Coping with an AS Co-worker

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Hi there.

I just realized that a co-worker may have AS - I don't think she knows this. I'm not a medical professional, but after reading a ton of information on AS and its symptoms, it would certainly explain her behavior (her inability to read social cues, the one-sided conversations, her clumsiness, her formal way of speaking, etc.).

Unfortunately, most of the people in the office dread having to deal with her. I often find myself ignoring her because interacting with her is unbelievably exhausting and irritating.

For example, she always inserts herself inappropriately into conversations that do not involve her at all, or she'll try to insert herself into situations where she acts completely awkward or socially "wrong". (There are a ton of other examples, but too many to go into here.)

Now that I know she may have AS and there is a reason why she acts the way she acts, and that really just doesn't "get it" because of neurological reasons, is there a kind way for me to address these situations with her - to tell her that what she is doing is inappropriate? I certainly don't want to hurt her or make her feel horrible.

Any advice you could pass on would be greatly appreciated by both me and my co-workers.

Thanks!

Just because you do an 'intervention' on her, she will still be herself. If she is actually Asperger's Syndrome and an adult she has missed out on years of therapy and behaviour modification that might make her acceptable to the people in your office. Just because you finally realize you are AS doesn't mean your behavior changes.

If she is AS, I am certain she has been laid off, let go and simply fired before. She will probably see your intervention as just another of a long list of failures in her life and might be a wee bit defensive about it.

I learned by self awareness. I heard an NPR radio segment that described the condition and identified with the symptoms of the syndrome. I don't think I would have believed it if someone approached me and told me what they thought.

Good luck, she will probably be very defensive about it. You see, there has got to be something she can DO about it after she knows. Most professionals I go to want me to figure out what it is that they can do to help me, sorta like coming to a doctor with liver cancer and they want me to tell them how to operate on it. I'm not kidding. For an Adult with AS there is virtually nothing, (except WP, it's the only thing I have found) for them.


Merle

Thanks, Merle.

I wasn't planning on doing an "intervention" on her - I just wanted to see if there was a way for me to deal with her better.

I think just knowing that she may have this condition will make it easier for me to understand her and not be so critical of the way she acts.

If the faux pas is serious then tell her. Something like you know when you do (whatever she did) it really hurts my feelings. Also tell her why it hurts your feelings or is inappropriate. Make sure you describe what she did clearly. If there is any malice in your manner when you tell her however she'll probably be very hurt and avoid you for quite some time.

But like sinsboldly said no matter what you do she is still going to have AS and act differently. Remember a lot of things you and your co-workers do probably seem just as incomprehensible through her eyes as what she does is in your eyes.

Speaking as an Aspie who has had her fair share of layoffs due to office politics...

In the workplace, we crave being judged on our work performance. What is most irritating is being good or even the best at what we do, but let go because we didn't suck up to the right senior coworker in the right way.

As to workplace communication, our 'language' is that of logic and straightforwardness. Perfect example; I recently had a coworker ask me, "Can you go in the back and see if Colleen is there?" I did, came back, and reported she wasn't. He got irritated with me; "Well Doug? Stu? Any of the supervisors?" I'm sure there was something in his intonation which suggested he was asking for any supervisor, not just Colleen, but that's the kind of thing we don't always pick up on.

As for some kind of Asperger's intervention ... I would soooooooooo not recommend it. But one way might be to start some Asperger's related conversations around work. Maybe she'll overhear, pick up on some clues, and start researching on her own? Maybe.

Good luck. We are no easier for you to communicate with than you are for us to communicate with. (All Due respect to your strangely-wired, 'normal' brain!)

- Jo

Thank you to everyone for your responses! It is definitely helpful and much appreciated.

I don't have AS myself but I have a son who does. I've learned to be very direct with him. If, for example, I'm busy doing work on the computer and he walks up and starts giving me a monologue about his special interest, I know that he won't pick up on the nonverbal cues that would tell a typical child that I don't want to listen right now. So, I'm very direct -- I simply tell him that I am proud of his interests but that I don't want to listen right now because paying attention to him distracts me from work that I need to do. Often, I then give him a time that I WILL be able to listen.

There are probably things about your coworker that you admire -- maybe it would help if you approached it as "You are fantastic at [WHATEVER], but I don't like it when you [WHATEVER]. No one wants to hear a long list of their faults but if you let her know that there are things you appreciate about her work, she may also be willing to hear about what you would like for her to do differently.

My son usually appreciates it when I tell him exactly what to do or not do in a social situation. Like many people with AS, he likes clear, unambiguous rules. He is excellent at remembering and following social rules once I point them out to him, but he won't learn those rules from simple observation like you or I would.

So, I would suggest being as polite as possible but be VERY direct and specific about what you do/don't want her to do.

You know, it's always possible that she KNOWS she has AS and just doesn't mention it to anyone. A lot of people with AS don't discuss it in professional environments for fear of how people will treat them. So she might honestly know it.

I don't see why the coworker would be trying to insert herself into conversations and things if she was on the spectrum. I'm quite the opposite. I sit at my desk to eat lunch. I don't speak to anyone unless spoken to. And I use email for 98% of my communications. Hell, somedays I go for hours without saying a word to anyone. And I haven't been fired... yet.

I don't know if it's good to be trying to diagnose your coworkers. My mom took a few psychology courses and tries to diagnose everyone she meets, but mostly it just pisses people off. And you didn't even really state any obvious signs, like a oddly-toned speaking voice, avoidance of eye contact, routines, special interests, stims or extreme sensitivies to the office environment.

I think approaching a co-worker about having Aspergers is a breach of ADA rules. You aren't suppose to ask someone about disabilities unless they are requesting an accomodation which it sounds like she hasn't. You can't play armchair psychologist and diagnose your co-worker. If learning about AS helps you to learn better how to deal with her and not take her social blunders as meanness then that's great. But its wrong on so many levels to approach her about having AS. She may or may not know she has AS (if indeed she does). But if she is as awkward as you speak she probably has had more than her fair share of workplace failures, losing jobs, not even getting job offers, etc so she probably knows she has a "problem" whether she has a AS diagnosis or not.

Don't ruin it for the lady. Her job probably means more to her than your job does to you because she probably has struggled all her life trying to get work and would devastate her to lose it.

And NTs can be bad with conversations too. Nothing in the OP the OP described were diagnostic criteria for someone on the spectrum. It would be very rude if she suggested it to her co-worker.

Just to clarify, I was NOT suggesting telling her she has AS - I was only asking for advice on how to better understand how the brain of someone with AS works in an effort to communicate with her better.

Again, I don't claim to be a medical professional, but when I check the diagnostic criteria for AS (including DSM IV, Gillberg-1991, Szatmari 1989, ICD-10 WHO 1992), she exhibits the majority of the described characteristics for someone with AS.

And no one wants to fire her for acting "different" than others. We merely want to find a way to "live more in harmony" with one another and create a better work environment for all.