Dear People Who Are In The Elevator With Me

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Dear cable Internet technician: don't try to tell me my cable modem is "too old" and "it does that" when I'm telling you I'm getting intermittent disconnects, particularly when you just got finished fixing a problem on my line and this modem has worked fine for the last 2 1/2 years. It's DOCSIS version 2.0; you just upgraded to 2.5 6 months ago. I'm fully aware your service is fully backwards compatible, and that my modem is still better than the piece of trash you're selling. Don't lie to me and make excuses for the problem that you just fixed. I'm a freaking network administrator. I know when you're BSing. Fix the problem, stick around just long enough to verify it's fixed, and leave. That's all I'm interested in, is getting my Internet fixed.

Dear tall heavyset dude: You know I'm on the spectrum and I'll take things very literally even if I try and unlearn that behaviour, because it's just the way my brain hears things. Why tell me to just leave things 'anywhere' if you don't mean 'anywhere?'

Dear NT mother: Thanks for understanding me. Thanks for translating your normal speech patterns into ASD-friendly ones all the time. Thanks for putting up with weird tendencies, like the fact that every time I see an Alsatian dog, I tend to tell everyone about it, down to how tall and how long he was and what kind of markings.

Dear tall heavyset dude: You know I'm on the spectrum and I'll take things very literally even if I try and unlearn that behaviour, because it's just the way my brain hears things. Why tell me to just leave things 'anywhere' if you don't mean 'anywhere?'

Dear NT mother: Thanks for understanding me. Thanks for translating your normal speech patterns into ASD-friendly ones all the time. Thanks for putting up with weird tendencies, like the fact that every time I see an Alsatian dog, I tend to tell everyone about it, down to how tall and how long he was and what kind of markings.

Dear tall heavyset dude: You know I'm on the spectrum and I'll take things very literally even if I try and unlearn that behaviour, because it's just the way my brain hears things. Why tell me to just leave things 'anywhere' if you don't mean 'anywhere?'

Dear NT mother: Thanks for understanding me. Thanks for translating your normal speech patterns into ASD-friendly ones all the time. Thanks for putting up with weird tendencies, like the fact that every time I see an Alsatian dog, I tend to tell everyone about it, down to how tall and how long he was and what kind of markings.

Dear Sales Clerk,
Please let me enjoy the experiance of coming into your store , and looking at you fine wares.
If I need your help I will call upon you. Other than that "leave me alone."

Dear ... people complaining about people talking to them

Perhaps you should consider those of us to whom no one ever talks?

Yes I am of course talking about myself right now, as annoying as some small talk may be, what I would give for ANYONE to just say hello to me.

I barely utter a word to anyone, about anything, cuz there is no one to utter a word to.

No one has ever greeted me on an elevator, taxi, grocery store, etc.

Its an infinitely lonely world to live in without the 'annoying smalltalk', so maybe you be grateful that people at least make an effort to communicate with you.

I don't mean to sound rude, but I am quite frankly offended by the context of this post. You don't know how lucky you have it that people interact with you, human beings are social animals, and its incredibly painful to be completely isolated, against your own accord ...

That is all (for now)

Well I don't mean to sound rude, but the next time I'm in an elevator and some like 50 year old dude in a suit tries to find common ground with me by talking to me about how sh*tty the weather is, I might just respond by turning my body ever-so-slightly away from him and ripping a fart.

Get over it suit man, it rains like 250 days a year here and the last thing I want is to hear about it AGAIN, because the fact that it is raining a.) does not surprise me in the least, ever, and b.) is not something I wish to be reminded of, ever.

Dear Camp Counselors,
I do not want to go to the camp dance. I have a sensory issue and I am a bad dancer so dancing to loud music that I don't know the dance moves to is torture.

Dear Sarah,
Yes you probably have some form of Autism. No my obsession of Autism will not change. Also Autism is not bad it just depends on how you look at.
P.S yes I like having Autism

Last edited by HappyFox on 03 May 2009, 12:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hello!

Dear people on the elevator,

I am aimed at and staring at the floor number indicator while we enjoy the ride. I do not wish to make eye contact with people I don’t know and have no interest in during these precious moments we are sharing together. If you are standing in front of the floor number indicator, I am not staring at you or the bald spot on your head if you have one.


Dear random person walking the other direction down the hallway at work,

I am staring through you, not at you. When we get close, I will throw up a fake smile and say hello as required. If you were not here, I would be looking down paying attention to not stepping on the cracks of the carpet pattern.


Dear new management at my job,

This is not a cell phone company, no matter how much you wish it was. Congratulations on running the last two cell phone companies you were at out of business! My customers get pissed if I make a mistake and it costs them thousands or millions as a result of their software not working properly. Saying “hello, thank you for calling company name here”, saying their name 3 times during the call, and saying “thank you for calling company name here” at the end of the call is the last thing they are worried about.

Dear people in general who talk to me,

Don't get the wrong idea here; I'm not apologizing for being the way I am, but I'm sorry if my conversational awkwardness makes you feel uncomfortable. I know you probably have as much fun talking to me as I do talking to you.


Dear NT sister,

After I learned I have AS, whenever I say I'm feeling anxious, complain about a loud noise, check to make sure all the kitchen drawers are closed, or mention AS at all, you roll your eyes and tell me to shut up. You make fun of and are intolerant of people on the autistic spectrum or who have social difficulties. So I don't know why you expect nothing but sympathy, kindness, and support from me whenever /you/ have a problem.


Dear girl at school,

Please don't speak so loudly. It's not the volume of your voice, it's just that I keep overhearing your conversation, and I really don't want to hear your recap of what you posted on Twitter over the weekend. Seriously. And neither do your friends, because they've already read your "tweets" and don't need to hear every little detail about your unremarkable trip to Starbucks again. Even I can see how bored they are, and that's really saying something.

Dear Snack Vendor,

Yes, I walk by the store place frequently. So do many others. That does not make me obligated to buy something. Stop saying otherwise.


Dear People Who Talk to Me,

When I say I don't want to/am not ready to talk about it, I don't want to/am not ready to talk about it. I don't mind the one time "Are you sure?", but if you keep pressuring me, I'm just going to get irritated at you.


Dear Anyone,

If I'm reading a book, chances are I don't want to make small talk with you, especially if you are a stranger.

Dear Alberta Insurance Companies...
If you raise auto insurance premiums during a recession when many can't afford much, then it speaks volumes about your greed and lack of empathy for those in this province going through tough economic times.

Dear Manufacturer of Clothes,

Please don't attach those tags on your products. If there is some kind of regulation that states you must attach them, please attach them on the outside.

And would you please make your products to last longer, so I would not need to go shopping for them so often.

Thanks.

True, that was pretty much the most useful message in this thread.

I believe now they really aren't THAT much different from us - being stuck in a confined space or in physical contact with a complete stranger puts them through a great deal of stress, and the small talk is just a tool they use to relieve that stress. Making the noise eases their nerves, and they're fishing for our permission for them to invade the space.

Dear aspies,

Give the poor dears a break! Make a tiny effort to respond to the small talk from the Elevator people, cab drivers, or whoever, and let them know it's OK. I have a feeling a little response will be easier for you, than your silence will be for them.

I think I've begun to figure out the trick to small talk: you have to provide your opinion, but keep it short, low-stress, and positive, and follow immediately with a question. You don't have to pay attention to the answer - it just buys you time to think of another question.

"Terrible weather we're having, isn't it?"
"I don't mind it - I find the sound of rain relaxing. What sort of weather would you prefer?"

"What are you going to do with all that fabric?"
"I'm making a blanket - I think making it might be relaxing, but I've never made one before. Do you have any recommendations?"

"You aren't from around here, are you?"
"No I'm not, but I think it's a nice town. Don't you think so?"

There were a couple of complaints earlier about telephone technical support, and the way they say "thank you for calling X support" and ask if you're sure the computer is plugged in. I work in technical support - please, don't blame the technician. It's what we're required to do, and our performance reviews and jobs depend on doing it.

I'm told that a standard greeting provides consistency and predictability to the call, and makes the caller more comfortable. Those little annoyances, such as using the caller's name or using the standard greeting or asking a set list of standard questions, are used to score our calls: someone reviews a selection of the calls, and listens for those things. If we miss too many of them, it results in disciplinary action. Believe it or not, we really do get complaints from the callers if we don't introduce ourselves with that greeting, specifically say we're happy to assist you, use your name during the call, repeat what you say, and so on. Customer surveys note those omissions as "the technician didn't seem to care about me", "I wasn't treated like an individual", "you solved the problem but didn't seem to understand it", and so on, and I've definitely seen that for myself: there's a reason the bosses require those little formulas and listen for them in call reviews.

The greeting and information-gathering questions are part of a systematic script to help control the call - controlled calls are normally resolved more quickly and efficiently, and lead to a more satisfactory resolution for the caller; I've heard many recordings of support calls where the technician lost control of the call, wandered far off script, and the call in all those cases took longer to resolve and usually ended with angry, frustrated callers who felt that the technician didn't know what he/she was doing. (Because taking a technical support call is a stressful social situation, using that script to my advantage is especially helpful to someone like me.)

I've had more than one call where I skipped the "are you sure it's plugged in" questions, only to find out a half-hour or more later that that something simple was the cause of the problem to begin with, and I've quickly resolved calls by asking those questions, where someone who thought they should know better overlooked something simple - they start out mad about the question, then get extremely embarrassed when that turns out to solve the problem, and say they feel like idiots; but they shouldn't feel like idiots - it can be very easy to expect a difficult problem rather than something simple.

We're contracted out to save the higher levels of support time and effort, and consequently we're paid to resolve the issue if possible. We usually don't get paid for escalated or referred calls, and the contractor usually resents the referrals/transfers ("if we have to take the call after all, what are we paying YOU for?") Often, we actually can help out with problems we weren't trained on or software we don't know a lot about, and when that happens, it's always rewarding when the caller thanks us for the help on a case they didn't expect us to be able to help with; coupled with the knowledge that we're getting paid for the call and we saved "the other guy" we would have transferred the case to some time and trouble, it's usually better for us to at least try to help out. If nothing else, we can gather some valuable information that can help "the other guy" solve the issue faster, as we usually share the notes we take about the call.

Unfortunately, a lot has changed over the decades. Computers and other "gadgets" have gotten much cheaper, while skilled labor has gotten much more expensive. With the cheaper technology has come cheaper support, which means that the people you are talking to are often unskilled, poorly trained labor. They're people who are trying to put meals on the table in a job that pays slightly better than fast food, and they're trying to do the best they can with what they have to work with, and, sadly, some are better suited for the work than others. Usually, the thanks they get from the caller is worth almost as much as the meager paycheck, and any negativity they get from the caller makes a stressful job that much more miserable.


Dear caller,

My questions aren't meant as torture, and the script wasn't my bright idea; please bear with me there. When I say "I'll be happy to assist you with that", I mean it: the issue you are calling about is a puzzle to solve, and I enjoy solving it, and I look forward to hearing a happy caller when I do solve the issue. But I need you to meet me halfway: please tolerate my seemingly pointless questions, because, even though it might not seem that way, your answers do have some important clues, and your cooperation makes the job much easier. With any luck, I'll be able to gather enough information that I can resolve the issue, with your assistance, fairly quickly. I don't necessarily have the training or even permission to resolve every issue myself, but I can prepare a report for someone who does have the training and authority to finish the job - maybe not as quickly, but I'll do whatever I can to speed the escalation up for you, especially if you were kind and patient with me during the call. When I say "I hope you have a great day" at the end of the call, I almost always mean it - even though my job depends on somebody's rushed programming or defective hardware, I genuinely felt bad that the product I support caused you grief and frustration, and I hope that anything I did to resolve the issue or answer your question relieved that grief and frustration.