This is a very interesting list, but about 60% of it applies to me (not Aspie) and only about 30% to my boyfriend (Aspie) -- I guess like all lists of characteristics, the variation from one person to another may be greater than the variation between inside and outside the diagnostic category.
(did that make ANY sense?)
Noetic's signature ""While not clumsy, she does tend to walk into things" [My neurological report]"
One of my kids is like this. I think there are actually two different kinds of clumsiness, poor motor coordination causing things such as untidy handwriting, and poor spatial-body awareness, in which one has a poor sense of their own body's place in space, causing a person to walk into things or to unwittingly invade the personal space of others.
I think I have both to a certain extent -- but more inclined towards the former. I don't tend to invade others' space so much, because others are much more likely to invade mine. (My personal space is larger than most people's.)
I caught an accidental glimpse of a director's notes from an audition I did once. They said, "Good voice, slightly clumsy." True, I suppose.
Max,
I think the original list of traits was part of a much longer list of adult characteristics put together by Roger Meyer (and which can be found
here).
One potential problem with lists like this is that a fit (or otherwise) is that some sections such as work issues may depend on context. For example, if you work as a mathematician in a university research department you probably experience different issues than (say) if you worked as a salesman. Some kinds of work are likely to present less issues for people with AS-like characteristics.