Giving social advice to NT's and having it backfire

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I work in a tech startup company. We just recently had a new NT 18 year old worker join us. He took a competency exam and left highschool early. Let's call him Dave.

He was talking about BS HS policies, including respecting others even when they don't respect you.
I advised "One thing you'll find in the work world is certain people won't respect you. When that happens, it's important to maintain a cordial yet professional distance with that person"
His response? "I already knew that." It was in an even but slightly surprised tone (perhaps tinged with agitation).

I was trying to spare this kid from the rough ride I had at Longs Drugs at 19. I used to outright ignore disrespectful people. I knew nothing about the distinction between workplace skills and school playground skills. I thought I'd nip it in the bud before he possibly started doing the same thing.

His reaction made me feel stupid. I wish I had a manual entitled "Social skills that all NT's already know"

Ha.
+1

Well he's probably frustrated that it seems like its ok for people to be disrespectful to him but he's expected to respect them. I have been frustrated about things like that before. So in my opinion he probably was not trying to be a jerk to you, I mean if I was complaining about that sort of thing and someone said 'well you know there are always going to be people who don't respect you but its important for you to remain professional.' I might take it as you just reinforcing what I was complaining about which can add to frustration. I mean you kind of just repeated exactly what he said he was frusterated about in kind of a blunt manner(at least I can see how he could have taken it the way he did).

I mean he could have felt you where being ignorant about his situation...NTs have feelings to and can take things a bit hard which it seems could be the case, though I cant say for sure as I was not there and did not see it.

Thanks SweetLeaf.

To him, it probably sounded like you were just repeating the same point he'd just made (more eloquently).

I agree there's a difference between actually respecting someone, and just acting like you do (i.e cordially) but at work it doesn't seem to matter what you really think as long as you act a certain way, so they almost might as well be the same thing.

(also, at 18, you know everything anyway )