My son is 11,autistic, and obsessed with Minecraft.
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My son is 11,autistic, and obsessed with Minecraft. I manage a team of 4 Database Engineers. At some point I started to talk to them like how the parenting courses told me to communicate with my son and the team morale and overall performance has shot up so much we got an award
@fesshole Wow, clear, unambiguous communication and repeated positive reinforcement works on allistics too? Who ever coulda guessed?
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My son is 11,autistic, and obsessed with Minecraft. I manage a team of 4 Database Engineers. At some point I started to talk to them like how the parenting courses told me to communicate with my son and the team morale and overall performance has shot up so much we got an award
@fesshole Yup. Attending those parenting seminars. Best thing I've done for personal growth. Taught me how to do de-escalation much better.
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@fesshole Would you mind sharing some examples? This is great!
@jonm Very broadly (so not examples at all), communicate conscientiously and unambiguously (try to use words that don't have double meanings unless you're trying to be playful), realise that misunderstandings will _still_ happen and plan accordingly (if it's important, double check before they spend a whole day doing the wrong thing). Keep criticisms to a minimum and general while piling on praise for specific accomplishments (not just participation-trophy praise).
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@jonm Very broadly (so not examples at all), communicate conscientiously and unambiguously (try to use words that don't have double meanings unless you're trying to be playful), realise that misunderstandings will _still_ happen and plan accordingly (if it's important, double check before they spend a whole day doing the wrong thing). Keep criticisms to a minimum and general while piling on praise for specific accomplishments (not just participation-trophy praise).
(1/2)@jonm Most of all, give people the time to complete their tasks in the way that best works for them. Deadlines are an unfortunate fact of life, but don't create unnecessary deadlines that just stress people out, and try to plan for both people to be slower and more meticulous and for unforseen delays. You don't need to go all Scotty and quadruple any time estimate, but at least increase it by half if not doubling it.
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@fesshole Wow, clear, unambiguous communication and repeated positive reinforcement works on allistics too? Who ever coulda guessed?
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@jonm Most of all, give people the time to complete their tasks in the way that best works for them. Deadlines are an unfortunate fact of life, but don't create unnecessary deadlines that just stress people out, and try to plan for both people to be slower and more meticulous and for unforseen delays. You don't need to go all Scotty and quadruple any time estimate, but at least increase it by half if not doubling it.
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@sldrant "Now you're just arguing semantics." Yeah, no shit, I'm arguing semantics, because the meaning of the words being used to communicate directly influences what's actually being communicated. If we don't make sure we're all using approximately the same meanings, then you get the issue where the term "inflammable" was assumed to mean "not flammable".
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@jonm Very broadly (so not examples at all), communicate conscientiously and unambiguously (try to use words that don't have double meanings unless you're trying to be playful), realise that misunderstandings will _still_ happen and plan accordingly (if it's important, double check before they spend a whole day doing the wrong thing). Keep criticisms to a minimum and general while piling on praise for specific accomplishments (not just participation-trophy praise).
(1/2)Autistic man here.
Unambiguous communication is really appreciated. No one's a mind-reader, but #ActuallyAutistic people are worse at it than others. It's not just a matter of avoiding ambiguous words, either: please include all the information in your head that might be relevant. My wife Helen doesn't do this — every time she opens her mouth to speak, she leaves out one central piece of information — and it drives me scatty sometimes.
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@sldrant "Now you're just arguing semantics." Yeah, no shit, I'm arguing semantics, because the meaning of the words being used to communicate directly influences what's actually being communicated. If we don't make sure we're all using approximately the same meanings, then you get the issue where the term "inflammable" was assumed to mean "not flammable".
@StarkRG yeah, inflammable and flammable is a great example
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Autistic man here.
Unambiguous communication is really appreciated. No one's a mind-reader, but #ActuallyAutistic people are worse at it than others. It's not just a matter of avoiding ambiguous words, either: please include all the information in your head that might be relevant. My wife Helen doesn't do this — every time she opens her mouth to speak, she leaves out one central piece of information — and it drives me scatty sometimes.
@nddev @jonm I don't think we are worse at it than others, I think we're just different at it. We see nuance where others might not. Our processing speed is slower, but tends to be more detailed and possibly more accurate. Unfortunately, society apparently decided that only one type of thinking and existing should allowed and, if you can't do it that way as fast as other people, then you're a bad person who doesn't deserve employment.
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My son is 11,autistic, and obsessed with Minecraft. I manage a team of 4 Database Engineers. At some point I started to talk to them like how the parenting courses told me to communicate with my son and the team morale and overall performance has shot up so much we got an award
@fesshole Most managers never get it, that they should stick up for and defend the people who work for them first.
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@StarkRG @jonm I remember learning the following rules back in 2005 or even earlier:
- Praise specifically and criticise generally
- Double all time estimates made by your developers and take them to the next unit (e.g. 2 days become 4 weeks) before passing them on
- Agree on a clear vocabulary, write it down and stick to it
The last point especially helps with quickly seeing which employees either lack the necessary precision/focus or tend to make things overly complicated
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@fesshole i have heard from teachers, that the special courses they take when they start to teach their first autistic children, help them more to understand and manage all children, than anything they had learned before.
Cool, but adhd has another flavor of desires which resonate. One of which is: don’t make me do x a thousand times. I’d rather die.
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@StarkRG @jonm I remember learning the following rules back in 2005 or even earlier:
- Praise specifically and criticise generally
- Double all time estimates made by your developers and take them to the next unit (e.g. 2 days become 4 weeks) before passing them on
- Agree on a clear vocabulary, write it down and stick to it
The last point especially helps with quickly seeing which employees either lack the necessary precision/focus or tend to make things overly complicated
@Sturmflut @jonm Increasing days to weeks seems like the kind of thing you'd teach if you don't want to teach how to properly estimate project timelines (or if the person in question is severely time-blind, but it's probably better to just not rely on them to make such estimates in the first place). You need buffer, but telling a client or your boss that a project that you've estimated to take five months is actually going to take a decade is ridiculous. Or a two-year project becomes 4 decades?
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They don't follow it because they never got it. Most companies follow the peter principle: promote employees until they fail to train themselves.
A good developer being promoted to management rarely includes anything more than legally mandated training so they just keep doing what they've always done or retreat into their old responsibilities when things get difficult.
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They don't follow it because they never got it. Most companies follow the peter principle: promote employees until they fail to train themselves.
A good developer being promoted to management rarely includes anything more than legally mandated training so they just keep doing what they've always done or retreat into their old responsibilities when things get difficult.
@zimzat @Sturmflut @jonm Well, that just sounds like terrible leadership. Which isn't surprising, of course.
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My son is 11,autistic, and obsessed with Minecraft. I manage a team of 4 Database Engineers. At some point I started to talk to them like how the parenting courses told me to communicate with my son and the team morale and overall performance has shot up so much we got an award
@fesshole i wonder if that’s because IT crowd is often very autistic too -
@fiend_unpleasant @fesshole That's actually a really unkind thing to say.
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My son is 11,autistic, and obsessed with Minecraft. I manage a team of 4 Database Engineers. At some point I started to talk to them like how the parenting courses told me to communicate with my son and the team morale and overall performance has shot up so much we got an award
@fesshole This is because those courses are full of communication skills that are perfectly in line with how you communicate with anyone. The way autistic people like to be treated is not so fucking different from your own you gotta be making fun of how some career is full of us. It's actually not. Most database engineers are neurotypical.
Thanks for exposing the shitty people here.
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@fiend_unpleasant @fesshole That's actually a really unkind thing to say.
@crazyeddie @fesshole I've said worse.
