Sometimes we are forced into a group not of our choosing. In the working world, we most often don’t get to chose who our workmates are. They are chosen for us. It’s been a while since I was in that situation, but due to my deafness and Aspie traits that was about the only time I was eventually welcomed as a valuable member of a group.

The last couple of years in my corporate work world I led a team of five software developers in providing tools, now called apps, for a three hundred person engineering division. When the team was first formed our interactions were awkward to say the least. But it didn’t take long before we worked out methods to communicate with each other.

At that time, in the late 1990s, there was no such thing as a speech-to-text tool that could be quickly fired up when we had to talk. That would be more than a decade away. But eventually written notes and chalkboard messages worked out well. My team became one of the best teams in our division. When I retired, or maybe I should say when I was downsized, at my request, tears were flowing about my departure. My team was going to miss me. I had some good friends there who valued me for who I was.

That was the last time I have ever considered myself part of a group. It was a forced association that we made work. If only I could find a way to make that happen again…