This is going to be a brief post commenting on a couple of issues.
Firstly, neurodivergent hyperfocus is a characteristic that can be problematic for neurodivergent people in the workplace (although it can also be a potential source of neurodivergent joy elsewhere when it enables greater enjoyment of special interests), as it enables what seems like a high productivity in the workplace, but that comes at the expense of extreme health and other problems outside of work - as I can attest to, based on my near half a century in the engineering world.
Because of that, many, if not most, of the articles on hyperfocus in the workplace that I have come across have - validly - focused on how to manage the potential harm to neurodivergent people.
However, there is another aspect to this:
the potential that managers can use the hyperfocus of neurodivergent people to bludgeon neurotypical workers into health harming levels of work activity (e.g., this, and maybe this)
Basically, what I have seen is managers making comments along the lines of “Well, [neurodivergent] person X can do that, and is happy to stay back for more unpaid hours than you, why can’t [inferred flawed] you?”
(El _ n M _ sk did something along these lines a few years ago ... to the relief of those at another of his companies ...)
Neither situation is acceptable.
And neurodivergent workers should, if they can, be wary of such issues - being neurodivergent and a victim of abuse does not mean you have an “out card” from stopping others being abused if you are capable of doing so.
Sometimes that just means speaking out. In the late 80s/early 90s, I was angry - and said so - when a manager used my excessive workload - because they would not hire anyone to help me - and thus inability to take rostered days off as an excuse to deny everyone RDOs.
I wasn’t successful (because of the willing sock puppet accomplices * who were indulging in anticipatory compliance to keep their elites’ stool pigeon managers happy), but I did what I could.
Good unions are a key part of the solution to such problems, and, much as liberation theology considers the a christian church has a duty to end poverty (and I note the founder of that theology recently passed away), I consider spiritual and psychic groups have an ethical duty to support such progressivism.
* Keep in mind the saying “The oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed”, by Simone de Beauvoir, writing in “The Ethics of Ambiguity”
The next issue I want to touch on is that of superficial attempts at inclusivity - tick boxing, as it is often referred to (which I have also touched on elsewhere).
I consider that this partly came out of anticipatory compliance, but also people wanting to not change - not the lack of wanting to change described as “not wanting to change”, but active resentful, resistance to and obfuscation of change.
The manager I worked for in the 80s/90s was a perfect example of that, but there are plenty of others.
This, and those who have either been duped into allowing it or have amathiacally failed to see the problem, has, in my opinion, been a major reason for the ongoing continuation of misogyny and the allowance of hate (including this reaction to trans models and the ongoing transgenocide) and extremism such as white supremacy and colonial-imperial violence (especially in West Asia) etc. to thrive (and that has partly been under the cover of superficially acceptable political activity, allowed by ethical laziness/incompetence of pollies) being now made apparent in prolonged gang rape and threats to avoiding fascism in USA.
From the current draft of a coming reflection post (and this may change before it is posted):
Societal problems have also been shown by a podcast on a con artists who created a fake “assassination market” site to hire violent criminals (see URL [Content warning!!!] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/19/the-podcast-kill-list-doesnt-reflect-badly-on-the-internet-it-reflects-badly-on-us) which showed the challenges of safely getting the potential victims to accept what had happened (and the risks - one person tried to commit the “assassination” themself), and “... is a reminder of how technology holds up a mirror to human nature ... During the early years of the web, when there was a moral panic about online pornography, I naively suggested that perhaps the prevalence of porn might be telling us something useful about human nature; after all, pornographers are not philanthropists, so there must be a market for their stuff. (Readers were not impressed by this view.) Similarly, the horrendous torrents of misogyny on social media tell us something useful about men.” As do the horrifying details of a prolonged gang rape in France which is currently being tried there.
Other examples of the harmful outcomes from superficial responses to essential deep change include, again, in my opinion: these lies, this dangerous resistance to change, this act of bigotry (which led to this belated attempt to undo the harm done by that very unchristian person), this court case in response to an attempt to hold someone accountable for their lack of judgment (which situation they got into because of their bigotry), this medical shortfall, and this gendered violence.
It is hard to try, and I have failed at trying to accomplish this in the workplace until others in society came onboard, but I consider DEI needs to acknowledge and address the need for personality change in order for DEI to be genuine, and thus effective - and broader society needs to embrace and support that ... and also implement it ...
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Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here.
(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)
Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2024 NO AI
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