• An Aspie (unregistered) in reply to An Aspie

    (I shouldn't be doing this at 1:20 a.m. my time)

    This post was meant to be a quote of Jean Naimard's post...

    An Aspie:
    Please elaborate on how that's a bad thing: I expect this to be truly entertaining to see you write yourself out of this hole :D

    However, it's far more likely you've aborted looking at/replying to this thread, sadly, or even if you look, you won't respond.

  • (cs) in reply to An Aspie
    An Aspie:
    Here's the link to the 7 minute (there's a longer version that has been produced: note that comments are turned off) and note at about 4:10 into the video: it's there.
    Looks like you forgot the link... :)
  • Anonymous Cow-herd (unregistered)

    I wonder if the company in the second story realised that what they were doing was illegal in many parts of the world (possibly including their own)?

    (brought to you by the nobody-else-really-cares dept.)

  • An Aspie (unregistered) in reply to Mel

    D'OH! You're absolutely right: I guess I forgot a keystroke or two in the copy/paste sequence!

    Here it is:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDMMwG7RrFQ

    Mel:
    An Aspie:
    Here's the link to the 7 minute (there's a longer version that has been produced: note that comments are turned off) and note at about 4:10 into the video: it's there.
    Looks like you forgot the link... :)
  • (cs) in reply to MJ
    MJ:
    And you just don't get autism. Autism IS the "inability of the interviewee to respond appropriately" - the disability is by definition the behaviors. There is no autism without the behaviors and the behaviors are the disability. I don't know how much clearer I can make this.

    A blind person's problem is that they can't see. Your statements are equivalent to saying that we aren't making fun of the blind person, just the fact that he can't see.

    God, I can't believe you're really this dense.

    Your analogy would be great if the interviewee had either put on their resume that they suffered from autism, or had informed the interviewer at the start of the interview. Then the interviewer is aware of what the problem is, and can alter either the interview or his views of the behavior accordingly. The interviewee did not do either of those things.

    No, making fun of a blind person isn't funny. But laughing at someone walking blindly into a wall is funny, if you don't know that the person is actually blind. If you can't see the difference, perhaps you need to go back to school and work on your skills.

    MJ:
    So when you ridicule those behaviors you are ridiculing autism.

    Again, compare apples with apples, not humor based on circumstance with some moronic idea about political correctness. Your line of thinking is the same as thinking that a wolf is a bigot because he favors rabbit over skunk. I happen to think it's because the wolf dislikes the stench of the skunk before the feast.

    But if it makes you feel so much better to stand on your imaginary soapbox and preach about perceptions of injustice where there is none, feel free to do so. Just take it somewhere more appropriate - this is a technological humor site.

  • (cs) in reply to MJ
    MJ:
    If someone is missing an arm, do you "treat them differently" when you fail to ask them to carry a box for you? Does the fact that you recognize that hey, he is working with different set of abilities and doesn't have two arms mean that you view him as inferior or not as good? No, it means you acknowledge his limitation and work around them.

    No, of course I don't ask them to carry a box for me. However, I would still ask them to carry my laptop case for me, so that I could carry the box. That's the point you're missing.

    You seem to think that I should totally avoid asking them to carry anything, because of course they're missing an arm and should be treated with kid gloves in every aspect.

    You're also still missing the point of the entire discussion, which is that the interviewee did not inform the interviewer of his condition. If the interviewer had been aware, things may have been different.

    You're expecting the interviewer to make allowances for a disability that he was unaware of; this is like someone complaining that there's no wheelchair ramp to your minivan when you have no idea the passenger you're picking up for your company at the airport is wheelchair bound.

    MJ:
    I fully understand what you are saying, but you seem to be missing what I am saying. The "situation" is a direct result of behaviors caused by autism.

    Autism IS behaviors.

    No, we all get that. You seem to be missing what everyone else in this thread is saying, which is that if someone is aware of the handicap it's different from when they are not aware.

    Again, if I'm standing in the park, and I see what appears to be a perfectly normal individual (no seeing eye dog, no white cane with a red tip, etc) walk into a tree face first, I'm going to laugh. If he has the white cane, though, I'm not. See the difference? If not, I'd suggest that the real issue here is that you're "intellectually challenged", and you should seek help with that immediately.

  • (cs) in reply to Sid2K7
    Sid2K7:
    Well, that was the first and only time I've ever ignored any mail from a specific company. And also the first time I bribed a postal service employee to write "Return to sender. Address Unknown" on an envelope.

    Considering that you can send a much clearer message by writing yourself "Refused - Return to sender" on it, that was a waste of a bribe.

  • (cs) in reply to MJ
    MJ:
    I understand what you are saying and I am not actually angry or offended at the conversion. The point of the exercise as far as I am concerned to the raise awareness (I hate that phrase) of what autism is and what it looks like so that the future will be better for people like my children.

    I'm sorry, but you're failing. I don't see how addressing a humorous story in an invalid and inappropriate manner makes things better for "people like your children".

    You're coming across as an ignorant, pedantic, self righteously political correct jerk who has no capacity to comprehend or tolerate other people. You also have no ability to reason, as many people have pointed out to you how wrong you are and why, and you just can't seem to grasp it. You insist on comparing apples to oranges.

    You really need to pay attention. The fact that dozens of people are telling you you're wrong, and none are saying you are right, should tell you something.

    If the interviewer was not made aware of the autism issue, they have no responsibility to make allowances for it. Unless, of course, the person is being interviewed by a psychiatrist for a receptionist's or nurse's position or something.

    If you want people to make allowances for a condition you have, you need to let them know about that condition in advance. If you do, and they fail to make those allowances, it's their fault. If you don't, it's yours.

  • Doesn't matter (unregistered) in reply to KenW

    Gotta say I'm with KenW on this one.

  • (cs) in reply to MJ
    MJ:
    So lets try this one. How about a person who can't talk, who can't express their thoughts and feeling because the pathways in the brain that would normally allow them to communicate are damaged and don't work?

    That's easy. They suffer from autism, whereas you suffer from MJ Disorder (MJD), which is slightly different.

    MJD is symptomized by a person who can't understand basic humor, and responds by climbing onto a soapbox and ranting at great length about things that have no bearing on the topic at hand, trying to justify that rant with some babble about making people aware of a condition that isn't necessarily applicable either. (We don't know that the interviewee suffered from any form of autism, as we have nothing from either the interviewee or his physician providing that definitive diagnosis.)

    A further result of MJD is the inability to think rationally or understand common attempts to communicate. This is evidenced by the sufferer ignoring all efforts to communicate (or at least failing to understand those efforts). Instead, the MJD sufferer simply continues to exhibit the same symptoms I outlined in my earlier paragraph, repeating the same blathering over and over again where it is clearly not applicable.

    The only known treatment for MJD is to totally ignore the sufferer and hope that they go away.

    So, I wish you well, my friend. Enjoy your trip.

  • Frunobulax (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    AndrewB:
    It goes both ways.
    No it doesn't. You are so desperately without a clue that you absolutely stink of "I just graduated and therefore know everything".

    Suggestion for a fun learning project: save off this discussion to someplace safe. Return to it in, say, six to ten years. Read it over; break into laughter at your incredible mixture of naivete and arrogance. Then post it on TheDailyWTF to share the laughter all around.

    Amen, brother! Preach!

  • Jay (unregistered)

    Sigh. Do I have to give credentials to discuss mental illness? My brother spent years in psychiatric therapy -- I don't remember now what the diagnosis was, I was young at the time. My ex-wife was diagnosed manic-depressive. My son is presently in a mental hospital, diagnosed with schizophrenia. My father just had brain surgery and spent months with a variety of symptoms that would surely be defined as mental illness, from inabilty to recognize his own children to making bizaree outbursts.

    No, I wouldn't expect a person with polio to be able to walk if I just encouraged or berated him enough. But that's how physical illness is different from many mental illnesses, isn't it? Many mental illnesses are treated with counseling. That is, they talk the person in to behaving differently in one way or another. So apparently the question is not whether the person is capable of changing his behavior given the proper environment. The question is what the proper environment is. Is it people telling him that he better stop doing this or he will face this and this consequences? Or is it people telling him that everything is just fine and if others object to his behavior, he should bring law suits against them for discrimination?

    I don't doubt that there are physiological things that can go wrong with the brain, that are "illnesses" in the same sense that cancer is an illness, and that can be treated with drugs and/or surgery. I don't doubt that there are people who are truly insane in the traditional sense of the word, people who are completely divorced from reality and think that they are Napolean or God or a bottle of ketsup or whatever. My point is that we have "progressed" to the point where every unproductive behavior is classified as a mental illness.

    It's one thing to tell a person with polio that he should just get up and walk and get a job that requires running and jumping. It's a very different thing to tell a person who is a lazy couch potato that he should get up and walk and get a job that requires running and jumping. In the first case the person is incapable of doing what you ask no matter how hard he tries. In the second case he is perfectly capable, but as simply decided that it's too much trouble and if he doesn't bother, others will take care of him. In the latter case, telling him that we're cutting off his allowance and he'd better straighten up and get a job might well be sufficient motivation.

    I suggest that the same could be said about real mental illness and many things that today are called mental illness.

  • IAmTheLizardQueen (unregistered)

    I'm just surprised that someone interviewing sysadmins couldn't spot stressed-out autistic/aspie behavior in a heartbeat.

    Them's my peeps. We get precise and literal under pressure. Many of us make outstanding sysadmins.

  • MJ (unregistered) in reply to KenW
    KenW:
    That's easy. They suffer from autism, whereas you suffer from MJ Disorder (MJD), which is slightly different.

    Wow, that was a well thought out and fully rational comment. You know that the rational part of the discussion is over when one of the participants feels it is necessary to use personal attacks.

    So, oh rational and enlightened one, please explain the errors on my ways. So, lets go down the path to enlightenment.

    The initial comment that started this was by FredSaw who said :

    However unfair circumstance has been to the autistic guy, he seems to be functioning well enough to have made it through a screening process and into an interview. Shall we pretend that his behavior is not bizarre?

    Please note the direct mention of autism in the person's comment. I replied :

    I hate to get up on the PC soapbox here but the answer to your question "Shall we pretend that his behavior is not bizarre?" is YES.

    Making fun of a person on the spectrum's social issues is the equivalent to mocking a blind person because they can't see or a deaf person because they can't hear.

    It isn't all in good fun.

    To which you replied (eventually) with such thoughtful comments such as

    God, I can't believe you're really this dense.

    which I will have to agree, I guess I am dense.

    and

    Your analogy would be great if the interviewee had either put on their resume that they suffered from autism, or had informed the interviewer at the start of the interview. Then the interviewer is aware of what the problem is, and can alter either the interview or his views of the behavior accordingly. The interviewee did not do either of those things.

    And since you seem to have some knowledge of this interview outside of what was posted on the site, I guess I will have to bow to your superior knowledge of the facts that aren't anywhere in evidence, because certainly you would not assert things if you didn't know them to be true, right?

    You continued

    No, making fun of a blind person isn't funny. But laughing at someone walking blindly into a wall is funny, if you don't know that the person is actually blind. If you can't see the difference, perhaps you need to go back to school and work on your skills.

    Now we come to something that I don't understand, although there are many such things. You are asserting that it is acceptable to make fun a person's disability as long as we don't know they are disabled.

    Yet if you read the initial comment that I responded to you will see that my response was directed at the fact that the person said that even if they have autism it would be funny.

    Clearly someone as dense as I am must be missing here.

    You continued :

    Again, compare apples with apples, not humor based on circumstance with some moronic idea about political correctness. Your line of thinking is the same as thinking that a wolf is a bigot because he favors rabbit over skunk.

    Again, my feeble mind appears to fail me. So you are saying that it is the nature of people to laugh at disabled people and it is ok because they are like wolves? No, that's right, it is fine as long as we don't know they are disabled. No, that's not right either.

    So what was the point and how were apples involved again?

    In another post I said :

    If someone is missing an arm, do you "treat them differently" when you fail to ask them to carry a box for you? Does the fact that you recognize that hey, he is working with different set of abilities and doesn't have two arms mean that you view him as inferior or not as good? No, it means you acknowledge his limitation and work around them.

    To which you replied :

    No, of course I don't ask them to carry a box for me. However, I would still ask them to carry my laptop case for me, so that I could carry the box. That's the point you're missing.

    So again, I cannot perceive the errors of my way. I suggested that you acknowledge the limitation and attempt to work around it.

    Which you so rightly correctly my ignorance and replied that no, you give him the lighter package that he would be able to carry any you would carry the heaver package that he cannot.

    Which is clearly not working around the fact that he would be unable to carry the heavy box.

    I think I am starting to see the error of my ways. Perhaps some more words of wisdom from the enlightened:

    You're also still missing the point of the entire discussion, which is that the interviewee did not inform the interviewer of his condition. If the interviewer had been aware, things may have been different.

    Now I clearly must agree that there was no other communication outside of the post especially since you have repeated the knowledge twice. It is starting to get into my dense head.

    Your wisdom continued

    You seem to be missing what everyone else in this thread is saying, which is that if someone is aware of the handicap it's different from when they are not aware.

    Clearly I am now I am seeing my grasp of the english language did indeed fail me when I read that initial comment. I did not see the error on my ways.

    The everyone on the thread apparently does not include the initial people nor the people trying to make the distinction that it is only the behaviors that are funny not the autism.

    I am starting to see.

    You're coming across as an ignorant, pedantic, self righteously political correct jerk who has no capacity to comprehend or tolerate other people. You also have no ability to reason, as many people have pointed out to you how wrong you are and why, and you just can't seem to grasp it. You insist on comparing apples to oranges.

    Now I fully understand the error of my ways, I never learned the difference between apples and oranges. If only I had paid more attention in grade school I would not be in this sorry state now.

    You really need to pay attention.

    Thank you for reinforcing that fact for me.

    The fact that dozens of people are telling you you're wrong, and none are saying you are right, should tell you something.

    Now I see that I apparently can't count either. I counted maybe three people having an continuing discussion with maybe another five dropping random comments. Clearly I did not understand that 8 people is equivalent to dozens.

    So we come back to your most wise pronouncement

    A further result of MJD is the inability to think rationally or understand common attempts to communicate. This is evidenced by the sufferer ignoring all efforts to communicate (or at least failing to understand those efforts). Instead, the MJD sufferer simply continues to exhibit the same symptoms I outlined in my earlier paragraph, repeating the same blathering over and over again where it is clearly not applicable.

    Where my "ignorance" is exposed for all to see.

    Thank you for taking the time to enlighten me.

    Clearly I am just a "ignorant, pedantic, self righteously political correct jerk who has no capacity to comprehend or tolerate other people".

    I am sorry that I disrupted your enjoyment of laughing at the poor potentially disabled person - not that you knew that when you laughed.

    Was there anything else I missed?

    I'd suggest, if mere discussion of peculiar behavior by someone suffering from ADD/ADHD/Asperger's troubles you so much, you tune in to the ABC television show Boston Legal. Jerry's representation of an Asperger's sufferer should cause you to have an actual coronary, and then you wouldn't be able to climb on that high horse you seem to want to be on.

    Oh yes, I actually think that Boston Legal is funny and the character of Jerry is decently well balanced.

    But that might just me being ignorant again.

  • MJ (unregistered) in reply to An Aspie
    An Aspie:
    yes, there's at least one of them that went out of their way to make a video stating they'd rather have murdered their daughter than have her be autistic, with her present and next to her during the taping of it!

    In the video link you posted the mother in the video actually said that she would rather driver her car off a bridge with her daughter in it rather than "put her in one of those schools".

    While I don't think that a good way to combat school overcrowding and lack of educational resources for people with autism that is not the same as what you asserted she said.

  • Worldwalker (unregistered) in reply to ben
    ben:
    I'd take it as a given that a developer candidate can type reasonably fast, because most developers code by typing. If you can only type 20wpm you can't code fast and, more to the point, you probably haven't done much of it. A developer needs to be comfortable around a computer and know how to use it efficiently.
    I worked for several years for a man who typed with one finger (sometimes two when he really got rolling). He was a superb programmer, one of the best I've ever known. Maybe he got his code right the first time because fixing it would have taken forever? Whatever the reason, he was damn good. There is no reason why a man with a physical handicap that slows his typing speed (such as the rejected applicant in the original post) couldn't be just as good a programmer as my old boss, the one-finger typist.
  • (cs) in reply to IAmTheLizardQueen
    IAmTheLizardQueen:
    I'm just surprised that someone interviewing sysadmins couldn't spot stressed-out autistic/aspie behavior in a heartbeat.

    Them's my peeps. We get precise and literal under pressure. Many of us make outstanding sysadmins.

    And, on a different topic, what precisely is the point of sysadmins?

    We used to get along quite nicely without them in the old days.

    I mean, what the fuck do they do?

  • Reality Check (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    It's one thing to tell a person with polio that he should just get up and walk and get a job that requires running and jumping. It's a very different thing to tell a person who is a lazy couch potato that he should get up and walk and get a job that requires running and jumping. In the first case the person is incapable of doing what you ask no matter how hard he tries. In the second case he is perfectly capable, but as simply decided that it's too much trouble and if he doesn't bother, others will take care of him. In the latter case, telling him that we're cutting off his allowance and he'd better straighten up and get a job might well be sufficient motivation.

    I suggest that the same could be said about real mental illness and many things that today are called mental illness.

    Many years ago, I once went three days with nothing to eat.

    Was it because I had no food? No.

    Was it because I was physically incapable of preparing it? No.

    It was because I was suffering from major depression.

    Nothing, not even hunger, one of the most basic animal drives, something even a paramecium can feel, was sufficient to motivate me to so much as open a can of beans. It was too much effort. It was not until the low point of that particular bout of depression passed that I was capable of making myself a sandwich. I think I speak for most of the people who share my particular mental illness when I say we don't want to be this way. It is not fun. It is often fatal. If it was something that could be cured by "motivation" and we could "straighten up" if we wanted to, then by God we would. I certainly had the motivation to get something to eat; but, in the depths of a depressive crisis, I did not have the capability to act on that motivation.

    Counseling can help. It can teach the sufferer strategies to cope with their condition. It can teach them workarounds to some of the mess in their heads. But it cannot cure the underlying problem. It cannot make their brain produce more serotonin. And if you "cut off the allowance", as you put it, to someone with major depression in order to force him to get a job, etc., that still won't cure the problem. Odds are, he'll just kill himself. Be very thankful that you have never been in a situation where self-extinction appears, to you, the only logical, rational, and practical solution, and the only reason you do not do it is it would require too much effort. Thank God every day for that. I would not wish this condition on anybody.

    Have you ever gone without food for three days? Try it sometime (I'd suggest a long weekend, as it'll mess you up at work). Now think about how unable to function a person has to be to endure that when they have plenty of food available, they just have to open the drawer and take out the can opener. Then try to tell me that it's just laziness, and sufficient coercion will overcome it.

    I have lived with this my entire adult life. I have learned to cope, and medication (SSRI's) helps a lot. But it is something that can only be treated, not cured. It is something I have to live with every minute of every day. And it is not something I would endure if I had any alternative, especially one as simple as "getting up off the couch." Nobody wants to be like this. I sure as hell don't. I struggle every day not to let this thing rule my life. I fight harder to maintain a basic level of function than you do to live your normal life, and for far less reward.

    I don't want your pity, or your sympathy, or even your understanding. I just want you to use that neurotypical brain that you're so proud of winning in the lottery of life and get it through your neutronium-plated skull that nobody wants to have a condition that makes their life hell and is likely to make them kill themself some day and dealing with it is not just a matter of wishing it didn't exist. Believing otherwise is not far removed from those people who don't take their children to doctors because "faith" will cure any disease, and if they die, well, they just didn't believe hard enough.

  • TadGhostal (unregistered)

    I partly agree with those who don't find the humor in making fun of someone with an obvious handicap - but only partly. I do see the humor - I just choose to rise above it, or laugh inside.

    Is it wrong to find situations like this humorous? Of course not - in fact it's human.

    Is it wrong to point out that humor to others on a fairly well-read website? Probably.

    Is it wrong to do so when you're in the position of the interviewer? Absolutely.

    I call bad form, bad taste, and bad judgement on the OP here.

    I certainly hope that the interviewee doesn't frequent this site for the OP's sake. If he did, and if he was as petty as the OP, he might be inclined to pursue legal action.

    Heck, he might not have a case, but what if he did? What if he was able to cause the OP some financial grief, or at the very least some professional embarrassment? He could then post his own WTF here. It'd certainly be as funny as the OP's WTF, wouldn't it?

    I sure hope the interviewer's real initials aren't K. D... Now THAT would be the real WTF.

  • (cs) in reply to cyphax

    Real life example ::

    Go through the recruitment ads of pinstorm , a SEM company based out of Mumbai,India.

    I went to their office after reading about requierements that they had for Java/C++ application developers.

    Turned out that what they actually wanted were Perl/Php developers!!

    What a waste of time it was.

  • Wodderwick (unregistered) in reply to Vred Ekrn
    Vred Ekrn:
    Unix? Don't you know that it is a dead language. Get in the 21st century man!
    Language?
  • djclintoris (unregistered)

    this isn't the position you were looking for. move along. move along.

  • Tom_fan_63 (unregistered) in reply to Grassfire
    Grassfire:
    BlitheringIdiot:
    G Money:
    Schnapple:
    Not Dorothy:
    Been there. The ad said that you could earn 30k as a programmer. But it turned out you had to be promoted to department head to actually get that.

    What situation were you in (location, time frame) that $30K is seen as a good salary?

    What location are you in that you would assume that everyone uses US dollars?

    Everyone in the world knows that the US dollar is the only currency that matters!

    cough Euro cough

    Luckly in Denmark are still resisting to the temptation... DKK forever ;-)

  • Ettina (unregistered) in reply to MJ

    "I hate to get up on the PC soapbox here but the answer to your question "Shall we pretend that his behavior is not bizarre?" is YES."

    Erasing our differences does us no good. I'd rather they acknowledge that he's different and judge him on his merits, not based on anti-weirdo prejudice.

    "If you do not understand it, now is a good time to learn more as it is autism awareness month. AutismSpeaks.org is a good place to start."

    The organization that threatened to sue an autistic teen who made a parody website 'NT Speaks'? The organization who had a representative of theirs say, on US national television, in front of her autistic child, that the only reason she didn't do a murder-suicide with that child was because of her other (neurotypical) child? You want that organization to be their introduction to autism? Well, personally, I want them to think we're human beings, not detestable walking tragedies that anyone neurotypical who knows an autistic can get on a soapbox and insult us.

  • Daniel (unregistered)

    laugh I've been exactly in the same situation. I applied for a position as Sr Java Developer. After having a very nice conversation for 45 minutes one of the three interviewers asks: "How well do you know ColdFusion?". I replied: "Well, I know a little ColdFusion. However, if you are you planning on migrating a legacy app to Java, I am sure that this wouldn't be a problem for me". They replied: "No, actually, we do most of our things in ColdFusion."

    Needless to say my face morphed to questionmark-shape.

  • Peter (unregistered) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    There's a difference between insulting someone for being autistic and reacting to a situation where a person (who is possibly autistic) verbally berates you for a simple request when he is in a position to impress you.

    See, that's the point: for him, it's not a simple question. Maybe for you it is, perhaps even for me (I've got a mild form of Asperger's syndrome), but he simply couldn't imagine the situation. For him, it's just as easy as flying by flapping his arms up and down. (No pun intended on the hand flapping.) So that's why he panicked, and that's why he started shouting.

    The thing is, people with an autistic spectrum disorder tend to be very good at skills that are required in IT, so you get quite a few of them. I'm not saying that the interviewer should have been prepared to get someone with an ASD, because there's such a lot of ignorance on the subject (of which your post is unfortunately an example), but the word has to be spread around.

    In fact, ignorance is so wide-spread that the interviewee might not know that he has an ASD; I myself didn't find out until the age of 38, and only because my son was diagnosed with a mild form of high-functioning autism (there's a strong genetic factor involved in autism).

    So, this guy would have been excellent if he were stuck away in a room, given very clear instructions that couldn't be mis-interpreted, and preferably nobody would ring him. Which would make him, I think, unsuitable for the job that was advertised.

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