Some thoughts on 'social skills' and office politics.

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It might help to take a step back and consider things from your boss's perspective. Accepting the certificates of others while not appreciating the exact same certificates from you could be the result of many things, including (but by no means limited to) the following:

1. Your boss is discriminating against you because you are autistic. Straight-up refusing to acknowledge your skills or see your potential, despite the fact that you excel at your current tasks, ie non-autistic colleagues who perform exactly as well as you do get opportunities you are denied.

2. You aren't able to successfully complete the tasks assigned to you (on time, on budget + without a ton of outside assistance), so your boss isn't comfortable assigning you more complex tasks. This would explain why your boss pays for a colleague to get a certificate and gives them more interesting work as a direct result of it (ie colleague is a high-performer capable of taking on additional responsibilities) but won't support your pursuing the exact same certificate (ie your inability to complete your current tasks means you're not ready for more complex ones). In which case, you aren't being discriminated against.

3. You've antagonized (inadvertently) colleagues who are disinclined to work with you. Your certificate is irrelevant because dealing with you is frustrating or pointlessly exhausting.

(For example, in grad school the lab techs, custodians + departmental assistants held the universe together. If you treated them like human beings, they'd happily help you. If you were a jerk, they'd kick you it at 5 on the dot and make sure your prof knew it, thereby ensuring you won't get a TA or RA or a good reference for grad school. Life's too short to deal with jerks).

For point 1 to be true, you have to rule out points 2 and 3.

2. Most of the tasks have been completed in time. Late completions are caused by supply problems and errors in the task description. This school year I log root causes of tasks that are not completed in time. One cause is mismanagement of my former boss (after work relocation failing to arrange a copying machine because of which tasks had to be postponed and my working hours had to be incidentally cut, without lowering salary). Other is too late notifications that the student files has to be physical instead of online (virtual files).That resulted into a task for which supply is insufficient.

3. The are either no problems with social interactions between me and other colleagues, or there are problems that are kept hidden from me. In that case, why?

In the beginning there could have been too much support needed, but the amount of support given to me slowly decreased over the years. I think that has not been reported to my boss; he still thinks that I need too much support. I can do that alone: managing my tasks: which task must I start now, and what will be the second task to work on?

There are way too few appraisal talks. There must be way more frequent appraisal meetings, so that my behavior and my performance can be frequently discussed.

I had a talk with my new boss today, and we discussed the current situation. We made some decisions about more appraisal talks, and she will advocate me, while talking with her boss. She will do whatever she can.

We also made some other appointments, not related to this topic. I said her, I am willing to go to other locations temporarily if there is work there, and no work at my usual location. The stay on a different location can be about 4 hours (half a workday).

I am really very glad about the decisions that she and I made.

I think even when I am right there is an issue, which might be important:

- For the boss it may be cheaper to have someone that does copying, some (dull) administrative work, some doing the dishes and clean the kitchen and have already a computer technician coming from a different location, than let me study to be a computer technician (or network manager) myself and the teachers have to do the work, I do now.

- If I am acomputer technician, there may be problems because the problem description may be unclear, unlike request to copy things. My current boss may see that as a problem (because of my autism), although I do not see that as a problem. I think, if something is not clear, I can ask questions back. If someone says to me: "I got an error message on my screen," I will ask: "What kind of error message?" The answer to that question will be more specific and then I will know where to look for a solution.

My current boss is way better than my previous, but despite of having autistic children and an autistic husband, she is not completely unbiased against autism.

I've never worked in an office, so I've never experience office politics firsthand.

Just as long you smile, do your job, say hi, make basic chit chat about the task at hand or videogames or tv shows (I have fairly common taste, so that's what I go with), and don't do weird stuff, then people at work are neutral to nice.

There are a lot of socially awkward people who don't have aspergers at work. A lot of immigrants who barely speak english, and eat with their heads down at lunch. You can't even engage them in conversation, they're in there own little world. Jesus...NTs are socially awkward now because of smartphones and social media.

I guess I've only worked low-wage jobs, so they're mostly awash with odd characters of all kinds. lol

That is a good point. Maybe if you work in an environment where there aren't a lot of social skills movers and shakers, it's easier to be accepted for who you are.

I was thinking that there might be en enormous difference in levels of diversity between low-status and high-status businesses. As in an IT person working with local sewage systems rather than with a high-tech company that's in the media a lot. I don't think status oriented people are going to be quite so ready to work with sewage.

I've worked in places where the whole team preferred to stay positive and there was enough social mixing going on and enough group activities that people didn't segregate off and foster hostilities. Those were some of the better environments I've been in and I tend to look at social butterflies as having a wonderful tool so long as they can use it the right way.

Or your boss needs a computer technician NOW and appropriately elects to summon a qualified one when one is needed. You aren't a computer tech and it isn't your employer's responsibility to pay you to become one (by covering your tuition or letting you study during work hours). Also, if you were a computer tech, your boss would have nobody to do admin stuff, clean kitchen, etc.

It doesn't sound like you're being discriminated against for being autistic -- you are simply not qualified for the job you want.


Why not take computer classes part-time and then seek employment once you are qualified for computer stuff.

My current boss told me that she would advocate me, so that I can do a computer related course.

Then there is no excuse to skip me. My previous boss clearly stated that I had a mental retardation, which is obviously a lie. My autism is the problem. If it is, I want a clear proof. I think he can't give me one. Autistics deserve to be considered and not to be stigmatized. I can give a proof that he is biased and that he is wrong.

It is up to him to find someone not underemployed. Why should he victimize me?

You are not being victimized by not being assigned work you are not currently qualified to do.

It isn't your (or anyone's) God-given right to have their employer pay for them to train for a different job.

I've no idea if it's illegal to speculate if an employee has a cognitive disability but if you think the boss has done something illegal, go talk to HR (or an offsite agency that provides services and job training to the disabled; there are free advocates/lawyers who can assist you in filing a formal complaint).

It's also possible the boss doesn't think you're capable of more difficult work and therefore only assigns you tasks that she/he thinks you're capable of. That's not discrimination either. That is getting paid to do your current job.

If you really, truly believe your employer doesn't value your contributions and you see no chance of career advancement that you feel you're worthy of, you do have another option: go get a new, better job! Even NTs do this all the time!

I think, I quit this discussion, until there are some changes that are worth to be mentioned. Whatever you say, I will ignore, I rest my case.

Autistics are being discriminated, but when I mention it, that is rightful? If my boss ignores my intelligence, he might also ignore my qualifications and design tasks to someone who is qualified AND WHO IS NOT AUTISTIC!!

And that's it. I rest my case, and I quit.

Yes, but NTs are not discriminated against. How big do you think that is successful in my case? Qualifications are partly nulified if the very person has something against which are biases.

As I said: this discussion is useless, unless/until there are new facts.

Your boss calls a qualified computer tech to fix a computer problem. You are not a qualified computer tech.

I think you keep on not understanding my point. Therefore I decided to stop this discussion until there are new facts.

But... now there are new facts which will be in my advantage. My new boss is granted by her boss, to allow me to follow a computer related course. The next two weeks she and I will look into, what course is the best.

Gradually, not immediately though, she will come with more interesting tasks. Besides that she wants me to use my intelligence to solve things. She will do that by giving instructions which are less detailed. She will give the main point of a task (which will or will not repeat itself) and wants me to think about how to realize it.

In the meantime I am learning into communication lines between the employees in the school where I work, and what the rules are and how the management around me works.

It won't be perfect, because I am in a learning stage, but this patience she will have. Personally she is almost my friend and sometimes she and I are joking around in her or my office.

I am not a computer technician yet, but she knows I know something about computers and programming, and the tasks that she will give me, will somehow related to computer repairing and replacing broken stuff by new stuff, such as keyboards and mice.

Some more positive news: My boss told me that I could follow a computer science related course. I told her, that I don't know which course, although I had some suggestions. I also told her, that we (she and I) should look at what the computer staff thinks about it. What knowledge or professionality is missing? She wants to talk about it with others. Then she and I will be able to make a decision about what exactly I could do. The computer staff has a better view on this matter than at least I (and possibly she) have.

Now I feel, I am getting somewhere.