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Aging Autistic Programmer

J

johnsmith1981

New Member
Hello, Everyone,

I'm a new member. I work as a software engineer. I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism as a child.

Recently I've been having some hard experiences at work around having to deal with waaayyy too much socializing for the career I chose and I decided that it might be a good idea to get in touch with other adults on the spectrum in professional fields and share knowledge.
 
Welcome to the forum.

I'm also an aging programmer, though only recently diagnosed. It was actually me noticing how poorly I was dealing with stress and change at work that led to me being diagnosed.

Programming used to be where they give you a job, leave you alone, and you tell them when you're done. Now, it's agile, and sprints, and daily updates, and it feels like stress all the time.
 
Nervous Rex said:
Welcome to the forum.

I'm also an aging programmer, though only recently diagnosed. It was actually me noticing how poorly I was dealing with stress and change at work that led to me being diagnosed.

Programming used to be where they give you a job, leave you alone, and you tell them when you're done. Now, it's agile, and sprints, and daily updates, and it feels like stress all the time.
Click to expand...

Yes, this has been my experience as well. My mission has been to try to change with this but I also feel like there are a few things that the agile comunity could learn from us introverted autistic people.
 
Hi John

welcome to af.webp
 
Welcome, John!

Me too have similar problem. When i go to the office & see colleagues, they 'invite' me to do more menial tasks, and they use most of the discussion time to talk about unimportant things unrelated to the work..

They got more energy, while my energy and time are reduced.

Sometimes i wonder that maybe it'll be more productive if we dont go to the office:D

How do you cope??
 
Welcome!

I am a programmer as well, but I work from home. I know it's probably difficult to find something like that, as I was pretty lucky, but maybe you could get lucky too and find something else that requires minimum social interactions.
 
BlueSky Aozora said:
Welcome, John!

Me too have similar problem. When i go to the office & see colleagues, they 'invite' me to do more menial tasks, and they use most of the discussion time to talk about unimportant things unrelated to the work..

They got more energy, while my energy and time are reduced.

Sometimes i wonder that maybe it'll be more productive if we dont go to the office:D

How do you cope??
Click to expand...

Definitely! I tried working at the office for the company I work for, but I ended up getting less work done. I think they realized this and are fine with me working from home 100% of the time. Not all businesses are like that though
 
Nervous Rex said:
Programming used to be where they give you a job, leave you alone, and you tell them when you're done. Now, it's agile, and sprints, and daily updates, and it feels like stress all the time.
Click to expand...
Ugh..... yeah.

I am genuinely very sure at this point that I cannot handle working in an industry where best practices and work methodologies and tools and priorities change this quickly. You know, not over years, but months, weeks even.

Also, I absolutely loathe daily standup. It's almost the worst part of the day. It's a little bit better after fighting for several months to have it in a meeting room instead of in the middle of the floor, but I know no one else on the team likes that themselves, they are just tired of seeing me not be able to speak when I'm expected to.

I need to find a way out, but I don't know how to go about it yet.

Welcome, you are not alone.
 
hiraeth said:
Ugh..... yeah.

I am genuinely very sure at this point that I cannot handle working in an industry where best practices and work methodologies and tools and priorities change this quickly. You know, not over years, but months, weeks even.

Also, I absolutely loathe daily standup. It's almost the worst part of the day. It's a little bit better after fighting for several months to have it in a meeting room instead of in the middle of the floor, but I know no one else on the team likes that themselves, they are just tired of seeing me not be able to speak when I'm expected to.

I need to find a way out, but I don't know how to go about it yet.

Welcome, you are not alone.
Click to expand...

I don't know what the daily standup thing is but that sounds terrifying! It helps so much to work for only a small business and the people you work with understand your struggle and will leave you be when you need it.
 
BlueSky Aozora said:
Welcome, John!

Me too have similar problem. When i go to the office & see colleagues, they 'invite' me to do more menial tasks, and they use most of the discussion time to talk about unimportant things unrelated to the work..

They got more energy, while my energy and time are reduced.

Sometimes i wonder that maybe it'll be more productive if we dont go to the office:D

How do you cope??
Click to expand...

I've been trying to carve out slices of individual work time for ensuring I am familiar enough with the codebase.

I'm lucky to have a nice long commute to work too where I can be alone. I tend to value alone time quite a lot.
 
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