Why do we make enemies so quickly?

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First, this seemingly contradicts itself.
And second, making jokes has helped me a lot, I have never been bullied.
Although I cannot realistically tell if it helped me with NT social interaction because the people in the schools I went to all had some kind of neurological disorder.
I did go to an NT school, but I do not know how it went there, I assume I was reclusive and did not react to my environment.

I checked out your website, and wonder about your allegation that you used to be an aspie. How does one go from being an aspie to becoming NT? Please explain.

Part of the reason that we make enemies at work is due to the fact that due to our Autism/Aspergers. we have a hard time of fitting into the culture. I have watched my place of employment over the last couple of years, and even though the company claims that it values diversity in it's employees, people whom beat to the tune of a dfferent drummer from the rest of the group are railroaded out, sometimes ostenatiously and sometimes subtlely. Even if you do a good job, if you don't fit in, companies will try ways to get rid of you. In most companies, the "rules" are subjectively written, you can get in trouble for anything.

A survey a couple of years ago, claimed that the number one reason for termination in the United States is "personality conflict".

Hello Ericka38,

I'm very sorry about your contract not being renewed. On the one hand, budget cuts mean some people, including some special education teachers, have to be let go. On the other hand, which people to lay off is sometimes a question of personality. If you stayed away entirely from events like Christmas dinners, your co-workers and superiors may have assumed - even if wrongly - that you didn't like them. It's unfair but true.

There are books you can read, with exercises to practice social skills. Also, life coaches and other people can help you get along better with others. If you'd like, I'd be happy to point you to some resources. (Did you notice the Dale Carnegie book I mentioned above?) In any case, I wish you the best of luck.

MsTriste, I'm not sure what you mean about having changed from Aspie to NT. Could you please tell me what in my website led you to believe I've changed?

One thing I have done is learned some social and organizational skills and come to fit in more among NTs (plus, I'm married to one).

Passionatebach, that's a very good point about personality conflicts being at the heart of many terminations. That certainly was the case for me. (In fact, according to Marilyn Moats Kennedy, more than twice as many people get fired, asked to resign or quit because they're afraid of being fired or asked to resign due to personality conflicts of one sort or another, than due to not being able to do the work.

What do you think?

It has to do with some unfortunate wording in your profile page: "He's actually been an Aspie..." Since you used a conjunction for "he has," it isn't immediately clear that the "been" is not actually past-tense, but present perfect.

Hello pschristmas,

Thank you very much for taking the time to let me know the situation.

If there's an issue with my wording, I'm not sure the contraction has anything to do with it. "He is been" doesn't make much sense; on the other hand the past tense seems to me to be "He was". My understanding of the present perfect is that "He has been" continues the past into the present, and my point was to show how long I've been an Aspie.

Which may not mean the proverbial hill of beans if that's not how you and maybe even other people perceive what I wrote. I've long made the point that we need to conform to some extent to other people's perceptions of what we say and do, and there's no escape clause "Except for what Jeff Deutsch says and does".

So thank you again for the heads-up. We all need to look out for each other like this. I'll take what you said under serious advisement.

Cheers,

[quote="asplint"]
If there's an issue with my wording, I'm not sure the contraction has anything to do with it. "He is been" doesn't make much sense; on the other hand the past tense seems to me to be "He was". My understanding of the present perfect is that "He has been" continues the past into the present, and my point was to show how long I've been an Aspie.
quote]

Sorry, I wrote "conjunction" when I meant "contraction."

It isn't the phrase "has been" that is the issue, it's "He's been." It's easy to lose sight of the "has" and only see the past tense "been" if one is reading too quickly. Present perfect does exactly what you intended, it just isn't entirely clear that you're using present perfect because of the contraction in that particular place. As you can see, I don't have a problem with contractions normally, but they can occasionally be problematic in some tenses.

It really isn't that big of a deal, though. Sorry if I seem to be harping; it isn't intended as such. I just want to clarify.

asplint (can I call you Jeff) -

Extremely well-put and constructive posts, and website too. I like your approach, and what you say makes a hell of a lot of sense. Too bad I have little expendable income otherwise I'd be happy to invest in your services. So stick around here and continue with the freebies please! (no sarcasm intended there by the way).

I think a lot of people at low-level jobs (food service and retail) get promoted because they get drunk or high with the managers, who are generally in their early 20s and not very responsible.

I never got involved in that, so I was stuck at the low rung