The Golden Rule, Revised

Saucy Vixen, a married lawyer, gives us an example of a common rule which we Aspies should adapt to our situation:

Treat others the way you would want to be treated.
I want people to be straight up and honest with me. If I ask, "Do these pants make me look fat?" and they actually do, in fact, make me look fat, I damned well wanna know about it. I want people to treat me respectfully, sure, but I don't want them to pussyfoot around like a bunch of waffling [Milquetoasts]. I'd rather someone be bitchy than be superficially sweet and friendly -- at least those who are bitchy have a little edge, a little depth.

[However, i]f I treated people the way I want to be treated, I would have no friends. I'm more abrasive than most folks; an acquired taste. I understand that, which is why I treat people the way they want to be treated, not the way I might want to be treated if in the same situation.

All emphases in original.

In other words, the Golden Rule sometimes assumes we have much the same desires as others. When on the other hand we want something very different, such as blunt feedback, we need to understand the Golden Rule in terms of its ultimate purpose: act toward others in ways they will appreciate. We need to understand and accept when someone wants, or most people want, what's different from what we would want.

That's particularly difficult for Aspies, because due to our rigidity of thought - and often action - that sometimes doesn't even occur to us. We unfortunately tend to both look at our worldview as the only possible one, and to look at rules as things to follow slavishly to the letter - not the spirit.

What do you think?

How Not to Pursue Someone

"Do I Creep You Out?" by Weird Al Yankovic is basically SFW, while it portrays certain disturbing realities in detail:




H/T: Don't Be Creepy.

Honesty is the Best Policy

Yesterday morning, we had some nasty thunderstorms which cut off our power for a few hours. When I got back, I found that though the lights were still on (and the food in our refrigerator and freezer still cold), our Internet access was down.

Figuring that our cable modem only handled Internet connectivity to my desktop, whereas the router handled all our computers including our laptops, I reset the router, to no effect. I called our ISP, whose automated screener asked me "Have you tried resetting your cable modem?"

Well, I reset the router, and that's what counts. The program probably just doesn't know that the machine I'm working with is on a wireless connection and isn't linked to the cable modem. I'll just answer yes, because what they really mean is have I reset the thing that supplies connectivity to my machine.

Then the tech told me that in fact the cable modem brings the Internet into our house (the router then controls all the connections inside). We reset the modem and all is well.

Lesson for the day: In general, answer questions honestly. Quite possibly the other side knows something you don't.

Also on the subject of honesty: Thank you very much, Person Who Cut Wide Slit Into Cookie Package At Giant. I'm sure I reflect the entire shopping community's shared appreciation of your pioneer spirit. Leave it to the rest of us suckers to actually buy something, take it out of the store and then open it. Sheesh.

Aspie-Friendly Video

What if the power dynamics at a strip club were freely and honestly discussed by the participants?

This video is, not surprisingly, NSFW due to the audio dialogue.

On the other hand, the style is especially congenial to Aspies because not only is it explicit and detailed, but also the audio dialogue is all there is - no gestures, no body language, no changing tones of voice or visual offerings to keep track of. Once you get it started, you can even minimize the window or walk away if you want to focus on something else and just listen to the dialogue in the background.

That said, headphones are recommended if others are in the area who might not be interested in listening to this.




H/T: Veteran nightclub bouncer Clint Overland, who in turn got the link from renowned conflict management expert Marc "Animal" MacYoung.

The Job You Save May Be Your Own

Marilyn Moats Kennedy has written about office politics for upwards of three decades. As far as I can tell - and I've been reading her work since the mid-1980s - she's one of the first people to openly and directly address office politics.

Of course, by "politics" we don't (necessarily) mean Republican vs. Democrat*. We mean all those informal rules that you'll never find in the personnel manual or official company policy. Some of these rules, such as "Wait a bit after you get hired before you start taking sides on issues and factions," are pretty much universal. Others, like "The Payroll Manager doesn't really run payroll; the Accounting Manager does" apply to specific firms but not others.

The point here is, we all need to learn the rules that aren't spelled out at least as much as we need to learn the ones that are. Especially - but not only - when unemployment is high and managers have to decide not just "Do I have to fire anybody?" but also sometimes "Which people do I need to let go?"

Laying people off isn't just a matter of having to lose such-and-such number of employees; unless an entire location or company is closing down, it's also a question of whether that number will include Jane Doe, John Smith, Harry Jones or someone else. You may be able to survive a layoff - but not by putting your head in the sand.

And so Ms. Kennedy has helpfully written up eight traits of the perpetually employed - including:

7. They are team players.

Favors are exchanged--everyone owes them and they owe everybody else. One HR manager said that bosses making layoff decisions go first for the loners because getting rid of them does no damage to the body politic. The thinking is "If no one knew she was here, no one will notice when she's gone." Team players who are also mentors are even farther down the layoff list.

[*] Or, say, Conservative vs. Labour for our British readers.

What do you think?

Nice Guys Finish Last

Some Aspies like to be first and/or last with things. It's like all-or-nothing; no ambiguity there.

For example (well, until I click "Publish Post" anyway), I'm probably the only creature in the universe who recalls that I was the first person in the dining hall for the Fall 1991 semester.

On the other hand, recently I got the last two boxes of fudge mint cookies at the supermarket. If there weren't literally dozens of other varieties of cookies there in plentiful supply, I would likely have left one behind. But since there were lots of other kinds of cookies there, and I know the supermarket restocks regularly, hey I snagged the last two boxes!

And earlier today, I headed down to Office Depot for two 16-gig flash drives. The flash-drive cabinet (which is locked because we're talking about mobile memory in all senses of the term!) only had one on sale. Hoping against hope, I asked the sales associate if there was one more in stock. There was - exactly one more. (Lexar was holding a sale for some reason; Office Depot stocks other flash drive brands too.)

Yay for speaking up - even if odds are the next nine+ times whatever store I'm in won't have any more in storage. (Stores often - but not always - have every item on the shelves; sometimes they have the manufacturers restock the shelves themselves so the items don't even see storage).

But, nothing to lose by asking, and I really wanted two at the same low price (Emily's and my new laptops need large flash drives to save the backup recovery files, so if either of our laptops goes down for the count we can at least restore it to the way it was when the UPS guy dropped the package on our porch, knocked on our door once and headed back to his truck without knowing for sure if we were even alive*).

And, the sale ends today (well, ended since the store's closed now). I've got both their remaining on-sale 16-gig flash drives. Life is good.

[*] Remember those kids who knocked on people's doors and ran away? Guess what they do for a living now.

New Tech Wonders

Yesterday, I went to pay my utility bill by phone, figuring I had a day or two to spare anyway since they're normally due on the 6th. Well, guess what - this month for whatever reason, the due date is the 5th. And it was c 7:55pm while the customer service office closes at 8 and presumably they'd need to wait until the next day to run the check anyway. (I use the automated system to pay; I'm not certain if people can access it after hours and didn't feel like taking the chance.)

So, I got my check information ready, called, paid the bill - and got confirmation #7000000. Plus, when I hung up, it was precisely 8:00. We Aspies like that kind of precision. (And I'm one of those Aspies who likes numbers.)

[*] For security reasons, I've somewhat altered the confirmation number here.

PS: This is the fifth communication (and first public communication) from my new laptop - and for that matter from any laptop I've ever owned! I just set it up today - five years to the day after I got my last desktop (the fifth one I've had starting in the fall of 1988). After five years, this one has earned an honorable retirement.

PPS: So far, Windows 7 Home Premium is 3l33t!