If you spend your days ripping things apart you become jaded to the process of creation

I posted a link over on Wrong Planet regarding Ian Ford looking for programmers to work in his ASD friendly business. One respondent lamented that it was for technical people and that he needs a non-computer job. I can understand his frustration.

I have posted before about whether Software Quality Assurance is the best job for people on the Spectrum due to the conflict that can be innate in many software development environments. However, while contemplating another set of articles I want to do I came up with another reason that Testing may not be the best.

Don't get me wrong, I love Aspiritech, Specialisterne, Autism Works UK, Uzmanlar and Kaien and their goal of providing well paying jobs for ASD folk. But the constant analyzing and picking apart someone else's work does something to people (NT or ASD). I think it devalues the original work in our eyes and possibly bleeds over to original work in other areas. How many times do you see someone post something original and get torn apart for it?

Georg Hegel posited that the creation of something with our hands and minds is essential to our well-being while saying nothing of critiquing someone else's work. It is an important developmental step in our life when we learn we can create even if it was just finger painting or coloring a picture with Crayons (r).

So even if you are just evaluating someone else's work take the time to create with your own hands & mind. The sense of self and accomplishment that comes from it will help be an antidote to the cynicism that comes from always finding something wrong with someone else.