Professional wavelengths

Beep boop beep boop boooooooooop boooooooooop.

Would you know how to respond to this at work? This is what loops through my head when I’m stuck in a conversation and I find myself at a loss for words. Would the dial-up internet impression or the words “what do you want me to say here?” be more socially, professionally, interpersonally appropriate?

In professional settings, I often choose option three: mumble some sounds not dissimilar to “that sounds right” and count the minutes until I will be home and in my Fortress of Solitude, my serenity room.

I don’t expect to be on the same wavelength as everyone (though now that I think of it, that sounds pretty fun, but could clash with my bookish yet thoughtful persona I unintentionally cultivate for The World At Large). To continue with the lack of subtlety, here is a thesis statement based on my experience: We, as humans, naturally gravitate towards people with whom we share a strong communication connection. However, once we enter the professional world, norms suggest we should be able to work effectively with anyone, regardless whether they talk our socks off or not. I find this expectation, and the resulting cognitive dissonance, more draining than a bathtub.

My experience has been that those people with whom I can communicate with relative ease are the primary ones with whom I can hope to accomplish work of any significance. Perhaps this is due to the conversational cadence: whether in your home basement or the office break room, a game of ping pong is a game of ping pong.

I’m not even referring to situations of genuine conflict or disrespect; there are office protocols and norms for handling those and no one should feel disrespected where they work. What sends my brain chasing its tail and my fingers pounding the keyboard is when this happens: “our team works with this person. [no one else has had any issues.] please work with them to do your job. thanks.” (Emphasis inside the brackets mine.) When I’m introduced to someone this way and, after multiple interactions with them across multiple media, I find myself mentally planning my route back to my Fortress, what am I supposed to do?

It can be a perfect professional match on paper, but when someone talks a bit much, presents a tad too much overconfidence, or simply doesn’t acknowledge what I say, I feel my brain rapidly disengaging. At that point, I can no longer form a thought. A colleague once told people my mic didn’t work after I was only ever put on the spot once my brain had already shut down. I eventually found the courage to speak up and articulate over my pounding heartbeat that my silence was a personality issue and not a hardware issue. A few people smiled, and I didn’t speak again.

If you received an office memo which said, “I respect this person to the moon and back, but for my own wellbeing, I must request to no longer work with them,” would you nod along or immediately BCC HR? If the author of the memo had previously come to you to ask for accommodations relating to autism, would that change how you respond?

I’m posing these questions to slightly challenge the norms, sure, but even more so because this has happened to me again and again in my illustrious career (characterized by frequent job hopping and autistic burnout) and I’m left feeling adrift, at a loss.

Workplace accommodations are another topic and I genuinely hope that everyone is provided what they need to do their job. However, for example, more days working from home or requesting primarily written communication are not going to solve my fundamental issue which is, bluntly: I know how to communicate exceptionally well with some people and I don’t know how to communicate at all with everyone else. Call it like-mindedness, wavelength, vibe, spectrum, compatibility—this is what it feels like in my head and I’m exhausted from concealing it out of respect for norms.

The opposite experience, where I say what’s going through my head and receive positive feedback, feels like a revelation. The dam bursts and my entire personality begins gushing out. I’ll make a joke about our work (“what if we redo this in binary?” usually elicits a chuckle in my industry) and make a callback to something the other person said recently. After the conversation is over, I may return to my desk and do “extra” work related to what we discussed because I want to implicitly thank them for giving me space to be myself. I realize this paragraph is a playbook for how to get me to join a cult. But how alive I feel!

I will close in my typical, though hardly neurotypical, way. Thank you for joining this exploration of what goes on inside my head. I don’t always get the feedback I’m seeking from people or the world, but I believe in listening to people and empowering those around me. I truly hope each of you find personal and professional successes and comforts. If we can move the norms of work and socializing slightly along the way, so be it. But either way, know that none of you are alone in your experiences.