Brown Bread, Toast, Pegged It, Checked Out, etc

This is categorically, 100% incorrect. You are choosing to view the world exclusively through your own personal lens, and assuming that everyone who has the abilities that you perceive yourself not to have is at a huge advantage because they are allowed to operate solely on their own strengths while you are not.

We are all at times required, in both our jobs and our personal lives, to do things that are outside of our comfort zones. I am, as we have already well established, entirely comfortable standing in front of a room of people talking. I am also though required to build in depth documents, spreadsheets, reports and so on, something that my lack of attention span does not lend itself to well. I have had to teach myself techniques to accomplish these things, with varying degrees of success. Having done so, sections of my personal life - organising finances, completing taxes, fixing shit around the house - periodically go by the wayside because I can't face yet more time focused on single tasks requiring long periods of concentration when I've just had to spend several hours, days or even weeks doing similar things for my job.

This is not a condition. It does not require recognition or medication or accommodation. It is part of being a flawed human being just like everyone else, and dealing with it is part of being an adult.

Could well be a condition.

I think the point is it's fine to measure people on outputs. It's just that some people need to do things in a slightly different way to get the same or better outputs than others and if that can be fairly and reasonably accommodated simply by allowing themselves to do things slightly differently that is fair. Some people might take advantage of that, but I honestly think that is a minority and there are plenty of non neurodivergent people who game their employers without doing so under the charade of being neurodivergent. Some people are just brazenly lazy useless inept gobshite fucks and many employers don't have the balls to do anything about that. And that's been the case as long as there have been things called jobs.

To take the football analogy, Stan Collymore was reportedly treated in a different way to other players by Frank Clark in terms of things that might ordinarily be considered matters of discipline. Other clubs and managers perhaps weren't so forgiving and didn't get the same outputs out of him. He wasn't shit at football and clearly that would be a problem there would be no getting away from as a footballer, and that applies to any other profession. But he was someone who struggled a bit sometimes because of who he is and Frank found ways to accommodate that which didn't just mean he could be as good as his peer, but beat 5 men and smash it in the top corner all on his own better.

That’s not what I was aiming to get across, let me try to explain in better.

Recently, everyone in my team at work was told we had to attend a conference-type event and ‘network’ with some clients etc. You know the sort of thing I mean. Doing that is not a part of our job, it never has been and never will be. Some of them are fine with that sort of thing, the majority are not and didn’t want to go… but it was deemed ‘good for their development’ to be pushed ‘outside of their comfort zone’. Why? Why do people who do the job they are employed to do perfectly well need to be pressured to go and do something completely different in the name of some nebulous type of ‘development’ that they haven’t sought and do not need?

I’ve seen versions of this frequently in my career. I don’t mind it so much personally because I recognise the need for a broader range of skills and experiences if I want to hold senior roles… but I don’t think my quietly efficient 55-year-old ledger clerk, who has no interest in being anything else, should be expected to do stuff like that.

I have never seen an employer tell it’s ‘relationship’ people that they need to spend a week in the office doing processing and text support. As a general rule their natural skillset and preferences don’t tend to include attention to detail, numeracy, following and explaining policies and procedures.. that sort of thing (because I know how much time we need to spend cleaning up messes and supporting them when they make a mess of these things.. just like they spend time making up for our various ‘deficiencies’.

Is this based on personal experience? Yeah, obviously… but it’s based on 20 years of it.

Did anyone say we should do that?

The example above is people who are perfectly suited to their jobs, but being asked to do things that are unnecessary, or work in environments that are hostile to them. That’s the sort of thing I think we can do without. Which is why I said:

Alternatively, as more and more people have a preference not to use phones, the people/businesses who want to use them will get held back because people will migrate to those who are better at doing things other ways. Who knows.

The best cold-caller in the world will never get my business. Someone who can’t effectively communicate to me via email is going to be less favoured than someone who can. Someone saying ‘Let’s discuss this over the phone’ is putting themselves further down my list of priorities than, maybe, their issue merits. That’s on me, not them, but maybe that’s just ‘the real world’ and they need to get with it.

Not liking phones can just be a personal thing that people should just get past. But we do know that different brain and personality types approach issues in different ways. Some people like/need more preparation, or more time to think, which phone calls don’t provide. Rushing them doesn’t help anyone. They might be able to satisfactorily deal with the matter as efficiently as anyone else, just differently. Sometimes it really is better to just pick up the phone and sort something out, sometimes the lack of preparedness/knowledge by the person on the call makes everything harder.. and that goes for ‘phone people’ as well as the likes of me.

Maybe if you work for the Globex Corporation, but on a micro level if your job involves dealing with customers then ultimately the punter calls the shots on how they want to communicate with you. We're currently pumping a ton of our resource into automating our order comms but sometimes people will still want to just pick up the phone, particularly on big value, telling these people to go fuck would be bad for business.

I hated the phone when I first started, dreaded calls, then I set up on my own and realised it wasn't going to feed the kids if I didn't get over it. The self doubt is still there, feel free to request the minutes from the lengthy debrief I have in my head after every single fucking call, but I can't really see how in some sectors you are going to get anywhere if you don't own the phone.

Im Team Russ on this. For context:
Wife is diagnosed ADHD and works as an inclusion coordinator in a school.
2 kids of the 4 diagnosed, 3rd is too disorganised to do the testing....
Strong suspicion that I am some way over that rainbow but not diagnosed.

As an employer I am wary of employing the youth. There's a huge difference between can't do something and don't feel like doing something. What's often forgotten is when you dont feel like doing a thing, someone else has to pick that up. In what we do, neuro diversity is the norm so we are used catering requirements. Not a problem. But too many fuckers have just been flakes and that's starting to be seen as OK. In what we do, our work can be done by competitors in other countries where work is the norm and they work harder without expecting a pat on the back just for turning up.

There are few who emerge from the womb as a finished product. We set the standards as to how people should interact with society and that has quite rightly been changing but in that rush, it seems to me that half arsed ideas are championed as gospel and there is a fear in challenging that. The youth aspire to some utopia of isolation. Texting before phoning someone as a norm? Nuts.

The Mrs is very good at her job. Helps kids who are neuro diverse be understood and then empowers the teacher to support them so that the pupil gets an education. But her worst issues are provided by parents. Especially "gentle" parents. Parents says little Jonny doesn't like to hear the word "No". But Little Jonny is a part of a class who also deserve an education and Little Jonny was trying to stab his class mates with a pencil. One pupil gets bought a lego set if he has been misbehaving.

I try to be ethical but I am not woke. Woke demands a dedicated adherence to diktat that cannot be challenged. I have seen it where folk have been screamed at, metaphorically online, and yet when the target objects to the abuse, they get screamed at further for "Tone Policing". Because the screamer is unquestionably right, they can speak as they will and to object is perceived as abuse. Fucking nuts.

For various reasons, the issue of male suicide is close to my heart. Which is why I cannot accept the "All men are..." narrative. Yes, there are many men who are cunts but there are other perfectly decent men who are so utterly alienated by society that isnt listening. They should not be tarred with the same brush.

In short, there's a lot I don't like, but you probably knew that.

I like making other phones ring spontaneously with phones and speaking into them, they're quicker than writing emails and setting up meeting schedulers and I can call you at 15:37 for 4 minutes rather than waste time scheduling meetings in on the hour/half hour slots at 1530 or 1600. Plus it is just like talking without the eye contact, which introverts do with people they meet. And you can communicate more information more efficiently than in chat messages, if you cut out small talk.

I do agree that a lot of time is wasted in the workplace though by companies trying to do things the way they have been done for years for no good reason, and forcing people to do things they are shit at/don't like/aren't suited to that yield minimal benefit. A lot of time is wasted talking about this shite too, but on balance it's better than not talking about it at all.

I don't think that's especially true, although there will always be militant arseholes. "Not being a dick to other people" shouldn't really be that controversial - and yes, that applies to treating people with respect when they say/do something "unwoke".

I'm Team Noodle on this - for sure there are bad parents as there always have been, and in some ways there are more channels for them to be indulged, but arranging work to people's strengths and minimising their weaknesses is good business, if a bit more effort.
The kids are traditionally generationally worse to those with survivor bias. "It didn't hurt me, so it must be ok."

Here's why the Northern hemisphere has a better economy.

That and the looting.

Not being a dick to other people is not what I'm seeing in woke culture. Shouting at people who aren't absolutely on board is what I'm seeing. Ethics is very much about debate and understanding that there are other quite valid views or other ways of achieving the same or similar ethical goals.

Well that does sound very shit. And I'm glad it's not happening around me.

My per capita GDP is bigger than your per capita GDP. Also, my Gini coefficient (a measure of income equality) is better than yours.

Also, the first thing you tuckers did when I left you to your own devices was do a fucking Brexit. IS THAT HELPING?

I have a guy in Cotgrave who looks after my Brexit opinions for me, he'll be up around 11am (BST) with a diatribe.

However, here's an on the ground update for you. I went gym yesterday because I'm a bit porky, we all are over here these days, and in the shiny new Leisure Centre that only took 8 months longer to build than promised but has working aircon some of the time, unless it gets hot, I attempted to do some rowing. Of the 3 machines (there were 4 but the 4th got put in a cupboard as it was unfortunately pointing towards the treadmills providing expansive views of whoever's arse was jogging at that point) 2 were a bit broken but being used (I think, they were very slow) by an octogenarian couple probably on a medical referral, the 3rd machine was knackered due to Leisure Centre maintenance policy, which is that maintenance is a management issue. Management can't find anybody to maintain these machines because they are a different brand to most of the other machines so not covered by their service contract, the manufacturers UK HQ is many many miles away over taxing and sometimes unpassable terrain, in Wilford, and worst of all they have real difficulty being arsed. I rowed away, the machine purring noisily as the dry chain ground yet more metal off of it sprocket. Following my unsatisfactory work out I logged my complaint we the 3 gym attendants who hadn't moved from their stools in the hour I had been there but did happily send an email to the aforementioned management which they will ignore, or not do anything about. Retiring for a wash I went to the changing rooms where I could just about hear the local adverts on the radio over the ventilation fan that has never worked correctly some kid was making about the worst and slowest job I had ever seen of sweeping up as his brush had more shit on it than the floor, "I think you actually putting more shit on the floor" I commented because I'm helpful like that. The huge cobweb that hung from the bottom of his brush was, he said, because none of their equipment is maintained and was 'really annoying', helpfully I suggested he scrap it in the bin but sadly he pulled the brush head off whilst trying to figure out how to do this and abandoned the whole enterprise, the shit on the floor rearranged successfully. Despairing at how my £42 a month is being spent and tired from being fat and trying to row on a broken machine I decided to head home but sadly my exit from the changing rooms was blocked by a mop bucket where 2 further young members of staff seemed to be intent on dramatising the mountain/Mohamed thing with cleaning equipment, and of course on each long march from the bucket to the area of floor being "cleaned" a trail of dirty water was dribbled so you could map their progress. Fortunately, I managed to negotiate around the mop buckets and headed home across the car park which for once wasn't flooded as it only rained for 2 hours yesterday which wasn't enough to back up the brand new but very blocked drains so I got in my stupid over sized climate catastrophe of car and drove 175 yards back to work.

Enjoy your Sunday at the beach, you jetski riding bastard.

The new Alan Bennet.

..at the Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre.

Personally I'd probably cancel my membership telling them to get fucked if they're not providing the service being paid for, or at at least providing a shit standard one, although I imagine that would would be likely be a bollock ache.