Comment by 542354234235

On the other hand, I look at it in a more “a rising tide raises all boats” situation. Learning how to accommodate people who fall outside the norm not only helps them, but helps everyone, much like the famous sidewalk “curb cuts” for wheelchairs ended up helping everyone with luggage, strollers, bikes, etc.

We as a society have a lot of proxies for evaluating real world value. Testing is a proxy for school knowledge. Interviews are a proxy for job performance. Trying to understand and decouple actual value from the specific proxies we default to can unlock additional value. You said yourself that you do have strengths, so if there are ways society can maximize those and minimize proxies you aren’t strong in, that is a win win.

Your coworker sounds like they have an issue with laziness and entitlement more than an issue with neurodivergence. Anyone can be lazy and entitled. Even if someone has a weakness with quick turn production but excels in more complex or abstract long-term projects could be a value added for a company. Shifting workloads so that employees do more tasks they are suited towards, rather than a more ridged system, could end up helping all employees maximize productivity by reducing cognitive load they were wasting on tasks they were not as suited for, but did just because that was the way it was always done and they never struggled enough for it to become an actual “issue”.