flexible – Autistic Civil Servant

Autistic Birthdays…

Birthdays can be tricky things for we autistics. In broad brush generalisation terms (every autistic is different!) we like pattern and consistency. So one day following a similar pattern to those around it is helpful, and exceptions and special days can be stressful. Christmas, for example, can be a bit of a trial. There are different sights, sounds, activities, people, settings, times and rhythms for doing things – and any one of those changes could take an autistic person out of their (limited) comfort zone.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s very nice to get presents and attention and feel loved – of course it is. But the pressure to respond “correctly” and handle complex social situations can be quite intense. There are so many conventions to remember and handle – such having to invite people you don’t like to your party, or thank people for gifts that you don’t really want. It’s basic good manners, but it’s also extra reminders of how the world doesn’t make sense to your autistic brain and how you constantly have to “perform” the role of not being autistic in order to fit in.

Working can be talking

Pottering about chatting to people doesn’t feel like proper “work” work, even if it takes some effort. My autistic brain is absolutely determined that sitting at my desk churning out written work is proper work or – at a pinch – attending meetings. Casual chats aren’t immediately productive so they can’t be work, can they? Well yes, they certainly can. And that makes them important and a sensible use of time.

Working in sprints – an autistic phenomenon?

What do you do during a working day? Do you do approximately eight hours of work fairly steadily? By which I meant to say, do you achieve roughly the same amount of stuff during each hour? Or do you sit around apparently fidgeting for several hours then have an attack of productivity and get a day’s work done all in one go at very high speed and then go back to apparently doing nothing? I do the latter, and I’m rather embarrassed about it so it’s difficult to write about. But I’m coming to realise that it may be a brain-wiring thing rather than a “being a dysfunctional idle pillock” thing. Incidentally, if you were expecting this blog to be about the kind of Sprints in Agile, well, I’m really sorry, and you may be reading the wrong blog…

Shall I compare…?

How do you know you’re enjoying yourself? What if you’re doing what everyone else thinks is fun but hating it? Or you’re doing something you love but everyone else thinks you’re a total sad act? If you’re not particularly psychologically robust – which might be because you’ve spent most of your life undiagnosed autistic – then you might struggle not to make comparisons between what the world considers “right” and what you actually do. Which leads on nicely to the fear of failure and not being a “proper” person that can come so easily to an autistic. I’ve wrote about this yesterday in relation to birthdays – do you do what society thinks you should or make your own life easy but fear what you’re missing? Or do you lament not what you’re missing but the fact that you don’t actually miss it?

Birthdays…

Leading is listening

Wandering around talking to people doesn’t feel like proper “work” work, even though it takes some effort and can be really productive. My autistic brain is absolutely determined that sitting at my desk churning out written work is proper work or – at a pinch – attending meetings. It’s a real struggle for my autistic brain to regard talking to people as work, partly because it doesn’t feel like a concrete thing done, and partly because it’s not what comes naturally to me. But I rationalise it to myself that there are some days – possibly a lot of days – when it really is my job just to talk to people, but most of all, to listen. Who knows what I might find out?

Working can be talking

Peaks and troughs

I work in sprints – bursts of intense productivity that are interspersed with periods of needing to do something else, and to be honest that “something else” might include staring out of the window. The same pattern as a sprinter who might run incredibly fast for a short time and then need a break. Unfortunately for me, the “norm” of working seems to be the opposite: steady progress throughout the day. Someone like that won’t be as fast as me over short periods, but will get at least as much done in total.

Bursts of activity

I’ve always been what I’ve characterised to myself as a “sprint worker”. What I mean is that I can have bursts of intense productivity and then need to do something else. The same pattern as a sprinter who might run incredibly fast for a short time and then need a break. The opposite would be a marathon runner type of worker, who can maintain a steady rate of progress for a long time – they won’t be as fast as a sprinter over short periods, but will get at least as much done in total. My impression is that in professional life we value workers who fit the marathon pattern – it’s easiest for a manager to keep track of productivity if it’s fairly consistent through the day, so you know that any one hour of work is going to be roughly equivalent to another. Ideally, I suspect many firms would like people who can sprint continuously all day – some can, but many try and burn out. It’s a pattern of working all too often expected of people in graduate entry schemes – relying on their “youthful energy” to carry them through. How many times have you heard a junior colleague referred to as working “like a Duracell bunny”? That’s what I’m talking about.

Changing the plan

I had intended to reduce the frequency of this blog after Easter – and I still do – but I find I can’t break the pattern of writing every day, just yet. This puts me in an interesting autistic place in that I can either break the pattern (uncomfortable) but follow the plan (meaning going down to a smaller number of posts a week) or I can change the plan (equally uncomfortable) but stick with the pattern. It’s an odd and entirely insignificant problem but it illustrates the way in which an autistic brain can get embrangled trying to find security in a world of flux and change.