Understanding Autism: The Workplace Paradox

For years, I foolishly thought that doing excellent work was the way to get on in my career. I could not have been more wrong.

Photo by LYCS Architecture on Unsplash

I have worked in large organisations for over 35 years, and been openly autistic for the last ten. It has been hard, and I still struggle daily. But looking back, I think there is one simple truth about why so many autistic people find work life hard and struggle to get and keep our jobs and make the progress in our careers that we should be making. The breakthrough in my understanding is this: almost everything about our lives at work has nothing to do with the work itself.

Let’s start with the process for getting a job. If all that mattered was your ability to make widgets, keep accounts or teach 8-year-olds, there are all sorts of methods of assessing ability, potential, and experience in whatever the field is. You can look at qualifications, past employment and references, qualifications held, and even specific tests relevant to the job being applied for. If you truly just wanted the person who would do the best job, you would base the recruitment decision on a mixture of these criteria. You would choose the person with the potential to produce more widgets than any other candidate.

But we don’t do recruitment like that because the ability to do the job is only a small factor in selecting a successful candidate. This is why, no matter the other evidence, the final decision almost always comes down to an interview, which generally tests none of the skills needed for the job at all. Employers are as interested in having someone they like as in employing the best person for the job. All too often, someone that they like means the candidate who is the most like them. The imbalance in who is employed and who is not becomes self-sustaining.

Then there is making progress, or even just keeping your job, once you have one. Again, your performance in the measurable areas is probably almost irrelevant. For years, I was told my work was excellent, yet I received poor overall ratings and was even placed on a performance improvement plan. The reason? I didn’t play nicely with the others. I asked awkward questions, refused to be fobbed off by non-answers, and failed to look interested in the endless, pointless meetings. It made no difference at all how good I was at the work itself.

This is the great paradox of the modern workplace. We go through education being told that qualifications and skills are everything. That is a lie. They help, but only to a very limited extent. What is much more important to get on is being the right sort of person, who is the life and soul of the party, goes to all the team social events, sweet-talks the leaders, and so on. Being autistic is often incompatible with much of this. We live in a world where talking and appearance are everything, and actual ability is irrelevant.

This is what is at the heart of why so many of us are struggling at work. The deck is stacked against us. No amount of DEI policies is going to change the fact that sociable, outgoing neurotypicals are who most employers are looking for. The stereotype of the geek doing most of the work while being hidden away is rooted in truth. But they don’t want many geeks to keep hidden.

Once you realise that your work is the least important thing in determining your success in the workplace, a lot of other things start to make more sense. It doesn’t make them any better, but at least you can see what is going on.