Honesty cost me another job

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I was about to start work running a rather large companies social media campaign when I get asked to look at a website the company had recently launched. The person asks me what I think of the new site so I tell him my honest opinion of it. It looks like a 12 year old threw it together over a weekend. It looks like whoever designed it put the minimum amount of effort into the site and then pushed it to the web. As it turns out, I was talking to the person who had created the website and he was none too happy to hear my criticism of his work. I will never understand why NT 's ask for an opinion, yet don't want you to be truthful about how you feel.

I know just how you feel. My mother used to drive me really crazy. She would ask my opinion on something, and when I would give it, she would pick or do the opposite of what I said. It got where I would try to figure out the best thing for her to do, so I could say the opposite one, thereby getting her to make the right choice. Unfortunately, she would often decide that she didn't like the right choice, and would start arguments with me about whatever it was, but she wouldn't like the other choice, either. I finally got to the point of often refusing to give my opinion, telling her to make up her own mind. This didn't help, because this made her angry, too. It was a no win situation. It seems like she was looking for a reason to start a fight. I don't understand why she would do that, but that's my impression.

My mother had mental health issues that she refused to get help for. I am free now of her bad temper, and confusing behavior, as she passed away about 8 1/2 years ago. Most people would love to hear their deceased parent's voices again. To me, one of the worst sounds I know, was my mother's voice, because so much of the time she was snarling at, or yelling at me, or my siblings, or my father. She would say terrible things to us when she was mad, which was all too much of the time. I am so glad I now live alone.

I don't know how to handle people who ask for an opinion, and then snarl at you. If anyone does have a solution, I would like to know what it is.

Remember, we on the spectrum are all:

A Different Drummer

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
However measured or far away.

--Henry David Thoreau

Maybe constructive criticism would work best, tell them how to improve, rather than use only criticism

This is what they mean by wanting a "team player." What you said is offensive to whoever put together the site. You should have known that. You should also have known that even if the person you talked to wasn't the person who put it together, it is quite likely that the someone who did is still around and in a position to make your life hard--he may have gotten promoted to management!

What I would have done is to first realize that we need to translate the question--the real question was, "how can we make our website better?"

Alternately, as is done with stupid athletes, is to learn stock phrases to say. See the movie Bull Durham, in which the up and coming pitcher is taught how to talk to the media. In other words, if you can't say something nice, just put out some meaningless stock phrase instead.

When you are new on a job, you have to be very cautious about what you say to whom until you know who all the players are and where the bodies are buried so to speak. It would have been more diplomatic and cautious to say whatever good things you could find to say about the website and then ask, 'who designed this?' Or maybe that should have been your first question.

Believe me I know that urge to tell an employer exactly how you think they are doing something wrong and why and in detail. This only works if you are a consultant and they are paying you do this. You do your analysis, and then, oh joy, you get to leave! Had you been hired as a consultant that scenario would have gone much differently and you would have been paid too.

Sorry to hear that this happened, I recommend this book, Aspergers on the Job, by Rudy Simone, she gets it, and she wrote it for employers and employees. A quote from the book:

'....people with Aspergers have an irrepressible urge to inform, often without correctly anticipating the emotional reaction of the recipient' p. 19

Would you have softened your feedback if you had known the person who asked you for your opinion was the designer? Actually, it sounds like you got sand bagged, the person who asked you, should have said, "I designed this website, what do you think?" They definitely had a hidden agenda or they were insecure and were checking you out in a very sneaky fashion.

Was this part of the interview process or were you already hired? I am wondering if you can go back and ask for a do over. Or contact the top person there and explain unless that was the top person you were speaking with....

The truth hurts.