Tech Job Interviews Are Basically Hazing
I recently read one of the most profound Reddit comments I have ever read, in response to someone suggesting the thread poster go into tech. They said tech job interviews are basically hazing. I wish someone would have told me this 20 years ago, it could have saved me a lot of heartbreak. Unlike hazing at Army boot camp which is designed to tear you down temporarily for them to build you up in their own way, job interview hazing is just them taking advantage of you because of the great power asymmetry that exists in the whole ordeal.
I have a visual impairment physical disability which means I can’t see very well at certain distances and have very thick glasses like Milton from Office Space. People have brought up my visual impairment and told me I couldn’t do the work because of it. I even had a local recruiter tell me I had to make people comfortable with my physical disability because the presence of it caused the room unease. Even disclosing my disability has not made things better, one person after I disclosed my disability just assumed I couldn’t see. They didn’t write back.
I get it that society is becoming increasingly harsh and hurtful and people far from privilege are the ones who bear the brunt of it. But a lot of what keeps people far from privilege down is failing at the critical junctures such as job interviews which determine whether or not they get to develop to their full potential and contribute to society.
Brain Power
I’m starting to see why some people can be Christian while others can’t. I think a lot of it comes down to brain power. Brain power is something separate from intelligence, brain power is more about how you can organize your mind to get what you want out of it, intelligence is just how fast and expansive it works.
I search old emails a lot and I remember my aunt who is a Christian therapist telling me in 2005 to play cognitive tricks where basically in the circumstances that weren’t totally bad I marked the things that weren’t total crap as God working. Something similar is going on in that popular praise and worship song “Waymaker” where they tell you to put your brain in sleep mode and pretend God is working even when you can’t see it or feel it. My problem with playing mental gymnastics is I am aware I’m playing them as I’m playing them so like a magic trick that I’m aware of the slight of hand going on so I don’t get the desired effect.
People with a lot of brain power can tell their brains to do whatever they want and their brains obloge. It’s almost like they have really good software controlling their microprocessor. For example an iPhone will shut down their processor’s high powered cores to save battery life. For a person this might mean checking their brain at the door when they walk into a church. The ability to believe in the supernatural at one moment and then be perfectly sane at another is more of an accomplishment than you think. I could only believe in magic when I’m psychotic or close to psychotic.
I think brain power is important in all kinds of other areas but religion is just the one I think about the most. When you don’t have much in this life you think about religion more because it’s shoved down your throat and you don’t have anything else going on.
Sad Fact About Mental Illness
It’s just a sad fact about any mental illness that involves psychosis that in a majority of the time treatment must be forced upon the sufferer. In 2004 when I was psychotic in the mental hospital for ten days my parents forced treatment upon me and then made me live at home. The following year I started going psychotic (this time living at home) and again my parents took me to a psychiatrist and they gave me antipsychotics that brought me back down.
If I had been totally on my own and nobody forced treatment upon me I would probably be on the streets, in jail, or dead by now. I think modern psychology is disingenuous about autonomy in situations like this. People need to be forced to get treatment and stay on their medication when they get hospitalized.
Reviewed Books
Below is a list of autism books reviewed by Sarah from The Realistic Autistic
https://bookshop.org/wishlists/b56125663808587297e04ec30fa73fe90ec2418e
some angry poetry
God doesn’t “elect” most of us on the spectrum
because he hates us just as much as everybody else does
who’s more powerful than God?
the people who own him!
when people say looks can kill
what they really mean is that bad looks can
because looking bad is often a sure ticket to loneliness
and loneliness is as bad for you as smoking
being accepted by Christians
involves reverse gaslighting
getting them to think you are extra sane
ever-ee time i contemplate suicide
a CHURH IS THINKING OF MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
my brain is a microcosm
of a world without God
the heart is like a pinata
it makes itself beautiful
with the unconscious aim
of being broken open
to most people you are a baseball card
they are looking for your stats on the back
or filling them in with their mind
given what they see on the front
i believe suffering is good
it’s good for making you go on the government dole
it’s good for making everyone but helping professionals
stop talking to you
it’s good for others who now have more access to life gems
you were competing for (good jobs, mates)
it’s good for stealing meaning from your life
because the good things in your life like dignified work and relationships
were the things that gave meaning, and are the very things suffering takes away
it’s good for making all your conversations consist of emotional baggage
so nobody wants to talk to you
it’s good for alienating you because you no longer have common experience
so you have nothing positive to say
it’s good for making you invisible (at best)
because you often have something visibly wrong with you
that makes others feel uncomfortable
no justice
no peace
no goodness
no hope
Ask vs. Guess Culture
I don’t have the ability to read minds. If you want me to do or not do something you need to tell me. What complicates things in this regard is some people are hurt by bluntness while others are helped. My best friends tend to be blunt.
Sarah did a good write up on Ask vs. Guess Culture on here blog.
Not In Touch With My Emotions
Proponents of modern psychology are remiss as to why I’m not in touch with my emotions. There are several reasons:
I’m bipolar 1 and the illness itself as well as the medication stunts emotion. Before I was bipolar I didn’t have as much of a flat affect, I felt things more and was more expressive. People connected with me better because of it.
I had some scares around losing my vision when I was in college. For a while I was in fear of losing my vision. This eventually caused me to start repressing my fear which impaired emotional function.
Starting at around age 31 I got tinnitus. My tinnitus is not near as bad as some people but (as you can imagine) someone likely on the autistic spectrum who was born blind I am super sensitive to sound. To deal with this new stream of unwanted input I became more emotionally numb.
The parade of people (of both genders) cutting me off and ghosting me hasn’t helped either. Most people deal with this but when you have a disability with relationships you have to take what you get because most people won’t touch you with a ten foot pole. A lot of these people are pretty damaged too so it makes for a lot of bad relationship things.
Ask and Tell
Modern society has made it that much more confusing to navigate with the fact that some asks are really tells. In the olden days there were more tells, in traditional culture there were right and wrong things, for example the Ten Commandments. Nowadays modern psychology runs pretty much everything and people don’t like to be told things outright so they frame their tells as asks. For example I had a job coach who really wanted me to go somewhere and get some IT training. She didn’t tell me this, she just asked about it. But later on I realized when she brought it up again that that was what she really wanted me to do.
This can also be seen in self care. The party line is that exercise, yoga, meditation, eating vegetables, and chores are good for self care. While this might be for some people I think this is a situation where people are being prescriptive but somewhat disingenuous about it. For me exercise doesn’t help at all unless it is done with people who I have a positive relationship with. Meditation doesn’t work for me, stemming (muttering, yelling and even cursing, rocking back and forth) helps me. I like to drink sweet things (mostly diet pop) and watch trashy TV like Married with Children. None of these are approved ways to deal with things but when suspect an ask is really a tell you’ll just be inundated with blow back.
The whole enterprise of therapy is a tell framed as an ask. That’s why I’ve had three women cut me off telling me to “go get help”. They wanted someone to change me because they obviously found a flaw in me they couldn’t change themselves.
Adult Life
My friend’s brother had one of the best analogies for adult life I ever heard. You had to get across a large room in pitch black darkness. However furniture was strewn around said room.
Show Values
Show values permeate our existence to such a degree that it’s easy to start believing they are actually true. Obama comes to mind, persisting to believe in the better angels of our nature even after being given evidence otherwise over and over again. The other side of show values is if you straight up say you don’t believe in one (like the idea that man is basically good) you get shot down really good.
As an individual with a disability I live at the intersection of show and actual values. Show values say you get the job your merit affords, actual values say you get the job your physical appearance affords. If I had known the only job I could get was a janitor job then why was so much time, treasure, and hope invested in educating me.
My latest issue involves something I’ve brought up multiple times on this blog. Show values say that a person with a disability will be tolerated by all but the most ignorant of us. Actual values say that for a person with a physical disability every one of their interactions with the abled world is an incursion that must be apologized for. Granted believing this about people is unflattering which is why the show value of tolerance is pointed to. My problem is because I have impaired social skills I need guidance on how to diffuse the “bomb” of my visible physical disability’s presence in a manner that will appease the room.