It's a valid frustation... sadly the social bits are often useful.

E.g. communication tends to work best if you have A: trust and B: a mental model for the other person. A is a buffer against friction. B is essentially API documentation about this specific person

The social bits are how most people build A and B

I develop A and B by working with people and paying close attention to them. I learn what they’re good at and what they’re not, how they like to communicate, how they like to work, what they don’t like to work on. I do this by paying attention during work. For me, the work is the social bit. I don’t need to play “escape from a room” with someone to do that.

Now, if other people do need corporate staged social games in order to build that up for themselves, then that’s ok for them, but why is that considered the norm? Why are they required? Why is it up to the neurodivergent person to exhaust themselves for them? Why is it considered normal for someone in a “People team” to ignore the needs of some of the people? I don’t see why other people’s needs are inherently more important than mine.

I think the norm often becomes the norm because of frequency. If most people like some social stuff (and the rest pretend to, to blend in), it's the norm

I don't know it has to be that way at all. There's probably lots of room for compromise. The "people team" would need to both know about the need and care enough to try to take it into account

Yes, they're useful. But B: doesn't occur naturally for some of those with Autism. Sometimes names with faces is near impossible, at a baseline. Masking with those individuals, or feigning interest can be exhausting. Dancing around not wanting to discuss outside-of-work life can make one stand out, etc.

There's no polite way to tell such individuals to f- off, of course, and it's often expected.

sadly for who?

Sadly for those neurodivergent who do not see the social bits as 'useful'. Social bits are, ultimately, useful, even for those with Autism, even if masking et. al. is exhausting.

Humans are social creatures. We can't live in a vacuum nor on our own without support from other humans (i.e., food production).

Sad for you more like, Mr edifice of self-serving assumptions.

let's put a pin in that, circle back

We're a family here.

looping in Useless Manager Alice and Useless Manager Bob, let's get some time on the calendar to discuss

Let me double click on that before you pin it and circle back.

Had a "people" guy at a previous employer. At every corporate social thing, he'd run around with his huge DSLR camera and take pictures to post on the company social media, to show how this is a great place to work.

He was an irritating person even without his camera. I hate having my picture taken, and I don't consent to having my face posted on social media. Later, when the company realised that setting money on fire isn't a solid business strategy, he was thankfully fired.

I had an over-enthousiastic guy at work. I don't know what pills he was on, but I'd love some. Once during lunch I was sitting with my coworkers, having a completely shitty day. Suddenly he showed up "oooh, you all look so lovely, let me take a photo" and pulled out his phone. I subconsciously responded with death stare full of hatred. Would love to see the photo someday.

I agree, which is why it drives me crazy to be on HN and see people be like "if you want to work as a programmer you must live breathe eat sleep code and have a resume of Github commits three miles long."

It's a job, not a religion.

Seems like an unrelated (maybe even opposite direction) complaint. Plenty of autists are obsessed with programming and technology.

10 hour day in the terminal just to come over here and find this! Me obsessed? Hell yes!

It’s my personal escapism from the everydayness of existence.

Boy, that's a straight shooter with upper management written all over him!

For some people it's a job.

For others it's a calling.

Nothing wrong with either - I just think it's worth being aware that people have different motivations.