Lord loves a working man.
Here’s a genetic link between The Boy and me: we aren’t made for working. We’re more built for lookin’ at. Leisure class, strictly. Cloud-white linen suits, silk cravats like Salome’s veils, the pair of us winding along a Riviera two-lane in a topless Ferrari, down to a dock and a shining ketch bobbing in the glittering wash. I teach him to say “Ciao” — I say it with an Austrian accent, so he pays attention.
Me, I’ve worked in call centers and bars, a law school, a kitchen and an endless warehouse of leather; I’ve taught Spanish alongside summer lakes and covered burlesque for a Southern newspaper. The Boy has stuffed envelopes and earned paychecks barely worth the stamps that delivered them. He’s carried a tray or two at a cafeteria and, like me, claimed a stranger’s uneaten morsel without shame. We contribute, but our loves are elsewhere: I could read in repose on a warm day; he could throw rocks into a lake, fill a warehouse with heaved stones. We both could live on the beach, my reverie broken only by the bobbing dot of his head aiming at the horizon, my book laid aside so I can haul his grinning flotsam back onto the beach and leave him there, grinning jetsam. We can both rock a nap.
We’re a different breed, he and I. A classic model. Look, we’ll work, sure. We’ll contribute to society. If we have to. But maybe some people do more good enriching the lives of those people toiling around them, bringing much-needed charm, humor, and joie de vivre into the long lightless hours of the shift.
So we appreciate those who make a space for our unique talents. And we appreciate Danish IT consultant Thorkil Sonne’s new business model. Sonne’s son is autistic, and so it was that he was inspired to focus on hiring autistic people, Asperger’s and otherwise, as software specialists for his company Specialisterne, turning their exceptional mental acuity toward troubleshooting software issues for the likes of Microsoft and Cisco. “As a general view, they have excellent memory and strong attention to detail. They are persistent and good at following structures and routines,” he says.
His focus on the unique, beyond-normal skills of these people represents more than just clever human resourcing; Sonne is one of the first to recognize autism as something other than a handicap. They may well be a whole new flavor of humanity, people whose particular talents can catch the wind rather than drag us all down. Yes, the Good Ship Neurodiversity has raised its sails, and The Boy and I invite you to join us on our beach towel; we’ve loosened our cravats, and we have a great view of the movement on the water, the wake and the waves.
Oct 16th, 2:09am
