Working with someone who’s so socially awkward they come across rude.

[peptual]

I work with a guy, he’s about 30 and very good at his job, very focused. But he comes across rude. He seems to struggle to call people by their names, it’s like it’s too personal for him. And he doesn’t ever ask questions about what someone did on their day off. He’s lacking the standard adult interactions you should have around your working day.
Is it appropriate to say something? I understand some people are painful shy but as an older person I except a bit more personal skills and think mentioning might help him out.

Are you Dutch ??

She didn't declare every single one of her colleagues to be neurotypical. She may have inferred that the chatty ones are neurotypical, which isn't an unreasonable inference.

Crikey.

Not wanting to make friends with work colleagues in case you might compete against them for a job is a rather extreme take on office life. I have never come across anyone who thinks this way.

I loved Patience @Auroragirl

How is it rude not to use people’s names? If you are in a conversation with them, you both know who you are. I actually find that if people use my name unnecessarily, it makes me uncomfortable like they are trying to sell me something.
But be aware that if they are socially awkward, they will already be aware of that and you bringing it up won’t help at all. On the contrary, it will them feel more uncomfortable.
The best thing you can do is be friendly, but keep it professional. You don’t need to talk about the weekend or your personal life.

It is unreasonable to infer that just because someone is chatty they are neurotypical. Some of the most talkative people I know are ND.

LOL.

It’s a massively unreasonable inference. I’ve met many autistic people who never shut the fuck up. And neurotypical people are not intrinsically talkative or sociable. A large chunk of the neurotypical population consists of shy, awkward introverts.

Also ‘NT’ doesn’t mean ‘people who aren’t autistic’ anyway. It means ‘people who don’t have any neurodivergent condition’. Even if it were reasonable to assume a chatty person wasn’t autistic (which it isn’t) it would certainly not be reasonable to assume they were neurotypical.

I’m not autistic (and neither do I have ADHD before anyone makes that assumption). But I’m also not neurotypical.

In any case, it’s utterly insane that half the people on this thread have just decided the OP’s colleague is autistic on the basis that he doesn’t use people’s names much and doesn’t ask what they do on their days off.

I’m late to the thread but I’d love to work with this guy. Get on with our actual jobs instead of the incessant chat about what you did at the weekend, what you’re having for tea, all while doing a mediocre job at best.

I have far too much to do to chat all day. I am sociable but too busy to chat all day, and am known to be one of the quiet ones.

I think it depends a bit on their role. We have a young woman at work like this - avoidance of eye contact is super awkward and in fact she turns her whole body away when you are speaking to her. Very limited social interaction but more importantly she also seems to not interact super well over her job - i.e. if we give her a task she will not ask any questions about what she does not understand and you get something back with gaps or where she has missed the brief because interacting is just not her thing.

She is definitely on the spectrum. She has started to open up to us and has advised that she has ADHD (but it is more than that - speaking as a mother of a son with ADHD and also one with HFA). This - i.e. that she has opened up a little - TBH is probably her saving grace. While clearly there is no obligation to disclose this, it has meant we can make some suggestions on how to cope, have connected her with our D&I person who is looking to help. She is client facing and she simply will have no future in our industry if she cannot overcome this and, as a minimum, not make clients feel awkward and uncomfortable. It if was purely internal we would probably be able to manage - but we won't risk client relationships.

We did not say something to her - she opened up to us after about 3/4 months. I had flagged to her line manager (I am her LM's LM) that I thought she was ND and he agreed (he is too) and we were thinking about how to tackle it when she approached him. We gave a lot of feedback in her mid-probation review about our expectations of her in terms of working with the team, building networks etc and were about to approach the D&I officer ourselves had she not opened up. But as I say - for us this was not about social chit chat in the office but a fundamental concern about her being able to do her job and passing probation.

Statistically, most people in any office will be NT. HTH.

Why does he need to ask what his colleagues did in their days off? He doesn't want to know.

Just leave him alone to get on with his job.

Oh please tell me which country? I've found my people.

Is his work to standard?
is he polite in meetings/work calls/ to customers, does he get information across adequately?

is chit chat in his job description? If not you can’t really enforce it and it’s arrogant to assume your ability to ask people how their day off was somehow makes you superior

I think that you might have a different idea of what constitutes "friendship" from me. I don't socialise well. Pubs are noisy hellscapes and I don't like meals out. A lot of people seem to enjoy that kind of social interaction and consider their regular dining or drinking companions to be friends.

My idea of friendship is someone I have reciprocal loyalty to, not someone I spend time with. I don't establish reciprocal loyalty with someone I might have to fight for a job, because that fight is incompatible with reciprocal loyalty.

He’s minding his own business maybe you should do.

it’s arrogant to assume your ability to ask people how their day off was somehow makes you superior

Why can't I hit the love button more than once?

I have a new ND staff member. All I ask is that they say hello if someone says hello to them. I have made it clear there is no expectation to have a conversation if they are not comfortable. They are excelling at their job and as they get more comfortable they talk more to colleagues. I would never tell them they need to have conversations with people if they are not comfortable doing so.

In my team there is no fighting for jobs. We are all older (none of us will see 50 again), and looking towards retirement. We are comfortable with who and where we are in life, and there are no big egos. I have become friends with my workmates because we actually do have a lot of mutual interests and I have known them for a long time. It sounds like your workplace is very different to mine.

I hate noisy environments as well, but I do like eating out 😁
In fact, 6 of us went to quiet pub for tea after work earlier this week.

True, but in a large enough office there will also statistically be a number of people who are ND - roughly 1 in 10 of the population have dyslexia, before you start on any of the other ND conditions. So it isn’t reasonable to assume that everyone “chatty” is NT.

Poland. We’re all grumpy, resting bitch faced but nice and genuine people. Small talk is painful.

Brilliant. Indeed, OP - I think you are the one who needs 'helping out' in this situation.

I did a Polish language course once and they taught us all the replies to "how are you". There was a little dialogue in our coursebook that went, Hello, how are you, I'm terrible, how are you, I'm fine.

And we all said surely you wouldn't just go on and say, I'm fine after the other person said, I'm terrible? (We were in America at the time and they were shocked. And the lovely Polish lady who was our teacher said oh you absolutely would!

Absolutely. 😂

Ha ha! My in law relatives are Polish and we visit them over there regularly. It makes me laugh that Polish people working in shops or any other service situation are very abrupt and resting bitch faced, but in their own homes they're warm and funny and hospitable!

Why does he need to use names? I agree, using names often feels invasive and overly personal. I wish people used them more sparingly.

why does he need to ask people about their lives? Is this in any way relevant to the work? Does it interfere with his ability to complete his tasks?

You are engaging in neurotypical bias. Your preferred method of communication is not inherently superior.