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'I See Things Differently': James Damore on his Autism and the Google Memo (theguardian.com)
"James Damore opens up about his regrets -- and how autism may have shaped his experience of the world," writes the west coast bureau chief for the Guardian. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
The experience has prompted some introspection. In the course of several weeks of conversation using Google's instant messaging service, which Damore prefers to face-to-face communication, he opened up about an autism diagnosis that may in part explain the difficulties he experienced with his memo. He believes he has a problem understanding how his words will be interpreted by other people... It wasn't until his mid-20s, after completing research in computational biology at Princeton and MIT, and starting a PhD at Harvard, that Damore was diagnosed with autism, although he was told he had a milder version of the condition known as "high-functioning autism"...
Damore argues that Google's focus on avoiding "micro-aggressions" is "much harder for someone with autism to follow". But he stops short of saying autistic employees should be given more leniency if they unintentionally offend people at work. "I wouldn't necessarily treat someone differently," he explains. "But it definitely helps to understand where they're coming from." I ask Damore if, looking back over the last few months, he feels that his difficult experience with the memo and social media may be related to being on the spectrum. "Yeah, there's definitely been some self-reflection," he says. "Predicting controversies requires predicting what emotional reaction people will have to something. And that's not something that I excel at -- although I'm working on it."
Damore argues that Google's focus on avoiding "micro-aggressions" is "much harder for someone with autism to follow". But he stops short of saying autistic employees should be given more leniency if they unintentionally offend people at work. "I wouldn't necessarily treat someone differently," he explains. "But it definitely helps to understand where they're coming from." I ask Damore if, looking back over the last few months, he feels that his difficult experience with the memo and social media may be related to being on the spectrum. "Yeah, there's definitely been some self-reflection," he says. "Predicting controversies requires predicting what emotional reaction people will have to something. And that's not something that I excel at -- although I'm working on it."
I am autistic and I too have that same difficulty that James Damore has. I always have someone else look at a letter or document first to get their interpretation, even when I am invited to give my own unadulterated opinion. Why? Well, in the neurotypical (i.e. non-autistic) world people rarely say what they mean. The hidden meaning behind this opinion invitation could be, "Please compliment and flatter my decision or do not bother me. You risk sneaky retaliation if you disagree." I have to remember that the workplace is not a democracy, and in rigid oligarchies, you tow the line or your expunged.
James Damore made the classic mistake that some high functioning autistics make, they fire from the hip and sometimes act impulsively in matters that they are unable to understand or visualize the ultimate outcome. I found that it was key to recognizing this to make my behaviour more socially acceptable and I had to learn how to put myself in someone else's shoes, so to speak. If I have to send a letter or document that I even suspect might offend or alienate, I *always* have a neutral third party read it and then tell me their interpretation. Also, like some people on the sprectrum, I tend to have no filter and do not suffer fools very well so I have to take extra caution when dealing with people so I do not alienate them.
I actually suspect that James Damore was not really fired as a result of his memo itself but rather as a result of a behavioral-threat model. Damore's memo might have erroneously pinged a warning sign for workplace violence and Google let him go out of an abundance of caution. This is also the problem with the classic behavioral-threat model, it is geared towards analysis of non-autistic behaviour. Autistic behaviour could easily be misinterpreted as potentially dangerous. Most autistics however do not suffer from anti-social personality disorder or psychopathy. The differences between classic autism and Anti-Social Personality Disorder are rather stark. The easiest way for Google to rid itself of this perceived threat was just to terminate him for discrimination.