In the case of this post, however, my understanding was that the discussion revolved around the employee that had a full workload and refused additional work in a way that was, perhaps, too blunt for their supervisor. In this case, while the employee may be more work for their manager, they do not sound like so much work that they need to be replaced.
> In the case of this post, however, my understanding was that the discussion revolved around the employee that had a full workload and refused additional work in a way that was, perhaps, too blunt for their supervisor. In this case, while the employee may be more work for their manager, they do not sound like so much work that they need to be replaced.
Yes, but we rely upon our social reading of people to understand what is really happening in the work environment.
If Bob tells you "no" to what seems like a reasonable request-- you now have a puzzle to figure out: why not? is Bob just blunt? Is Bob defiant?
Repeat this interaction, and you can come to the wrong conclusion (Bob is uncooperative) or a somewhat wrong one (Bob is blunt and doesn't care about upholding the social contract), instead of the correct one (Bob has autism and is just answering me extremely literally without elaboration).
Understanding of autism helps us understand Bob, and be empathetic and compassionate. It also helps us give the right answer when Mary comes up and says "I tried to get something I needed from Bob, [who just literally answered the question and ignored the important subtext and was brusque in his response] and he just refused so I ended up having to recreate the whole thing myself" --- while if we don't understand that and our own personal emotional memory is of Bob tending to "refuse" our requests it becomes a lot more serious.
It feels like you are splitting hairs. I've worked with people on the spectrum and I'm a software developer; I've had the bare minimum of managerial training and interacting with people is not one of my core strength areas. Still, I put in some minimal effort and we worked together and it was fine.
If you are trying to say that this minimal amount of effort these managers would need to spend to work with people on the spectrum is just too much work for us to expect, specifically someone like the person in this example who refused more tasks when asked because their schedule was full, then yeah, I guess we disagree. I have personally witnessed a painful amount of bending-over-backward on the part of management for so-called "heavy hitter" developers who, in my opinion, were far more work to get along with and far less an asset to the company. If managers can find time in their busy (and expensive) schedule to pander to these kind of high-cost employees then they can spend a little effort on people who happen to fall on the spectrum.
After all, the "heavy hitter" who chooses to be hard to get a long with because of their legendary awesomeness is making a choice. Many people on the spectrum are doing their best to fit in and deserve a little more effort from their supervisors and management. After all, that is the job for which managers have signed up.
In the case of this post, however, my understanding was that the discussion revolved around the employee that had a full workload and refused additional work in a way that was, perhaps, too blunt for their supervisor. In this case, while the employee may be more work for their manager, they do not sound like so much work that they need to be replaced.