Back when I was working in corporate as a full stack developer, I used to devotedly watch The Apprentice. As someone on the spectrum I innocently and naively believed that being professional meant that when you were at work you did your best. Your always told your colleagues and boss the truth. You didn’t “act” like a team player you were a member of a team, not the potential fall the guy. Yes, basically, I didn’t get it. The backstabbing, sexual politics, the endless deceit, sabotaging of perceived competition. One company even had the audacity to say they did not have blame management but then called it, “accountability acceptance.” I was desperate for a way to learn how NT people navigate and survive in the workplace.
Then came The Apprentice, a window into the minds and motivations of ordinary corporate ladder climbers lead by a truly wretch of an “alpha male”. Each week the “contestants” would be given a task to manage and I could study and would literally take notes on how they interacted. Who’s turns of phase were most affective at getting the response desired and then I would use them at my own workplace. I learned how to protect myself; keep a paper trail, make endless redundant timestamped copies of my own work on multiple hard drives, edit emails to avoid all offense, and copy and store those from management that did. These lessons extended into every area of my life ensuring I had accurate records and recordings of meetings with teachers, doctors, lawyers, ensuring that what was agreed became accountable.
The Apprentice is a dark, dark game which shows not the worst in NT adult relations, but raw awful truth. Where people are pitted against each other to been seen as successful, proving that when the goal is sans ethics people will behave without them.
The business world of white middle class, first world countries celebrate and reward self interest, envy, creating and exploiting low self esteem in others, subjugation of race and gender all in the pursuit of dog-eat-dog success. The ultimate proof of this success was the US host and mastermind of this blood sport being elected President by his audience.
That whole world disgusts me. But its not just television. The lessons I learned watching that vile “instructional series” actually worked. Being on the spectrum I cannot and never will understand the motives. It is simply not a part of my DNA. I am daily astonished at the depths actively sought in the pursuit of the total destruction of any perceived competition.
The cultural upheaval we are experiencing is best illustrated by the “current” impeachment attempt of The Apprentice originator and stem from the ethics, or lack thereof, from the reality of that TV show. Self interest, envy. We need to examine the way we do “business” and how we measure “success”. We need to learn to live with enough. Being competitive does not mean winning at any cost.
*image from CNN