I thought you might be interested to see this web page - actually four web pages if you include the three questions. What do you think of the advice?
http://www.worksmart.org.uk/career/fitting_in

fitting in at work

How important is fitting in at work?  more...
How can I make sure I fit in?  more...
Does fitting in have to mean conforming?  more...


further information

Working is only a part of being at work. The work pays the bills and is the reason you’re there, but the people you work with are a central feature of your working life, and can prove even more important in the long term, with friendships often lasting long after the jobs through which they were begun. Fitting in at work is a key step towards ensuring that your working life is productive and happy and that you make the most of the social potential your workplace provides.


How important is fitting in at work?

If only in terms of the actual work you do, fitting in at your workplace makes a big difference. A cohesive team, bound together not just by their presence in an office or factory but by shared interests and social experiences, makes for a much more effective unit than one where work is the only thing bringing them together. At the very least, the employer will need to recruit new staff a lot less often.

For an employee, a workplace where you fit in with your colleagues feels like a completely different place to one where you don't. Being a part of a group gives you more energy and enthusiasm and inspires creativity, as well as providing access to a ready-made social network with immense potential. If you don't fit in at your workplace, you're unlikely to be very happy or to stay there very long.


How can I make sure I fit in?

The first step to fitting in is to get a sense of the culture of your workplace. Every organisation has its own culture, which manifests itself in the dress code, the look and layout of the place, the level of formality and the way staff interact with each other. Getting a clear sense of the way things are done is an important step towards making sure you pitch your own behaviour in a way that will chime with your colleagues. If you show up every day in a suit when everyone else is wearing jeans, unless your work requires it, you'll be erecting a barrier between you and those around you.

Set yourself some basic rules about how you deal with your colleagues. Don't be critical of them or their work. If you have an issue with someone, approach them about it personally rather than airing your concerns with other people, and do so in a positive, constructive way rather than being confrontational. Asking for help with problems you have with your work is a good way of breaking the ice and indicating a level of respect for colleagues' opinions, which will help. Developing these kind of habits will create a good climate for fitting in.

Make the effort to go to social functions arranged through work. These allow you to meet your colleagues outside of the usual working environment, when they're more relaxed and the organisational hierarchies and work-related barriers are weaker, and you can let your personality come across more easily. If you're asked to join people after work or at lunchtime, accept, because that's a clear invitation for you to fit in. And, if nobody asks, it's often because everyone thinks it's someone else's responsibility, so don't be afraid to do the asking yourself. Just like you, most people like to know that others are interested in them.


Does fitting in have to mean conforming?

If you're conforming against your wishes then you're not fitting in. Fitting in means making your personality a part of your working environment, not allowing it to disappear under a culture of which you can't be a part. If the culture of your workplace doesn't appeal to you, then it's worth trying to develop alternatives. If, for example, your colleagues get legless in the pub every evening and that's not your thing, try suggesting alternatives - a sporting outing, perhaps, a musical gig or a movie. The odds are that you'll soon find like-minded people who'll welcome the chance to do something different. Of course, it is possible that, despite your efforts, the culture is simply one you could never fit into. But most workplaces contain a remarkable variety of people, and trying to make connections is nearly always well worth the effort.

RE the topic line:

I'd say don't bother.  But that's just my two cents, and I usually seem to be the extreme rebel when everyone else is moderate and reasonable.

That's me for ya.

Hmm...

Sounds like company brainwashing to me.

Work is work, and that's all. It makes money. That's all. Sure it's better if your workmates are friends, rather than enemies. But there's no reason why relationships should have to go beyond the occasional "hello".

I'm generally suspicious of job agency pamphlets because the people who write them are usually stupid.

"If you're conforming against your wishes then you're not fitting in. Fitting in means making your personality a part of your working environment, not allowing it to disappear under a culture of which you can't be a part."

Well how come I am often told at job interviews "sorry, you don't sound like you will 'fit in."  That is after someone talks to me for five minutes.  It is just prejudice against people with autism.

All I can say about the article is .... how very NT.

Strange how fitting in means adaptation of the workers. Shouldn't it go both ways. How can a working place be fitting for me is a question at least just as valid. If the atmosphere at work is so bad that I have to use my spare time to 'socialize' at work, to make work endurable, something is wrong at work.

That's what I'd tend to think too.

I have never been fired... I have always been successful and yes fitting in is essentially team work.... The younger you learn it, the better the chances.. stay true to yourself but always try team work.. .A young aspie at our support group has learned this and is very successful at his work and loves it!

A good sport to learn team work if one is not athletically inclinded is Croquet. I know its bigin UK and it is growing in USA.. it helps when you have partners and learn to get along and learn coordination... Theatre also teaches Esprit De Corps which means "Spirit of the body" you must work together to make the play work... it is essential to learn.

look i can fit in anywhere i just come off as weird or eccentric. i am currently suing my workplace for discrimination and harrassement. The funny thing is they keep thinking that they know what i am going to do and they are basing it on what an nt would do. I think that is funny. what am doing? My job nothing else. I will get my day in court and the judge will decide whos right until then i just do my job

Good for you! We  need more case law on the subject... you are helping us all!  Bravo!

I can do the NT fitting in. I'm very good at it. I give all. It just becomes my obsession. And if the job is no good I still do it, but if the job is no good, I'm one of the first to fall out. Last job I had we were doing the team work thing as much as our superiors let us, it was our way to survive. Five of us, working together a lot. But in a company that thinks human resources are infinitive. (like some people think of oil). After nine months four of us were sitting at home with serious burn-out and depression.

Reaction of my boss, when I said it was his company that made us sick. Employees shouldn't talk to each other. It only causes trouble. A superior of mine found another job, because she could not work that inhumane.

It was not just in our small group that these things were happening. Within a year three people under 40 had a stroke at work. And lots and lots of people burned out.

After two weeks I tried again to work there. there were 30 collegues gone and 40 new ones. People were used there like paper towels.

But I wanted to work, I wanted a job, I wanted this job, (because it was available). And I hyperfocused, adapted more than ever and went down more than ever.

And its strange that its always the fault of the employee, NT or Aspie. Some companies are rotten to the core, especially those who pay little and want all the flexibility of you they can get.

Social service in a city close to where I live won't send people there to work anymore; most clients they had send there had come back for the worse. (That's what an ex collegue told me)

Adaptation has limits. And these limits are different in all of us, AS or NT.

A good employer will look at the possibilities of his/her personel and make that work for both the company and the employee. And employees will be happy to work there.

And it can work, you'll see it in voluntary jobs.

^"Some companies are rotten to the core" -
Sounds more like this company was rotten to the CORPS!  

Seriously, that situation is terrible.  

Definitely, adaptation has limits.  Sometimes you have to just acknowledge that a particular work culture, or even profession-wide culture, is not right for you, and move on.

Of course, that's easier said than done.....

I think it would be better if more people sued poisonous workplaces but it is hard and very draining and if the bosses are able to cow their staff, they are going to do their utmost to bluff their way through court too.

It's one thing to expect staff to be courteous towards each other (a must for a workplace to run smoothly) but quite unreasonable to be nitpicking about tiny elements of dress and how much time they spend socialising (unless they mean "too much" and it is affecting the work output of particular people).

It is difficult to fit in at work, because people have hidden agendas and usually do not say what they really mean.

I think that in my last few weeks of work, I have been under the impression that I had real friends at last, only to find that because I had the audacity to actually like a girl there in an intimate way, that I am now a laughing-stock. Perhaps I should have 'known my place' and kept quiet about it, after all, it isn't as though I am entitled to have such feelings, much less expect to get them reciprocated; not while there are so many low-IQ lumps of Beef about who are obviously so "superior" to me.

Now I understand why I utterly despise most manifestations of  Neurotypical culture, even if I do not really have A/S (which is always a possibility, though I am getting closer to moving towards a 'self-diagnosed' category).