The Oil Drum

372 comments on DrumBeat: January 5, 2008

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hardhat on January 6, 2008 - 12:34am

Yes, SCT, I have been diagnosed as having Asperger's syndrome. I don't see it in a negative light at all. The managers hired by the Executives saw me as "lacking in people skills", but I considered myself as "focused on the problem".

I feel I can make anything work. The biggest problem is in getting permission to do it.

My sentiments are that as long as corporations are flooded with so much money as to finance tiers over tiers of management "valves", there isn't any need for "pumps" like me. There is already plenty of pressure in the line.

Control seemed far more important than Innovation or Production, and was paid commensurately. The problem for me became acute when the company started getting huge cash inflows from stockholder investments, not sales.

I would have thought a company would want to keep people who had the "disability" of finding enjoyment only through their work and would take no interest in all the social and sports crap. To me, getting rid of this kind of people would be akin to me removing the chunks of carbide off my saw blade.

But then, I have to realize an Executive saw is to look at, not to saw with. A satin color-coordinated finish goes a lot further in the executive boardroom than hard sharp teeth. If its MY blade, I want the hard sharp teeth.

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SacredCowTipper on January 6, 2008 - 1:59am

You will get no argument from me on this, my face blind circumscribed interest having brother :-) I have a lighter burden than most, with the social interaction concerns, but I am blessedly not clumsy as some are. Much study in the realm of accessing cues, transformational grammar, and so forth have positioned me to "pass" among the neurotypical - I've massaged myself from downright weird to merely eccentric :-)

I feel your frustration ... I've not had a "job" for almost nine years and while I do miss a paycheck every two weeks I do not miss people with a scanty grasp on cause and effect making bad decisions on Tuesday and then blaming me for the outcome on Thursday :-)

You were shunned because you are weird. I intend no disrespect here :-) Your choices are to work around the fact that you perceive the world differently, or to find a role where your strengths are strengths.

If some area of renewable energy has tickled your fancy you should have no trouble migrating into the field. I have found the barrier to entry to be essentially nonexistent.

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hardhat on January 6, 2008 - 4:26am

Thanks for your honesty. Its refreshing.

I knew I was weird in elementary school. By junior high, I had already built myself a stereo system better than any my friends had, yet I did not pay a dime for it. It was all made from parts the neighbors had junked when they placed old TV's by the curb. Horizontal output tubes make pretty decent audio power tubes! But I didn't have the foggiest idea of how to play baseball, neither did I know anything about football, other than it was some game they played in the stadium.

My latest experimental fancy is lithium bromide absorption refrigeration. I worked with this for several years at an oil refinery (it kept our LNG tanks cold using waste process heat).

If I were more independently wealthy, I would just build an apartment complex, and rent most of it out to tenants while I got the solar powered heating-ventilation-air conditioning (HVAC) running. But I do not have that kind of money.

I need at least 30 feet vertical drop for the gravitic vacuum pump and certain ways of laying out the garden so I can use the leaves of plants as evap coolers much like one uses wood slats in a cooling water tower ( I think cooling water towers are ugly, but I think plants are very pretty, so I want plants ). This necessitates my designing the apartment complex from the ground up as a custom build.

Being I can personally build any interfaces I need to the motors, valves, sensors, whatever, build and program the microcontrollers that run it, I consider the whole thing quite do-able. Its stuff like building construction and welding the collector assemblies, generator, evaporator, and absorber I need help with.

Physically, I am getting old, and I just can not handle the heavy stuff anymore. Or tight schedules. Hell, for all I know I may pass on before I get it done. But I would have more fun building something than sitting on my arse waiting for God to call me.

I am not saying my first one would be perfect, but it would give me empirical data for making the next one better, as well as give me a lot better idea as to the economic feasibility of mass producing the design.

I am getting too old to beg people in power to let me do things. I see where what I consider rather useless people getting paid enormous salaries, but I am told that I have no people skills and need to work elsewhere.

I think the world needs solar powered HVAC a helluva lot more than the world needs what the highly paid guy did, but then that's my point of view.

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SacredCowTipper on January 6, 2008 - 4:59am

Control expertise should be in demand - you just need a manufacturer in desperate need :-) I can think of a few offhand right around here and the nation must be brimming with them.

It is good to have weird scrounging skills in times like these ...

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