How to make questions about dealing with aspergers/autism in the workplace on topic

Question

I've been wanting to post on this for some time, but don't want to post something just to have it shut down as a duplicate because it talks about disabilities and someone else has already posted about disabilities.

Autism Spectrum has some fairly unique problems specific to the workplace that other disabilities do not, because we seem relatively normal, especially on the high end, but our communication skills and behaviors can cause trouble for us. In short, we can come across as jerks when we don't intend to, and that's something that other disabilities don't have to face. You don't consider someone who is deaf to be rude for not hearing you for example.

I would like to pose a question or two asking for advice on how to deal with AS in the workplace, but would like to ensure it's on topic. What is the best way to do so?

Answer 1

I deal with aspbergers as well so please do not think that I am dismissing your needs or concerns.

SE is designed around providing answers to questions that will potentially help many people. So when asking any question it is important to make sure that your question is as broadly applicable as possible. If your question is only applicable to your specific situation at a specific point in time then it is better to ask in Chat or elsewhere. But if your situation can be generalized into one that you deal with often or even just a few times chances are that other people deal with that same general situation so your question could be helpful. But make sure when generalizing the question that you do not go so generic that the solutions provided are not useful because they miss important parts. Right now you are probably thinking boy that's a tough ask, and it is. These types of questions can work here but the vast majority of them will either be too broad or too specific. We can save some of them with edits but the more the OP can do to make it a better question in the first place the more helpful the answers are likely to be to them.

Second you have to make sure you provide a goal that you want to achieve. "This is my situation, what should I do?" How many hundreds of these have we seen in the last few months. They get closed usually and just as often as not end up with a lot of useless answers. Instead make sure you have a "This is my situation, I want to achieve X, how can I do that given these conditions" question. And make sure that X is in the scope of the workplace. This is not a Q&A about special needs and situations, it is about the workplace. Make sure that the context of the question is clearly in the scope of that.

Finally, try to stay out of comment wars. I struggle with this as well. But if an answer is not helpful just down vote it and move on. Questions that generate lots of comments get more attention in a bad way. Questions that are borderline are more likely to get closed if they are controversial than if they just get answers but no comment wars. When the OP of the question gets involved in comment wars I have noticed the questions tend to get closed quickly.

Answer 2

Just post the question(s), either we can deal with them or we can't. But there's a host of keen, intelligent and observant people here with a lot of experience in all sorts of things, I reckon someone will be able to answer you.

Just not me, because I never even heard of it before coming here except some maths wizard guy in a movie. Who I would hire like a shot and treat like he's made of gold.

Answer 3

Handling disabilities on workplace is a real matter nowadays, they're laws to enforce that they're provided an adequate environment to work and to not get discriminated. So I can't see why this won't be on-topic as long as it is related to problems that affect the workplace.

However I guess that in some specific issues you might have an hard time to get an answer, because not a lof of people on the site will know how exactly to deal with, possibly neither your manager or a RH.

Finnaly some people here could ask questions about a coworker being rude when they don't know he's in the AS either because he's didn't check it with a doctor or he won't reveal it. This is probably the hardest part about it. Probably the best answer there would be just for peoples to try to figure out if he meant to be jerk or if he's just like this "naturally", which can be a problem when this look like unprofessional. Having differents answer for two apparent similar problems, when one is caused by an (possibly not known) AS and one is not is really tricky.