In the News

Hello,

Jennifer Lawler recently interviewed me for Bankrate.com on launching a second career. My advice in a nutshell: Understand yourself.

Anthony Balderrama of CareerBuilder.com recently included my suggestions on things you need to learn out in the real world 'cuz they don't teach them in school. Basically, people need to learn to read other people and to relate especially well to customers, superiors and peers.

Meanwhile, refreshingly blunt (NT-speak for "some people find him tactless, insensitive and even rude") ESPN sports commentator Tony Kornheiser has been suspended for his recent remarks about fellow anchor Hannah Storm's taste in clothes. Can you name one thing he said that could be found particularly offensive? (I can find three.)

Given my basically distaff readership, I'm especially (but of course not only) interested in men's input on this one.

Have a great rest of your day!

Better Living Through Technology

Emily and I celebrated Valentine's Day last night at Eggspectations (she loves eggs; I can take them or leave them).

Anyway, needless to say we had a bit of a wait to be seated. Like many fine restaurants, Eggspectations gave us a paging thingy, which went off when they had a table ready for us.

As you know, I'm always looking for ways to send and receive information more efficiently. The restaurant pager gave me an idea: Why not use it for maternity wards?

As I pointed out to Emily, the father may still have things to do, people to see and business to conduct if the mother doesn't want him hanging around the delivery room. (And if she does but he insists on letting his work come first, he'll need to line up a divorce lawyer anyway!)

Either way, the hospital could give him a pager-like device. Instead of multiple blue lights it could have one blue light and one pink light, and the light(s) would flash accordingly (maybe multiple times as needed). Or the hospital could send a text-message alert.

To simulate the joy of being in the delivery room, for a small extra charge the hospital could offer pix messages of the baby and mother. Heck, why not a live webcam, so the father can periodically maximize a window and see how the delivery is going? And with two-way webcams/videoconferencing (available on Skype now, for instance), between emails or blog comments the father can offer occasional encouragement when the mother seems to be tiring.

(In that case, the delivery room webcam and monitor should have a strong plexiglass shield maybe a foot in front of them. And protective clothing for the father himself, once he comes to the hospital, may not be a bad idea.)

Guys who normally drive with your wives in the passenger seat - wouldn't you like to be able to turn the tables?

(And as for those who do stay in the delivery room or the waiting room...I've got two words for the hospitals: Free wi-fi!)

What do you think?

PS: I had a large burger at Eggspectations. And an unexpected splash of pink (an omen, perhaps?) - it seems that when I said "medium rare," they heard me best at the end.

The First Day of the Rest of My Life

Ten years ago today, I returned from Beijing, where I'd taught for the fall and winter. (The food is great, but don't drink the water and don't breathe the air! And do bring your rain and winter gear.)

This was the first full-time job I'd ever had that required so much as a college degree. And I fouled it up seriously...I only realized how seriously in the weeks and months to come.

In the year 2000, I first learned how much my personality problems could cost me. Suffice it to say for now that it eventually became clear I would probably never again work full-time in the field I had studied (Economics).

I tried to come to terms with why - and how - I was having so much difficulty getting along with people and why I kept getting rejected, especially in jobs. Not knowing (as opposed to conjecturing based on projecting my own motivations) just how most people actually operate, I worked from a very bad map...and my efforts to make the terrain conform to the map of course came to nothing.

Only three years later, when Emily first told me about AS, did I have any idea that I was in effect trying to drive an English car (with the steering wheel on the right-hand side, made for driving on the left side of the road) on American roads (where you drive in cars with steering wheels on the left-hand side, on the right side of the road).

AS destroys relationships in such a way that the Aspie - without already knowing s/he is one - does not know what's going on or even that s/he sees the world very differently from others. Other people, frustrated at his/her seeming inability to empathize with others, to "get" things without being told or to use tact, blow up at the Aspie and accuse him/her of being lazy, rude, even sociopathic. Meanwhile, since the Aspies doesn't know what is going on, and only sees people blowing up with little apparent (to him/her) rhyme or reason, may come to think the world is a hostile place, full of irrational people.

Knowing and acknowledging, at first to yourself, that you're an Aspie is the all-important first step to reversing this vicious pattern.

What do you think?

A Day To Remember

Emily now has five years' management experience.

I love you!

The Doctor Is In

Eleven years ago today, my doctorate was officially conferred.

It's one of my two most important accomplishments in graduate school - Emily's the other one.

Cheers!

Another One Who Tells It Like It Is

Rory Miller's also done some thinking about how to stay safe. And this guy knows what he's talking about.

He's putting out another book this year, on self-defense - not so much karate-chopping the other guy into submission as doing whatever it takes to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. As he makes clear, there's one thing even better than presence of mind in a fight: Absence of body.

It's very hard to be beaten, robbed, kidnapped, raped or murdered if you're not there. It's also very hard to get hurt in a fight if none starts. (On the other hand, if one does start...win or lose the odds are you will get hurt, maybe badly.)

Avoiding violence boils down to two things: recognizing threats in time to move away, and not provoking people into becoming threats to you. Many people - but especially Aspies - can use some help in both these areas.

Mr. Miller has posted a nuts-and-bolts excerpt of his forthcoming book, covering some ways of recognizing and staying out of trouble. It includes:

When you are or believe yourself to be on dangerous and alien ground, keep your mouth shut. This is hard for some people. I can’t help but think that if you don’t have the common sense to keep your mouth shut, or you believe that your opinions and insight are so precious that everyone wants to hear them, that you probably will suck at avoiding conflict and shouldn’t breed anyway.

[...]

I don’t give a damn about your self-esteem. The purpose of this book is to give you a few hints on staying alive or, if you teach self-defense, some critical information you can pass on to your students. The world is not about you. Everything that you know about right and wrong is context dependent. If you go to a place that is outside your context and demand that they treat you by your rules in their world, not only might you get killed, but you will be killed for being a whiny child demanding special treatment. If this is you, grow the hell up.

You want PC? Here you go: Practical Conflict-avoidance.

What do you think?

Good Citizen-Police Relations

Chris Rock at his best.

Funny, blunt, non-PC and definitely NSFW.