Today, I unexpectedly discovered that I have people skills when I interact with people who are not students. This is a very surprising development that I’m still processing.
So here is how I discovered my people skills. I’m on a committee where we have to interview faculty members at another department. The first person we talked to was a senior colleague who is preparing to retire. Obviously, this is a person who could care less about our committee and its findings. So I realized that I needed to find a topic that would make this senior scholar want to engage in a conversation. Can you guess which topic makes academics at this stage of their lives open up? Exactly.
“Can you tell us about your research?” I asked, departing from the pre-set interview questions. The professor lit up like the Lincoln Center Christmas tree.
Next, we talked to a junior faculty member. This is the kind of person who under no conditions should be asked about research. People who are on a tenure-clock need to publish a certain amount per year and it is always a sore point because you never know if you’ll manage to publish enough. A junior faculty member is likely to clam up completely if research is mentioned.
There is, however, an issue that junior faculty, adjuncts, lecturers and instructors respond to passionately and immediately.
“Do you feel this institution is treating you fairly?” I asked this colleague. Bingo. Fairness or lack thereof is a subject near and dear to the heart of each non-tenured faculty member.
I’m kind of proud of myself. I think I will wear a T-shirt that says “This is the face of autism” on the last day this committee, which is now suitably impressed with my people skills, meets for the last time.
Maybe it’s all because of blogging but I’m now kind of more interested in people.
Clarissa's Blog 
how fabulous for you! I can’t tell you how interesting it is to read your adult perspective blog. fMhson has not enough markers to be truly aspergers, but the two he has are SO strong that I am still trying to learn as much as I can to help him understand how other people perceive him sometimes 😉
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He is lucky he has you, then, because having the support of parents who don’t think you are “weird” and an embarrassment is crucial for one at this age.
I hope more people understand that autism is not the end of the world and that it doesn’t mean one will be prevented from leading a full, happy life.
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*Fairness or lack thereof is a subject near and dear to the heart of each non-tenured faculty member.*
Aren’t they afraid they won’t get tenure, if they talk too much?
Just read this interesting article about GOP by Mike Lofgren “retired on June 17 after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. He served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees.”
http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779
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Haven’t seen you commenting in a while, el, it’s good to see you here again 🙂
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The interviews are anonymous, secret, and we are told to shred all the notes we take during the interviews immediately.
However, this colleague responded that he was treated extremely fairly and he’s very very happy here. This is my experience of this place, too, so I get him. 🙂
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I’m assuming your people skills surprised you because of your autism? Since I keep discovering behavioural patterns I share in common with you (and presumably other people with Aspergers), I am actually surprised you’re surprised at your success. Socialising — even when I absolutely love it — exhausts me, and I can need time away from company at frequent intervals. However, when I am actually *in* company, I find it very easy to get along with a very diverse group of people, simply because people broadcast their ideologies, interests and thinking patterns very loudly all the time. To me, anyway — and this is partly why I can’t spend protracted periods in mixed company. While people around me are simply being their normal, individual selves, after a certain amount of time around them, I start thinking they’re being deliberately obtuse and limited and narrow-minded, and from there, it’s a short trip to frustration, annoyance, and exhaustion.
But during the happy period before that, I get along very well in almost every kind of company. Particularly if I’m not personally invested in them yet. Given the other similarities we’ve been discovering, I would have thought this skill of analysing certain kinds of people and discovering their buttons would come naturally to you too.
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“Socialising — even when I absolutely love it — exhausts me, and I can need time away from company at frequent intervals. ”
-Yes, that’s exactly how I feel! I can be very charming with people and entertain a crowd easily with jokes and funny stories. As a teacher, I love public speaking. But what’s difficult for me is to notice others while I’m entertaining, so to speak. I don’t normally get people, or understand what they think, how they perceive me, whether they are sad or happy or bored or tired.
I’m comfortable with the role of a teacher or a blogger when I talk and everybody listens and then asks questions. 🙂 When somebody else is the center of attention, however, I get very bored. Unless it’s a really fascinating person.
But then I get very tired of all this sociability and need to stay alone in silence for a long time.
What I really can’t deal with is this social chit-chat about nothing that people seem to enjoy a lot. I just get immediately tuned off and don’t even hear what’s being said.
So to resume, I don’t see where people’s “buttons” are because most people don’t interest me enough for that. I don’t mean it in a bad way but simply in an autistic way. 🙂 I have such an intense inner life (as, I think, is evidenced from the blog) that the outside things can’t compete. 🙂
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I’m not autistic, but I’ve always been um…differently social. Very introverted, and I’d very much like to greet strangers with deep philosophical questions if it were not so weird. Normal conversations distress me. But I’ve found that this does come with some benefits. I can ask the right questions at the right times to get the answer I want, am perceptive about people’s characters, and can usually discern pretty quickly when people are not understanding each other well when they think they are. Things like that. Even though I’m at entry level in my company, they have me interviewing new hires.
Our situations are different of course, but it seems like you and I have both found ways to take advantage of our character and sociability.
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