AuDN4T

Conversations

I reflect back on having conversations with people. I think back to when my uncle (technically my cousin, but in Ukrainian culture, he would be considered my uncle) driving me to a Ukrainian event I was performing at with my Ukrainian Dance Ensemble.

During the car ride, it felt like he was pulling teeth. I struggled with having a conversation with him. Not that I wasn’t interested in having a convo with him, I just didn’t know how to have a convo with him? I struggled with topics to bring up or ask questions. Today – I think the conversation would go better? He’s a very smart person and I guess that is a bit intimidating? Likewise with my godmother – she wasn’t around during my childhood – she travelled, taught English in South Korea… Gen X-ers had a hard time with finding jobs and that was kind of the case for her. Though, I am grateful for having her around now and we can have convos about anything.

Reflecting back on having conversations with others – the flow varies on the person. Some will make it easy to talk with. I don’t know if it’s the expectation of having a neurodivergent convo where you say a fact and the other person shares their experience. Like this pinging vibe of back and forth… I never found it offensive to relate on a similar topic or provide a different perspective… though with one friend it felt like he was a challenge? or one-upping? Oddly remembered those MSN convos. I mean I get sharing topics but it felt like his side had to be better in those convos? lol, a bit of a turnoff because why would one topic be better than the other?

I still have to remind myself to ask questions in a convo so that it doesn’t sound self-centred. It’s like I’ve had to train myself this but there are times where I forget.

I look back at my female leaders and they taught me about building report with colleagues… as if I unknowingly was unaware that I didn’t do this?

Though I have sensed hierarchies and hated when departments would group together and not mingle with others.

It’s a weird mix of various conversation styles. Being brought up with adults (aunts and uncles), I was used to conversing with adults because that’s who I was surrounded with. Cousins came later. The ones in Poland were too far to hang out. Immediate cousins were 7+ years younger. I had one cousin who was my age but we didn’t spend a ton of time like I did with my immediate first cousin.

There was a moment when clinginess or something irritated me and I needed to take a break from the cousins. Some were loud with their shrieks. Some poured sand from a wedding decorative martini giveaway and decided to play in the sand on my bedroom carpet LOL.

There have been moments where I wanted to just bow out of family functions because they could get intense and loud. Don’t get me wrong – I love my family. My aunts, uncles and cousins are great people. But sometimes it can get overwhelming. Funny enough, as a kid I’d ask if we could go over for tea – kind of a very Ukrainian thing to do – invite people over for tea or coffee. Perks of an only child before my aunts and uncles started having kids? Was I part of the adults?

I think about friends and convos with them – I feel like they’ve embraced my weirdness or me being me.

Though, what I’ve noticed is I always followed-up with a text message after hanging out with friends thanking them for the hang out. During the goodbyes following the hangout I feel like I forget to say thanks for the hangout or just can’t find the right words? Not sure if this is a neurodivergence thing that others do? or Neurotypicals also do? AI says it’s the why behind the text message. Curious how many people actually do send out a thanks text message after a hangout. We should do a survey on this.

I understand every autistic person will have varying experiences based on their traits. So I don’t want others to think I am exactly what an autistic person should look or act like. Everyone is different. Everyone has different preferences and traits.

Still blows my mind that this is something that I didn’t catch earlier… and it really has opened up my mind on neurodivergence and autism. I think we have such a far way to go on education. If my knowledge on this topic was so skewed.

Universe Tests

There have been moments where I felt like the universe or the workplace was testing me. When I attended camp for the first time… I had a hard time being away from home. I would call home often; sometimes no one picked up and I thought my parents died or something. Or died on the 401. When they came to pick me up, I thought they were robots that the government sent over. The entire drive from London to Toronto on the 401, I was giving the side eye to my parents.

In the workplace – for some odd reason, i felt like the projects I did were way too easy and they were a test of sorts by my employer to see if I could do them properly. Like they were a trick question – a trick project? It honestly makes no sense when I write this; but that was the thought. Maybe my brain was already screaming to me that this is too easy. I need a challenge or a change. The ironic thing is changes in the workplace were hard.

Changing organizations is difficult. Learning the workplace, the different departments, the people. It was in a sense refreshing getting changing over the second org. I think my leader did a good job getting me onboarded; what my scope of work was.

The third workplace needed a more structured onboarding process. Could have been an issue with transitioning leadership, clearer instructions on completing training (I had to do my online theoretical training before getting into the instructor led online training… but this wasn’t streamlined so I got to the first day confused as to what the instructors were talking about and scrambled to complete the theoretical training that night. It was not pleasant… though it was a more extensive orientation I’ve ever been through). It wasn’t great feeling like I failed but really the org failed me in that instance. Navigating through fuse is complicated; no one tells you what training you need to complete. Others travel for the hands-on training and we never did because it was the cusp of COVID shut downs.

I think navigating through 700 people… or ~4,000 people with 6 different departments you support plus different stakeholders that would require collaboration. It was a lot. Add in global personnel and departments and you’re struggling to find the right person to problem solve an issue. It can be intense.