to wonder if my boss has Aspergers?

[Katiep10]

I work for a smallish company - about 100 people in an open plan office. The long and short of it is that she drives people insane and has quite a complex personality and i wonder if there is more to it though.

She is late forties and has never been in a long term relationship despite talking a lot about how much she would like one. She is, however, extremely picky and is often very rude about people's appearances so I wonder if this has something to do with in in a small way. She is a bit of a joke in the office and once she engages you in conversation it is impossible to get away, sometimes she can talk (about absolutely nothing) for as long as 30 mins without drawing breath or noticing that the other person hasn't said a word. Her conversation is painfully dull (never known anything like it). She can often be very blunt and rude to people and quite frankly, leave you open-mouthed at the things she comes out with. She is quite draining to be with every day, 5 days a week because she is extremely intense, and no matter how hard i try, i just cannot ever seem to have just a normal conversation with her because she gets over excited and dominates.

I have wondered on occasion if she may suffer from undiagnosed Aspergers. Although i feel sorry for her (and I do try to stick up for her when people take the p1ss) I am finding her behavious increasingly more exhausting and i leave work with my ears absolutely ringing to the extent that i consider leaving a job i love because her behaviour annoys me so much. Does anyone have any experience of this? Ultimately i wish she knew the impact she has on people and could in some way try to temper her behaviour as i do have enormous sympathy for her because she is quite a lonely character.

another thought that just came to me.

we are all quite socially awkward when someone else does or says something that we find shocking or offensive.....so has anyone ever gently pointed out that what she said was rude, or offensive?

you dont have to be rude yourself.

I did this with the lady mentioned before...i often witnessed exchanges between her and others that didnt go well - one day she really overstepped the mark with someone who was arguing with her about something, now the someone wasnt very nice and they took the piss a lot and probably asked for it - but she retaliated defensively and hit the mark.

this brought disapproval from the rest of the group.

when we went for coffee we sat and discussed what had happened. She didnt think she had said anything out of line (she had) so i explained why it had gone wrong and why what she had said was particularly hurtful.

(i also told the person who had started it they were a knob and to leave her alone.)

sometimes people just dont realise the impact their actions or words have on others - and if no one has ever pointed it out then how do they know?

we all skirt about each other trying not to offend - sometimes people need to be told when they say something out of line, and why it had an impact.

i think because i have traits (it completely runs in my family - my nan, my brother, ,y uncle, me, and now my son....) i find it easier to broach the subject and be frank with people.

i do have an awareness of tact and diplomacy though - but im definitely on the spectrum. my supervisor at work has actually talked to me about getting assessed myself because there are certain aspects i struggle with (prioritising is one of them).

vicar while I see your point that the average person on the street might not care or make allowances for another person having AS, I think that the fact that the OP thought to raise the question here shows that she does care and it would make a difference to how she felt about her boss. Which is why I think it's a shame that at first all the replies were focusing on how offensive she was even to ask and hardly anyone tried to gently educate her.

'I think that the fact that the OP thought to raise the question here shows that she does care and it would make a difference to how she felt about her boss.'

You really think it would make a difference?
I don't, certainly not in a positive way.
pinthetailonthedonkey pinthelabelontheoddball.

Why would you start a thread about something you didn't care about? You must care about something in order to actually remember and think about it long enough to come on here and start a thread!

Yes I really do think that it would make a difference to the OP- assuming that what she has written is true.

crohnically - do you not think its more a case of finding a reason for her bosses oddities rather than promoting understanding?

i cant see how finding out that she did have AS would fundamentally change the way people feel about her.

the op felt she was rude, shocking, boring, exhausting.

would that magically disappear with a diagnosis? or the revelation of one?

it doesnt. my ds has AS. at school, college, and uni, he was open about it - it made not a jot of difference - the friends he made were the people who would have been his friend regardless.

he has now chosen to keep quite about his dx. as would i if i were to get assessed.

I did explain above. The OP would probably still think that her boss was rude, boring, etc. But hopefully it would alter her tolerance levels so if ever she was tempted to snap, she wouldn't.

I can only really go on my own experiences and feelings, and it honestly would make a difference to me. Because rather than thinking 'why is she picking on me?' when the boss says something rather blunt, I would be able to think 'I don't think she actually meant to upset me, she probably didn't realise how it sounded because of her AS'

but i dont quite understand why the OP would need to know in order to increase tolerance levels - thats my point - if she thinks that her boss doesnt mean to be blunt or upsetting cant she just accept that anyway without the need to delve into private medical information?

you can tell the difference between someone who is nasty and means to be and someone who just doesnt understand tact and diplomacy.

if someone thinks that its the latter rather than deliberate why cant they just adjust their tolerance levels anyway?

sometimes my son drives me mad.
the fact he has a DX doesnt make me feel differently - it explains it yes - but a dx doesnt magically change peoples feelings about things.

my friend from training - she always sat with me. Sometimes she would come out with things in front of the whole class that saw me cringing in my seat next to her....knowing she had AS didnt make the people who took the piss alter their perception of her, they still took the piss, mimicked her walk, it didnt matter what i said and even the trainers found her unfathomable at times. i got a positive report at the end of training for simply being her friend and helping her - how sad is that?

for me - yes, raise awareness.
if you know someone who ticks the AS boxes but hasnt done the big reveal then bear it in mind, but isnt it sad that to enable tolerance we need a label?
you can surely tell when someone is innocently clueless as to how they are perceived and someone who is deliberately rude? is that not enough to decide how tolerant to be?

Who knows what her intentions were, Crohn?
First post on MN, only one post here and she's hardly been an active participant in the thread. Not given any thoughts as to how and why her behaviour and responses would alter.
DS has found several work colleagues who have tried to use his dx as a taunt or a point of pity, but to their dismay, he is armoured against them.

This boss may be a joke to many of her underlings, but she's paying their wages.

OK, I think I see what you're getting at now.

I guess part of the issue for me is that no, I can't always tell when someone is meaning to be rude. At work, I have had several run ins with a particular colleague and I felt she was personally attacking me. On speaking to other people about it, they all said that was just her demeanour and she didn't mean anything personal by it. So now instead of thinking she's a nasty bully, I think that she's rude and avoid her as much as possible as I think she can't be bothered to make the effort to not sound rude (meaning that I'm not worth the effort). Had the other people said 'oh, she's got AS' I probably wouldn't go to the extent of avoiding her as I would be aware that it isn't a case of not making an effort, but that the effort involved would be much greater than for NT people.

I'm willing to accept that I might well be the odd one out here and other people might not think the way I do.

You don't think that rude people without a dx need help and support to change and become more aware?
OP can't feel targeted and picked on, her boss is like that with everyone apparently.

That was to vicar by the way.

mothra does your DS find that his dx actually is a part of his armour? I'm struggling to explain exactly what I mean. But if someone complains about a smell I made in the bathroom I can retort 'I have a medical condition' whereas before I was dxed with Crohn's I was just a stinky bugger.

Yes, rude people without a dx need help and support, but I think the type of support would be different. Social stories are often used with children with an ASD to help them understand reasons behind behaviours and social conventions. If someone doesn't have a dx then they probably understand the reasons why and just don't care enough to follow the convention.

And it is possible to feel picked on by someone who treats everyone the same because you tend to think in terms of them being ageist or sexist or looking down on anyone who is beneath them in the company.

DS got his dx at 8, and before that he was seen as aggressive and dangerous and possibly possessed by one of the minor Lords of Hell.
It wasn't an excuse, it was a key.
Knowing that he had AS enabled him to unpick the triggers and the stresses, and to develop strategies to deal with them before a situation went critical. It's part of his armour because if something is wrong and it's mainly due to the AS, he usually stays calm whilst he explains. If he can do something others find tricky or odd, he explains. If they can't handle it, he doesn't feel like a victim. It's also him who coined the word 'Mundanes' for those who don't get what AS is.
But he's also a 19 YO male who cocks up for other reasons, and like vic's son, that can be a challenge for him and everyone else too.
With the walking on tiptoes, which he doesn't do. If he did, he's answer them with an Aspie reference and then ignore them if they kept poking.
Although few do taunt and tease now once warned, because he looks scary.

So you accept that for your DS, his dx was a turning point in how he felt about himself? So why is it so unbelievable that a dx might (that's might not will) affect how others feel about you? You say that 'if they can't handle it, he doesn't feel like a victim' that's what I'm trying to say about how someone else's diagnosis would affect me. Your DS's dx gave him the tools he needed to improve. Likewise, if I was in the OP's situations, knowing about a diagnosis would give me the tools to be able to deal with the person without being upset by them.

Because I'm really struggling with how to express myself, I'm going to give one last example that will hopefully show you what I mean.

Imagine a child has a tantrum.

Some children have tantrums because they are a natural and normal part of growing up.
Some children have tantrums because they have learned that tantrumming gets them what they want.
Some children have what would outwardly appear to a casual observer to be a tantrum but are actually a meltdown, because of an SN.

It's easy to say that the tantrumming child needs help and support or that the tantrum needs to be dealt with, but if you don't know the reason behind the tantrum, it can be very hard to know what to do and you could potentially make things worse. If it's a 'normal' tantrum, distraction often works. If it's a 'spoiled' tantrum, then not giving in or even disciplining the child is appropriate. If it's a meltdown, there's a good chance that either of those 2 options would overwhelm the child further.

Ad that is why it makes a difference to me whether or not AS is a potential explanation or not.

He got his dx as a child in school, facing a lot of negativity from teachers, parents and the world in general. We have worked together to help him understand and change and analyse what he found incomprehensible.
This woman is a successful businesswoman in her late forties. Who is going to talk and explain and help her understand the impact she has on others?
Does she even want the help?
Why doesn't the OP assume she has Asperger's and change her behaviour accordingly? See if it makes a difference. Even if she doesn't have the satisfaction of being able to say 'AHA! I knew it all along'

I suspect people are upset about this thread because of the tone, not the subject matter. It's so unrelentingly negative about this woman, while hypothesising that these negative traits may be down to a condition that many people here have experience of.

I think responses would have been different if the OP had been positive about her boss, while highlighting a couple of specific issues which she found it difficult to deal with, and asking for advice, while flagging up her awareness that this could be something to do with a specific condition.

But the post is basically "I can't stand this woman. I wonder if she has aspergers because she's so annoying." There's no point to it. It just offends people for the sake of a bit of general musing and speculation.

I think the issue for me is that you are talking about an experienced adult woman who is the boss of a business. Rather than a child.

Isn't that basically what the OP was asking? Not in a sense of wanting the satisfaction 'aha I was right' but in the sense of wanting to be able to do something.

if the woman wanted help she could seek it for herself. Self help groups, counselling, Internet forums, friends and family could all help her understand the impact she has on others.

Crohnically I've been popping in and checking the thread periodically and because you've articulated and argued the OP's post well, I felt I didn't need to.

For goodness sake, OP, never ever describe someone with SN in such a way. Absolutely everyone with SN is marvellous, fantastic and brilliant, never annoying, boring or insensitive. You need to learn the MN rules before posting