Re: Coworker who won't take no for an answer

[Ned Bedinger <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>]

Edgar D' Souza wrote:

> After reading the initial post, my immediate reaction was to
> post saying that some geeks don't just need to be beaten with a
> two-by-four to get a hint about personal/social situations, some of
> them even need to be hit by a 4x4 before they realize they're doing
> something wrong. 

I know a young man who is a stunning intellect with a huge appetite for 
information and great recall--I think he probably has eidetic memory. 
While he seems very smart, he also has no instinct for social skills or 
acceptable behavior. When he first came over to the house, I had to keep 
an eye on him, like "Whoa! The time is w-a-y past time to teach you how 
to behave. Put that down. Get out of the fridge. Quit messing with the 
remote control, I'm watching a program!"

He's a nice, mild-mannered kid, but try as I did, I wasn't able to shape 
his behavior at all. The lessons of heavy corrective measures or 
discipline (the 2x4 or 4x4 approach) would have been wasted on him. I 
eventually learned the true meaning of it was rooted in his neurological 
make-up. He is quasi-autistic (Asberger's Syndrome). Apparently, there 
are degrees of autism, and in some people it produces not only some 
degree of the characteristic self-absorption (I want to use the clinical 
term for being unaware of other people here, but can't recall it) but 
also sometimes the aforementioned intellectual facility. At the far end 
of the scale I think you get eidetic savants, like the differently-abled 
characters who don't ever learn to make toast or tie shoes but can play 
Chopin the first time they ever touch a piano. You know, someone like 
the character portrayed in the movie "Rain Man"

Anyway, I worked with a guy like that--a major software engineering 
talent at a major software vendor. He had the full geek complement of 
amateur radio equipment in his office. He was dimly aware of others. His 
idea of the best way to put a co-worker at ease about his ethnicity was 
to use every racial profile, cliche, and epithet when talking to him. 
Hearing him spew that way (in the workplace!!) was unbelievable, but his 
job was never in jeopardy. It was just understood that the employer 
reserved the right to hire capabilities, without conventional regard for 
normative social abilities. HR's response to complaints about him was 
"Close your office door if he bothers you." I spent three months across 
the hall from him. If my door was open he'd sit in his office watching 
me, and if he caught my eye, the next half hour was shot--I'd give it to 
him to bend my ear about whatever was on his mind at the time--then I'd 
close the door. Every single day was like that, he never changed. I 
prefer him as a neighbor if the only other option would be to have 
someone who jabbers all day, sets their disco ringtones on full volume 
and leaves the phone unattended, etc  :-)

HTH,

Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com


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