Employer that only employs neurodivergents?
14 Dec 2021, 1:23 pm
Hello! I was wondering about something recently: Especially considering the many difficulties that neurodivergents have in getting or keeping jobs, is it realistically feasible to start up a new company or organization that is run by neurodivergents, and that ONLY employs neurodivergents, no neurotypicals at all?
If the answer is no, then why not? What are the problems that prevent it in real life?
Other than small businesses, neurotypical companies appear to be usually run by either charismatic narcissists or psychopaths, because NT's tend to fight, backstab, and/or exploit each other in a so-called "polite" manner with certain social rules. It seems that NT's require their leader to be either a charismatic narcissist or a psycopath in order to hold them together in a group of unwilling or poorly-cooperative team members. NT's seem to insist on organizing themselves into hierarchies of exploitation (sometimes called "modern slavery").
What about neurodivergents? Realistically, would a pure ND company survive? Or would it also be subject to the fighting and backstabbing, and end up requiring a narcissistic or psycopathic leader to hold it all together just like typical companies?
What if the idea is to make the company all high-IQ staff? Actually I already know the answer to this one: High IQ alone doesn't prevent fighting, and sometimes it even encourages it. High IQ psychopaths also exist. The only chance is an ND company NOT based on IQ, but would it realistically succeed?
Or are all human companies doomed to be led by charismatic narcissists and psychopaths because nobody is truly willing or able to work for mutual benefit?
Multiple times in my life, I've suggested mutual benefit, and the NT's always said yes and seemed happy, but every time the result was that they thought that "mutual benefit" means that I should do 90% of the work and let the NT's enjoy a free ride. Shockingly, the less work they did, the more of the money they demanded to have. That has been my experience multiple times.
I've been cheated and exploited so many times that I'm no longer willing to work with or for any NT's. Thus I think of the possibility of working exclusively with ND's, but ND's are also humans, and all humans have substantial psychological problems of one kind or another. Can an all-ND company function successfully, or would it become corrupt for the same reasons as an NT company, or would it fail for different reasons? Do any solutions exist?
Is working alone as a one-person business the only realistic solution? Working alone has advantages and disadvantages. It's often difficult to be successful when you must do everything yourself, alone. Obviously teams can accomplish more, but every team that I ever experienced had major dysfunction and was psychologically unhealthy.
14 Dec 2021, 4:38 pm
For example, at the bottom of this WP page:
https://wrongplanet.net/look-work-four- ... tely-know/
It says:
But when you click on the link to the "Expandability" organization, their website doesn't exist anymore. I guess this non-profit organization failed for some reason, and was shutdown.
But why? What went wrong? Are there any solutions to prevent organizations such as "Expandability" from failing?
I think one of the problems is that when an ND thinks of a good product to create, ND's know it's good, but NT's don't like it. If nearly all of the customers are NT's, but the product is designed by an ND, then there is a big risk of the ND designing something great but unappreciated by NT's, thus leading to insufficient customers and eventually running out of money and shutting down.
The aforementioned problem is solvable, but more importantly, are ND's even capable of working together for mutual benefit, or will ND's squabble as badly as NT's do? I really don't know the answer to this question.
NT's seem to be often very lazy, but ND's also prefer to do their own thing. It seems like nobody wants to work, unless it's working on their own choice of work or hobby, which is not necessarily something that pays the bills. This is why the main driving force of our society is FEAR. People work against their own will, because they are afraid of homelessness etc.
This fear-based society is really awful, but the majority of NT's refuse to even discuss the problem. I've literally experienced multiple people acting as if they didn't hear what I said. So I repeat the fear topic three times, but they still pretend not to hear it, and they immediately change the topic of conversation. As if they're so afraid that they're even too afraid to talk about the problem of our society being based on fear.
14 Dec 2021, 5:13 pm
What is more likely: Qualified ND personnel are more difficult to find and manage than qualified NT personnel. In all my years of interviewing candidates, not one has "come out" as neurodivergent, even when asked about any need for special accommodations. A few employees that I suspected of being on the spectrum were somewhat disruptive and inconsistent.
(I did ask a few of them, "Have you heard of Alex Plank?"; but they all said, "No".)
14 Dec 2021, 6:04 pm
Aha. In that case, instead of trying to employ and manage ND's, I guess a more realistic idea would be an organization that supports self-employed ND's to be successful at self-employment.
One of the difficulties of self-employment or starting any private business is that a private business must be financially profitable, but this requirement makes it difficult to compete against any public corporations in stockmarkets, because public corporations can and do spend more than they earn. Public corporations can make a loss each year without being forced to declare bankruptcy, even if they've been technically bankrupt for decades. In contrast, a self-employed person or a private business must shutdown if they don't earn enough money.
Crazy yet "normal" things like that make life even more difficult for ND's, so ND's should help ND's, but again it's easier said than done.
14 Dec 2021, 9:39 pm
Nothing prevents it except wealth, you know.
Stop making these fantasies, or post them on the fiction forum. In fact the inverse is true, If you have ND, you are not hired, why else have at least 5 employers had complete softball questions under auspices of an interview so that they could see whether I was autistic or not, so they could reject my application.
16 Dec 2021, 1:01 pm
If the answer is no, then why not? What are the problems that prevent it in real life?
Other than small businesses, neurotypical companies appear to be usually run by either charismatic narcissists or psychopaths, because NT's tend to fight, backstab, and/or exploit each other in a so-called "polite" manner with certain social rules. It seems that NT's require their leader to be either a charismatic narcissist or a psycopath in order to hold them together in a group of unwilling or poorly-cooperative team members. NT's seem to insist on organizing themselves into hierarchies of exploitation (sometimes called "modern slavery").
What about neurodivergents? Realistically, would a pure ND company survive? Or would it also be subject to the fighting and backstabbing, and end up requiring a narcissistic or psycopathic leader to hold it all together just like typical companies?
What if the idea is to make the company all high-IQ staff? Actually I already know the answer to this one: High IQ alone doesn't prevent fighting, and sometimes it even encourages it. High IQ psychopaths also exist. The only chance is an ND company NOT based on IQ, but would it realistically succeed?
Or are all human companies doomed to be led by charismatic narcissists and psychopaths because nobody is truly willing or able to work for mutual benefit?
Multiple times in my life, I've suggested mutual benefit, and the NT's always said yes and seemed happy, but every time the result was that they thought that "mutual benefit" means that I should do 90% of the work and let the NT's enjoy a free ride. Shockingly, the less work they did, the more of the money they demanded to have. That has been my experience multiple times.
I've been cheated and exploited so many times that I'm no longer willing to work with or for any NT's. Thus I think of the possibility of working exclusively with ND's, but ND's are also humans, and all humans have substantial psychological problems of one kind or another. Can an all-ND company function successfully, or would it become corrupt for the same reasons as an NT company, or would it fail for different reasons? Do any solutions exist?
Is working alone as a one-person business the only realistic solution? Working alone has advantages and disadvantages. It's often difficult to be successful when you must do everything yourself, alone. Obviously teams can accomplish more, but every team that I ever experienced had major dysfunction and was psychologically unhealthy.
EDITED for not reading question closely.
There are companies who view themselves in the right niche and are making great efforts at hiring autistic people.
16 Dec 2021, 2:55 pm
That's interesting, but I'm cautious because I've learned the hard way that there exists at least 2 forms:
(1) Organizations that genuinely want to help autistic people.
versus
(2) Corporations that want to increase their profit by hiring autistic or neurodivergent people, and exploiting these ND employees as workhorses that are expected/required to complete much more work than "normal" people, because autistic or neurodivergent people are supposedly borderline-geniuses or gullible biological machines that work much harder than "normal" people (according to the opinion of such corporations).
Therefore, if any employer says they have a special program for hiring autistic people, I would think it's important to find out more info and details, and very carefully try to ascertain the true goal of the employer -- discover their real intention/motive. Figure out whether it's altruistic versus selfish.
For example, in the Quora Q&A website, an autistic person posted an answer to a question (all public), and she wrote there:
When a neurodiverse person attempts to socialize to gain the same rewards, they are often either ignored or outright punished for doing so. They are expected to be the work horse while the social butterflies half-ass everything. Any attempts to fix this system are met with bullying, disdain, and sometimes, termination.
Her experience is the same as my experience.
16 Dec 2021, 3:24 pm
The big challenge in the wealth/funding issue is that if ethical people start an organization to help other people, then wealth/funding is needed (as you said), but unfortunately wealth is normally obtained via the exploitation of other people. Thus the ethical org needs wealth, but doesn't want to do something unethical to get wealth, but wealth is normally obtained via something unethical (exploitation), so what's the solution?
Although I don't know the answer to the aforementioned circular problem, I note that ND people are often creative, so perhaps ND people can creatively figure out a solution or workaround to solve the funding issue.
If it's impossible or unrealistic to obtain the necessary wealth/funding in an ethical manner, then I guess it'd be theoretically possible to create a normal type of company that employs normal people or anyone, and then use all profit from the normal company to fund the non-profit org/charity that assists ND people.
This means the aforementioned normal company would use exploitation in a normal manner, but the vast majority of typical people don't view this is as exploitation, rather they view it as normal, acceptable, and commonplace. (Even if you explicitly/openly tell the victims about the problem, most of the victims strenuously insist that they're NOT victims and nothing unethical is occurring.)
So there is at least one solution/workaround, in theory at least.
20 Dec 2021, 6:40 pm
There's a cafe in Palo Alto like that (Ada's Cafe. I can't post links as a new user). I liked their food and honestly didn't notice it being different from any other cafe, except they openly stated they hire people with disabilities. It maybe wasn't entirely mental health related but it certainly seems feasible.
11 Jan 2022, 7:25 am
Here is an old Wrong Planet thread on autistic-friendly workplaces.
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11 Jan 2022, 8:07 am
Short answer - no I don’t know of a company that just hires people an the spectrum. If you want to be employed by someone you need to recognize two things - one the person who hires you is a person and if you are not the only employee your co workers are people too - the boss has a right to want people skills in an employee. ND or autism - pick your word - you ( and I ) have difficulty with people skills.
The other thing is that if you want to get paid the money has to come from some place. Usually the boss wants to get paid too.
If the company doesn’t take in more than it pays in salaries or hourly wages it has no real reason to exist.
If you want to avoid all that you want self-employment - and it ain’t easy. And you will still want customers. Who will want value for the dollar. You can create an eBay account today and start selling.
I work with computers because I am not good with people. But there are still people at every job I ever had. So my goal is to try to grow my people skills too - progress not perfection.
17 Feb 2022, 7:57 pm
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two years ago, i went to a hiring event from amazon for warehouse worker. after a background check and a drug screen, everyone that passed got a job offer. zero job interviews. just because amazon appears to hire anyone for warehouse worker, does not guarantee that it must be autism friendly.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/a ... e-20661995
18 Feb 2022, 4:42 pm
List of employers who are autism friendly
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