<story><title>‘They Get Fired All the Time. And They Have No Idea Why’</title><url>https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1gq9tqwk8z108/They-Get-Fired-All-the-Time-And-They-Have-No-Idea-Why</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mlyle</author><text>&amp;gt; Everyone feels uncomfortable when a conversation goes off-script, but we as a society expect the &amp;#x27;abnormal&amp;#x27; people to be the ones who bear the consequences of that discomfort whenever it arises.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a little more going on in the example, I think.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a common social technique among adults with authority to frame requests as a question-- &amp;quot;Could you please....?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Would you like to....?&amp;quot;.  This is gentler and shows a degree of deference and courtesy from the person with authority to the other person.&lt;p&gt;A blunt &amp;quot;no&amp;quot; effectively comes across as a rejection of that olive branch-- I think that&amp;#x27;s where the initial internal panic comes from.  If you don&amp;#x27;t understand the employee&amp;#x27;s autism-- even after working out the problem in this case is a prioritization issue-- it creates a bit of an ongoing question about the employee and their willingness to be a cooperative member of the team.</text></item><item><author>leggomylibro</author><text>&amp;gt;One day the young man’s manager called her in a panic. The manager had asked him if he would like to complete a task that needed doing, and the young man simply said, “No.”&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Later, when asked why, the young man said he’d been working on another project on a deadline and didn’t think he should take on extra work. Scheiner explained to the manager that he needed to be more specific and directly tell the employee that he wanted him to set aside what he was currently working on and start on the new task.&lt;p&gt;I gotta say, I&amp;#x27;m surprised that this needed to be explained to the manager. If someone asks a worker whether they want to do something and the worker say &amp;quot;no&amp;quot;, the manager&amp;#x27;s instinct is to panic and escalate before trying to clarify anything?&lt;p&gt;I guess it&amp;#x27;s a good example for the article - it&amp;#x27;s easy to empathize with the person whose manager got confused, and easy to understand how dealing with those kinds of situations on a daily basis ends in the workers quitting or getting fired.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Everyone&lt;/i&gt; feels uncomfortable when a conversation goes off-script, but we as a society expect the &amp;#x27;abnormal&amp;#x27; people to be the ones who bear the consequences of that discomfort whenever it arises. It doesn&amp;#x27;t seem fair, especially since the &amp;#x27;abnormal&amp;#x27; people are expected to bear their discomfort in silence, but that&amp;#x27;s life for you.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nilkn</author><text>As a manager, &amp;quot;could you please...&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;would you like to...&amp;quot; seem like quite different questions to me. The former fits in with your description; it&amp;#x27;s a direct request wrapped in deferential language. The second, though, seems to be soliciting the employee&amp;#x27;s thoughts on a task rather than immediately enlisting them in doing it.</text></comment>
<story><title>‘They Get Fired All the Time. And They Have No Idea Why’</title><url>https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1gq9tqwk8z108/They-Get-Fired-All-the-Time-And-They-Have-No-Idea-Why</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mlyle</author><text>&amp;gt; Everyone feels uncomfortable when a conversation goes off-script, but we as a society expect the &amp;#x27;abnormal&amp;#x27; people to be the ones who bear the consequences of that discomfort whenever it arises.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a little more going on in the example, I think.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a common social technique among adults with authority to frame requests as a question-- &amp;quot;Could you please....?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Would you like to....?&amp;quot;.  This is gentler and shows a degree of deference and courtesy from the person with authority to the other person.&lt;p&gt;A blunt &amp;quot;no&amp;quot; effectively comes across as a rejection of that olive branch-- I think that&amp;#x27;s where the initial internal panic comes from.  If you don&amp;#x27;t understand the employee&amp;#x27;s autism-- even after working out the problem in this case is a prioritization issue-- it creates a bit of an ongoing question about the employee and their willingness to be a cooperative member of the team.</text></item><item><author>leggomylibro</author><text>&amp;gt;One day the young man’s manager called her in a panic. The manager had asked him if he would like to complete a task that needed doing, and the young man simply said, “No.”&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Later, when asked why, the young man said he’d been working on another project on a deadline and didn’t think he should take on extra work. Scheiner explained to the manager that he needed to be more specific and directly tell the employee that he wanted him to set aside what he was currently working on and start on the new task.&lt;p&gt;I gotta say, I&amp;#x27;m surprised that this needed to be explained to the manager. If someone asks a worker whether they want to do something and the worker say &amp;quot;no&amp;quot;, the manager&amp;#x27;s instinct is to panic and escalate before trying to clarify anything?&lt;p&gt;I guess it&amp;#x27;s a good example for the article - it&amp;#x27;s easy to empathize with the person whose manager got confused, and easy to understand how dealing with those kinds of situations on a daily basis ends in the workers quitting or getting fired.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Everyone&lt;/i&gt; feels uncomfortable when a conversation goes off-script, but we as a society expect the &amp;#x27;abnormal&amp;#x27; people to be the ones who bear the consequences of that discomfort whenever it arises. It doesn&amp;#x27;t seem fair, especially since the &amp;#x27;abnormal&amp;#x27; people are expected to bear their discomfort in silence, but that&amp;#x27;s life for you.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bcrosby95</author><text>To me, &amp;quot;would you like to&amp;quot; is different than &amp;quot;would you&amp;quot;.  I would like to get paid to spend 24&amp;#x2F;7 on vacation, not do another work task, but if you&amp;#x27;re asking me if I would do something you need done, that&amp;#x27;s different.</text></comment>