kjullien

Hello HN,

I'm a junior dev and have been employed at my current work place for over a year. I love technology and code, less so humans. A lot less. If I had to guess I would say that I probably have some form of social anxiety/autism that makes it really painful/difficult/demanding for me to interact with other people, so I usually try to keep these "interactions" to a very strict minimum required to achieve the tasks I am attributed.

Now, recently, I've come to realize more and more, how much trouble this actually causes in the end for me, as I am perceived as that "odd" guy, that never says a thing, never hangs out at work place events, that you simply give tasks to, and ultimately the job gets done.

As I was searching to limit human-human interactions as much as I could, I ended up being treated like a machine, go figure... I get attributed tasks almost exclusively by sales/marketing people with absolutely no understanding of anything appart from the end result they want. Sometimes that ends up being a 2 word "spec", an unachievable task, some month long back and forths where they realize every other step of the way that what I implemented, which was what they asked, was not what they wanted, etc. So I am starting to get a little fed up by all of this and am at quite a loss when it comes to actually addressing these issues. I try, but I figure that I might as well document myself on the process instead of the usual trial and error one could go through.

Anyhow, as stated in the title of this Ask HN, does anybody have any ressources to recommend to someone that just started his carrier and has a demonstrated history of complete lack of such skills ? Anything is welcome really, books, documentaries, blog post, whatever you might have come across.

Thanks!

"Aphantasia is the suggested name for a condition where one does not possess a functioning mind's eye and cannot voluntarily visualize imagery."

Hello HN,

I am writing this post about aphantasia as I have it and very recently discovered what it even was and that it is not "normal". There is so little research done about this subject that we don't have any idea of the origins of it, why some people are affected, if it is developed at a later stage in life or born with (I feel like I developed mine) or what % of the population has it.

So I started doing a little investigating of my own and asked my close circle of friends and colleagues if they had it.

Out of about 20 people I questioned (all are either working as devs or designers), not a single one had it. Makes sense for the designers, but I would have thought that developers would have a higher chance of having it, for some reason.

My first intent was to try and find a correlation between aphantasia and being a developer. The way I see it programming has always allowed me to materialize things that I could think of but never "imagine" or "visualize". I have always been passionate about code since I touched a computer in my life for the first time. I could create without having a need to be creative, through _repetitive trial and error_ (strong emphasis on repetitive), where a designer, for instance, could simply visualize then apply, maybe add a little shine here and there and be done.

As my sample pool of 20 people was quite small and not very representative I figured it would be a good idea to ask you guys about it, maybe even get some anecdotes, life repercussions, and whatnot out of it...

So here I am. Do you have Aphantasia HN?

PS: Sorry if this sounds confusing, my limited vocabulary hardly allows me to express these very specific topics... Also sorry if this is too off-topic for HN.