Advice To Cat About Her Behavior At Work

[Written a week later-- but hey! I got there!]

My weekend together with Cat had some other results that were a bit unexpected…

She was complaining today (Sunday) about her job and how she was getting treated by various people at her company. The subtle sexism in a tech job is something she can’t do much about, but I asked her how she was handling her issues at work with people.

What she told me made me grimace in severe discomfort. She’s definitely on the autism spectrum, because she’s making some monumental social mistakes in a professional setting!

For example, she described how when she talks to various co-workers, if a certain co-worker joins in the conversation (and starts to take over) she just abruptly shuts up and walks away. Every time. This one guy always takes over the conversation (and may be on the spectrum as well) and she’s so fed up with him “winning” away whoever she’s talking to that THIS is her go-to strategy.

So… I told her I thought that was a mistake. And why. And what she should do instead.

Cat pulls this kind of “my way or I won’t play anymore” childish maneuver on me sometimes. She’s done it when I was talking with another friend and she got jealous, and in other situations where she doesn’t know how to compete for attention with multiple people. I explained to her how it was a very obvious control technique and that people thought of it as both rude and childish (because, to be fair, it IS!) When she just walked away, she took away the choice of the person she was originally with to talk. It would be better to hold up her hand to the interrupting person and say, “Wait. Let me finish my point here, and then you go.” Especially if she’s dealing with another person on the spectrum… Did it occur to her that her behavior was punishing through a HINT thing, when that doesn’t work with HER– so why would the rude autistic guy get it? She needs to be more direct in her communication with him.

Cat can turn a lot of people off when she does this sort of pouty, foot-stompy reaction to not being given more attention over another person when in groups of people– or even one to one if a person dares to disagree with her about an opinion. She can’t handle losing well. She can’t handle being out-voted well. She wants to be the star just a little sometimes, and so when she jumps into a really enthusiastic discussion and can’t follow the quickly shifting ebbs and flows (because she can’t read the room) she gets frustrated and then despairing.

She needs specific advice about how to act. She doesn’t take criticism well, so I refrain from telling her she may be causing her own problems sometimes. Not because she’s a bad person, but no one taught her– and she had to be taught because she doesn’t pick it up by observing like the rest of us.

She frowned at my pointing some of these things out. I told her that she’s probably sabotaging herself. I had to explain WHY certain behaviors turn people off to her. But she seemed to be listening. Then I let it go because I could tell she was feeling down on herself to realize what it meant if I was right…