Finding Purpose

It seems a given, given my circumstances, that a project portfolio is the best way to begin rejoining the professional world.  Reading the characteristic behaviours of professionals in the introduction to the module it cites 'reliable, brave, rational, supportive, open, and inclusive, influential, well-connected, appreciative and ethical'.   It is correct that behaviours are hard to teach.  I think in someone in my circumstances and what I've experienced since beginning primary school and secondary school and work and university and a range of workplaces 'behaviour' as a characteristic is a dangerous way to assess me as a people professional.  I need to think about how to explain that in a gentler way because I'm not normal.  The likelihood is I've been neurodiverse and atypical in my health and behaviour and that has been encoded in me since before conception.  When that innate build passes the limen of infancy into the social world, I fail to see how society is equipped at present to categorically identify behaviour as a water-tight method to assess professionalism.  Obviously that comes from a place of pain where as someone who has often been seen as a problem and a person whose skills and talents haven't worked out quite as expected is going to wonder what innate flaw I have that makes me the problem that caused the problem to occur in the first place.  

I'll admit I'm angry, though not as angry and frustrated and disturbed at why I kept hitting problems, but this module is a chance for me to be professional without having to defend myself.  I'm different.  And compounding differences, no matter how slight, even if they're just cultural, can act like the evil butterfly causing a typhoon.  Have I dealt with this optimally?  No.  Have I been dealt with fairly and optimally?  No.  Is this the time to punish or the time to see it as a small purposeful chance to think and maybe demonstrate that IN THE RIGHT CIRCUMSTANCES WITH THE RIGHT IDENTIFICATION IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT IN THE RIGHT WAY actually maybe I can show a bit more humility without accepting being humiliated was okay.  

If it is the case that professionalism can be shown by characteristics such as

• reliable, 
• brave, 
• rational, 
• supportive, 
• open, 
• inclusive, 
• influential, 
• well-connected, 
• appreciative 
• ethical

in my book and in this course that means shame has no place.  Finding out the boundary of what I'm comfortable discussing that I can identify as shameful or at least socially problematic and causing uncertainty in the recipient. 

Of all the courses in my Advanced Diploma in Strategic People Management, this is the one I feel I have the most to offer to people who I have to accept might be well meaning who simply often just have no idea what it's like to be someone like me.  And I need to figure out a way to address and justify and clarify what 'like me' means.  

It's a lot isn't it. 

Here's an example.  It takes years to get a formal diagnosis of Functional Neurological Disorder and IBS; I've only just started that process and so, among other more immediately obvious diagnosable named 'problems', I'm stuck in this grey area of I know I have symptoms that both indicate I don't quite work as a normal human being should be expected to, but I also have to wait for years to be able to categorically point and say THIS IS WHY.  As a people professional (albeit one who has been unable to work for an extended period of time and some problematic times before that) in Human Resources, my primary role is to be able to identify and react and manage situations and the people in areas where there are problems (even hypothetical or to be offset or managed before they start) in why people are being problematic and not working quite as expected.  That raises the questions of which people, am I forced to employ them, am I forced to accommodate them, do I WANT to be able to do so, and what is the work and what is expected and whether that's been properly analysed and future-proofed to respond to changes in all those areas too.  And there's more, there's always more. 

I'm also almost certainly on the autistic spectrum.  You, the reader, wouldn't be the first person to wryly wonder about the gallows-humour of an autistic person in that most socially demanding thing with nuance and people-skills demanding skillset of Human Resources.  You aren't alone.  I got the likely diagnosis AFTER I started this course.  I almost vomited in place of swearing.  

One thing I do want to let you know, whomever you may be.  I was absolutely not born yesterday, I've masked pretty successfully (and unwittingly) for such a long time that I wonder if I've come out the other side being more complete, but I think that's arrogance.  But I don't want to give the impression that I haven't been able to speed up my masking pretty elegantly for the most part (with some key f*** ups) because I have.  And that's an asset.  It's not falsity, it's like transcribing from one language to another or translating concepts.  An autistic person, a disabled person with a digestive system from hell, probably shares a lot of overlapping concerns with anyone 'normal'.  

I can't claim I've always been professional, I have been in plenty of situations where I'm baffled at why bitching about each other behind each others backs counts as teamwork, or why sitting silently when we have absolutely nothing in common and nothing to do is particularly odd - particularly when I'm pretty aware you don't like me very much.   Would I recommend to anyone capable of masking to not apply the social makeup that just makes life so much easier?  No.  Is that ethical, who knows. 

Any course is a chance to develop and change and apply things to low-stakes case studies and for that I  am thankful.  I'm academically more than capable of studying this subject and at this level and above, I've worked for a substantial length of time in positions that align very well high and low, C-Suite professionals to On-The-Streets piss-artists (and often the inverse) and I have ample experience at everything from dealing with abusive drunks and chucking them out of a pub door to negotiating with heroin dealers to at least have breakfast, to persuading multi-millionaires that self-care is worth putting in their schedule and researching for art-collectors that want to know about fixatives. I think possibly autism has led to this because I never saw anything unusual in it until I was disbelieved because I'd been a cleaner that I'd understand anything as nuanced as the Equal Treatment Bench Book never mind be able to quote from it. I was equally baffled about this but I feel it led to me having to now make a choice.  I have never wanted to live a life boundaried by social class and work distinctions but if I ever want to get away from being as badly treated as I have been, then I need to make a choice.  And I choose professionalism.  Because I get paid more and treated better (usually) and have recognised rights that are actually enforceable in practice or at least a reasonable threat of retaliation if they aren't. 

I'd fallen while ill into a place where I felt no professional could be trusted to treat me well.  And that was grounded in some fact.  If you're a (fellow) professional who thinks we could connect and help ease that dichotomy I'd be really appreciative.  I want to be as reliable as I can be within the confines of conditions that make deadlines and stress difficult to manage, where sometimes I'm not brave enough to have to go through yet another fight for a principle, where I don't always have to be more reasonable than normal people just to get through the misperception that I'm neither rational nor reasonable when I lose my temper by being demeaned or patronised or mistreated or seeing these things clearly.  If you're someone who understands that I am capable of understanding business acumen with people-centred care and nuance, and that I'm not going to embarrass anyone voluntarily in public but I don't particularly schmooze either but that I love beautiful well made aesthetic things and I'm not afraid of money (either having lots or none) then I'd really appreciate your views.  

It's only ethical to say that I'm far from perfect, and I'm sure that there are intrinsic personality flaws, but I would like to look at extrinsic pressures and factors that cause people of diversity (although I have a lot of learning and experience to seek for other types of diversity and would love invitations and will seek out courses and networking) and how they can twist and the absolute hideous effect of the uncertainty emotion, how it amplifies negative emotions and reduces positive and types of deliberate and unintentional gaslighting for example.  Uncertainty is a fact of life, I understand that, but I do feel it has a disproportionately larger impact on people further from the anticipated norm. Perhaps I'm wrong in that and I will learn as I go along. 

I hope to log my studies as I go along as, while I've been doing a number of things connected, this is really me re-beginning my Diploma.  I hope this blog doesn't put you off - I'm hopeful with some self-examination I'll identify errors in my thinking and other ways to look at things without losing what little self-confidence I've succeeded in rebuilding.  

It's a bit crass to say my purpose is to be a people-professional.  I don't know that for sure anymore.  But I think it's possible.  

Much Love 

L x