Anshu Arora
The office buzzed with organised chaos, a familiar comfort for me. Kindness, however, wasn’t always on the daily schedule. Then I met Maichau, a quiet colleague whose world, I soon learned, ran on a different kind of logic.
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Ever wondered how a simple act of kindness can bridge the gap between colleagues? Anshu, soon realises her autistic co-worker, Maichau, thrives in a world structured differently. When a chance encounter reveals Maichau’s hidden talent, Anshu embarks on a journey to understand her colleague’s perspective and build a bridge between their seemingly different worlds.
In the cafeteria of a client’s office, during a session break, I was eating alone. A young boy, 6ft tall, medium built, thick spectacles and a big smile came up to my table and said, “You don’t know me, but I do. I have checked your LinkedIn profile and seen your TEDx talk and I want to ask you how can I become a TEDx speaker. Can I sit with you and have lunch at your table, please?” I have to admit his charm got me at once! Yes, please! I would love some company, I said. “Oh cool, I will grab my food and join you in a few minutes!”
Well, I am 46 and a young handsome boy of about 26-27 years wants to have lunch with me. Yes! I was absolutely excited! I straightened my posture and arranged my plate a tad bit better and my eyes were now following him as he moved from one counter to the other filling his lunch plate.
There he was, back at my lunch table.
“Hey, my name is Maichau. Besides knowing that I want to be a TEDx speaker like you, you should also know that I am autistic.” Okay, I said. Let’s eat first. He said, “Your expression hasn’t changed after I said I am autistic. You know someone else who is?” No, I said. I know a few people who are autistic but I do not know them personally.
Maichau, kept eating, without raising his head or looking at me. After his plate was half empty, he said, “Sorry, I mostly speak without making eye contact. I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t find it comfortable looking in people’s eyes.” That’s absolutely OK. Thank you for sharing with me, I said. Is there anything else you would be comfortable telling me about someone who is autistic so that I am more sensitive? I asked.
Yes, I could. Maichau said. “I am always ready with pro-tips one should know about autistic friends. But I don’t get the chance to share this list often. Thank you, I can share right away, without any further ado.” Looking at the sparkle in his eyes, somewhere in my head, I knew we were about to begin a beautiful friendship.
“Will you please let me speak in a flow and not ask me too many questions? I get hassled,” Maichau said. I agreed. “And if someone just joins us, would you not talk over or about me?” I nodded my head in affirmation. I had realised that my silence was helping him speak more and be comfortable. I continued being in the listening mode.
Maichau started, “Why I want to accumulate the courage to go on to the TEDx stage is because as soon as I was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, which means that I’m on the autistic spectrum, I started to understand why it was so hard for me to fit in, why I couldn’t read other people’s social cues? Through my talk, I wish to explain my and other autistic people’s need for a friend. Do you know Anshu, I have felt like I don’t belong. I have felt like, deep down, I am not like other people. I have felt afraid that if other people really know me they would leave, because in the past they have. Many times, I have truly felt lonely in a group.”
Whilst I was listening to Maichau, I was trying to understand the actual need that led him to walk up to my table and have lunch with me. The actual need was – the need for a friend. Luckily my next session was not immediately after lunch, and Maichau also did not have any meeting lined up. So, whilst the cafeteria started getting vacated, our conversation started getting deeper. I constantly kept reminding myself, that I must not break his flow. I must let him finish his conversation, just as he wants.
Maichau was less fidgety now, he was still not looking at me but his rate of speech was very fast. It seemed as if he wanted to vomit out all that he had contained inside. He immediately jumped to an incident from his childhood. Once he had approached another boy, Sarvansh in his school. He did not know how to start a conversation, but he wanted to make friends. He held a chocolate in his hand and kept walking behind him, repeatedly asking if Sarvansh liked chocolates. All he wanted was to be friends with him. However, Sarvansh turned around, looked at him and started crying really loud, asking him to just go away!
I was now absolutely clear what the emotional need of this conversation was: the need for a friend at the workplace.
Whilst I am an advocate of leaders creating a psychologically safe space for people at work, I also want to highlight, the improvement required in our levels of knowledge and sensitivity we possess about building relationships with people who are autistic. That one lunch-table conversation with Maichau, graduated to many more coffee catch-ups and I maintained my stance to be the listener, whilst working seriously towards creating a safe space for this relationship to nurture in our workplace.
I learnt from Maichau, that when building a relationship with an autistic person, be careful that you:
- Don’t ask too many questions.
- Give them some time – it can take a while to recover from information or sensory overload.
- Don’t talk over or about them when others are around.
- Bear in mind they’ll need more time to respond than you might expect.
- Make space – try to create a quiet, safe space as best you can.
How often do we take time to understand the psychological and emotional needs of people we work with, in order to establish a healthy relationship? This experience told me that there was a clear need to sensitise people around Maichau to make the environment more comfortable for him. For him to be able to have more friends. I walked up to the Head-HR and we ideated about what could be done to nurture uplifting relationships for Maichau. He reached out to the DEI expert and they invited an autistic child’s parent, who was working in their organisation. This committee now got going and created a set of guidelines for ‘building a healthy relationship with an autistic team member’. They all acknowledged that the hardest part of all of this was rejection, and even worse it was when the autistic person believed that he/she deserved it. I was double charged, to say the least, when the organisation stepped up to focus on nurturing relationships with the autistic members of the corporate family. New guidelines were set, workshops were carried out, and immediate teams were sensitised, to say the least. The environment was now open, approachable and supportive. The goal was to increase belongingness, by strengthening relationships.
Things have progressed professionally for Maichau. He is currently supporting a customer-support team and has been transferred to Dublin, where he is attempting many more connections, a little more courageously. The last time we spoke (a rather emotional goodbye) before he left, I was reminded of the parable of the long-handled spoon. I took a promise from him, that he would be an ambassador of the long-handled spoon parable.
As the parable goes:
A man is once shown two doors. Inside the first one, in the middle of the room, was a large round table with a large pot of vegetable stew. It smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water, but the people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.
In the next room, he again smelled delicious stew, placed in the middle. This time, he heard people talking, laughing and happy together. They too had the same spoons with long handles that made it impossible for them to feed themselves. This time though, the people used their spoons to feed each other. In this room, each one was able to eat and no one was hungry. That helped them connect with each other, as well. We all need to pause and assess if we are feeding the people around with support, sense of belonging and the safety of being themselves. Michau taught me, the importance of relationships.
All of us need each other to create a safe place of belonging. We have the ability to heal with our friendship or through the simple decision to be a friend. We truly can help somebody else believe that they are worthy. If you and I can give somebody the courage in their darkest moment, then it sure is worthwhile.
Autistic or neurotypical, all we need is the ability to start building a relationship of friendship, by listening, by taking that chocolate, or by just sharing the lunch table.
Michau left a note for me, needless to say, it’s my treasure, the treasure of friendship at workplace!
