This is an excerpt from my Completely Free Mini-Course: How ASD Can Get You Paid. It will be easily accessible from the Resources & Guides page with no signup, email capture or upsells.
This is not the beginner’s handbook they give you at HR orientation. This is the underground playbook. The one they would never approve for distribution. Because if every autistic person knew how to weaponise their differences instead of being shamed for them, the balance of power would shift overnight.
These are lessons I learned from years in office-based top tech firms, usually Sales roles.
Workplaces are not neutral. They are machines designed to reward the people who look and sound “normal” while draining everyone else. Most people quietly play along. You are not “most people.” You are a precision instrument, and your survival depends on rewiring the system to run on your terms.
The Communication Code
Clarity is not a request. It is your oxygen supply. Without it, you drown in other people’s vague half-remembered sentences and contradictory instructions. You cannot afford that.
Here’s the code:
- Make them put it in writing. If they give verbal instructions, smile, nod, then send them a follow-up email “just to confirm.” This locks their words in stone. No one can move the goalposts later.
- Speak in frameworks. When you deliver updates, give them in ordered lists or steps. This forces other people’s brains into your clarity zone. They will mistake it for “leadership” and trust you more.
- Demand precision in feedback. Vague praise is worthless. Targeted praise is currency. “This report was easy to follow” is something you can replicate and trade on.
- Label urgency like you are writing a classified dispatch: “Immediate,” “This week,” “Long-term.” It prevents chaos and makes you look like the calm center of the storm.
Neutralise Sensory Sabotage Early
Most offices are designed like torture chambers for anyone with heightened senses. The flicker of fluorescent lights, the cold blast of an air vent, the endless hum of meaningless chatter. None of this is accidental. These environments are made for people who can tune out reality. You cannot. And that is an advantage, if you engineer it.
- Secure flexible hours. Quiet hours are your kingdom. If the policy doesn’t exist, frame it as a “productivity optimization request” backed by proof that you get more done without noise.
- Claim your perimeter. Noise-canceling headphones, desk lamps instead of overhead lights, tinted screen filters. You’re tuning your environment into a performance-enhancing machine.
- If you can, negotiate remote work. Sell it as a “reduction of environmental variables for quality control.” That is corporate language for “stop sabotaging me and I will triple my output.”
Performance as a Weapon
The average worker uses 50 percent of their capacity. You can hit 90 if you are in your element. That scares people. Use it. Become the one they cannot imagine losing. That kind of security buys you more power than any title ever could.
Small Talk: A Stupid, Simple, Effective Method
Small talk is a dreadful pain in the ass. Here’s how it’s done:
- Ask a vague question like How was your weekend?
- Wait for some detail like “cinema”
- Repeat back what they said as a question “You went to the cinema?..” in such a way that invites them to give more detail. Nod and act interested as they talk.
- They say: “Yea I went with Brandon and we watched Friday the 13th”
- “Friday the 13th?”
- “Yea it’s a horror franchise about blah blah blah”
- After they share, share something small and relevant or make a joke, then pivot to:
- “And how’s Brandon?” or “Have you always liked Horror?”
I’ve uncovered people’s entire life stories and deepest secrets with this stupid method. Avoid politics and religion. If they bring it up, act like you have no opinion and you don’t follow the news on it and change the topic.
It’s important to never leak your controversial views at work.
If they pressure you to take a side on a controversial issue, continue playing harmlessly ignorant and ask them for more information on the topic and how they arrived at their position. Let them rant and act fascinated.
Work Politics: Reputation is Currency
You need your social and professional currency to negotiate allowances for optimising your workspace for performance.
The reputation you want is someone who stays out of drama, has integrity, is liked, works hard and cannot be bullied.
If you’re openly Autistic, you already have a valid card to play.
Cheap Favours
If you have some tool, workaround, workflow, framework, template, or system you made that may be helpful to your coworkers, copy and share it. Make sure your name is all over the file and file properties.
I did this by sharing high-value email templates I made myself and warm leads I dug up that were out of my bounds in a sales role. Waste of time? Yes. Worth it? Yes.
If your tool is a custom software worth something, don’t do this, the company will claim it belongs to them.
Be careful not to make the mistake of upsetting people by unknowingly overreaching and implying you’re telling them how to do their job, even if you’re right. If your help is appreciated, do it, but remember it’s hard to come back from offending someone’s ego.
The correct way to share a thing is to say “Hey I’ve been using this thing I made, if you think it might help you too here it is.”
Do not become an unpaid assistant.
Keep in mind this method is nothing compared to being liked for your integrity, approachability and positivity. Loyalty is based on emotion, not utility. In a sea of snakes, slackers and slimeballs, you want to be the indispensable rock of sane, moral, good vibes.
Radioactive Drama to avoid
At some point you will have the opportunity to rat on your coworkers. It will seem impartial and fair. The reality is you never know what kind of biases and connections the manager or HR have with this person in or out of work. Many “anonymous” reporting tools are not anonymous at all.
If you want to report corruption and harassment, do it intelligently with proof and/or others who agree and can bear witness, and do it in writing. “Accidentally” CC the managers manager or HR or best of all the Compliance Officer, someone powerful and incorruptible to embarrass the manager into action.
Most managers are bad managers. Approaching them in person about the issue will likely result in it getting swept under the rug. If you have a good manager, count your lucky stars and don’t take them for granted. Going over a managers head to HR or CO will likely piss them off more than presenting an issue they can choose to ignore, so choose your battle.
Fight your fight if it’s the right thing to do. Just do it with utmost respectful decorum and document everything. Always get stuff in writing.
Resist Divide and conquer tactics
Never ever rat on your support network and work friends. Ever. Your in-group reputation is worth more. If you’re pressured to rat, put your hands up and say if there was any drama you were nowhere near it, you don’t have any reason to believe they did XYZ, and you find it hard to believe they would, because as long as you’ve known the person they displayed positive traits A, B and C.
If you’re presented with evidence of a friend’s wrongdoing, say you have nothing to add and there is probably a good reason for the mistake if they’re given a chance to explain. Then give your friend a discrete heads up.
When they come for you
If you’re caught red-handed in a big mistake, admit guilt without ratting on others. Explain why you did it without whining, excuses or bullshitting. Say you were confused or shortsighted. Feel bad for your error and let your body show it.
Express sympathy for whoever has to clean your mess and insist on helping. If done right this actually increases trust in you. Don’t say you learned from the mistake, show it. When you feel a slight twinge of sympathy in your interrogator, say you’re overcome with guilt and willing to face the consequences. This has gotten me off the hook many times.
Don’t capsize the boat before it’s time to rock it
Do not make an official report on minor stuff like weird stuff on a coworker’s desk, poor grammar, odd smells or slight annoyances, you don’t want a reputation as a troublemaker. Small issues are better solved via gentle group pressure. Draw group attention to it without being a snarky bitch. Troublemakers and overdramatic tattletales don’t last. Save your energy for big problems such as harassment, corruption, theft, blackmail and bigotry.
Remember if a manager wants to fire you they will find or create a reason to, even if you’ve made no mistakes. If they require proof to fire you they will set traps like pointless meetings and mountains of work to burn you out, so they can review your “poor performance”.
Fly under the radar but let your quality of work scream in their face. When it’s hiring time for a promotion represent yourself like a top attorney and let no good deed go unnoticed.
Action Steps:
- Within 24 hours: Audit your current communication. How many verbal instructions are you relying on? From now on, every one of them gets a written confirmation email.
- This week: Identify your top three environmental triggers. Change one immediately even if it’s as simple as switching to softer light or using white noise.
- This month: Collect proof of your high-output work under ideal conditions. Use this as leverage for flexible hours, a quiet workspace, or remote options.
- Ongoing: Speak in frameworks, label urgency, and make them dependent on your precision.
- Always: Protect your energy like a state secret. Burnout is the trap they set for people who threaten the hierarchy.
If you run this system long enough, you stop feeling like you are “coping” and start realizing you are the one pulling the strings. And no one, not even the ones signing your paycheck, will see it coming until it’s already done.