Your Child's Autism Cures You From Trying to Please Everyone

Fron Huffington Post's Dafna Maor.

It was one of those things that anyone who works in the digital age comes across from time to time. Sometimes you send an email to the wrong person and then there is hell to pay. Oh, the shame. Sometimes, it's a Word document that gets deleted the second you finish writing a terrific proposal for a new project, the one which will catapult you to stardom at work. And sometimes, it's just a little misunderstanding of nuance when you use your instant messenger or Facebook chat to discuss work with a colleague.
Working in a media outlet doesn't necessarily guarantee that you are surrounded by people with high communication skills and knowledge of the human psyche. When egos and dispositions are involved, things tend to heat up.
It was a nice morning, and a colleague of mine was consulting with me, via messenger, about an idea for a feature for the supplement she was editing. In a matter of a few short minutes, that 'talk' turned very unpleasant. She wanted something and I suggested her idea was not very appealing. She asked for other ideas and I didn't have any, so I said maybe later. She asked why I was so hostile, and when I said she's reading something into my words that wasn't really there, she blew up. She walked over to my desk -- she was sitting just a few feet away, in a niche behind a wall. She demanded I come to the conference room and clear it up.
When this colleague, who is also a good friend, started ranting about hostility and uncooperativeness, I stopped her short.
It was a few months after my son had been diagnosed with autism.