“yes, you ARE touching them.”

i had an incredibly autistic episode earlier today.

i’m not a morning person; it takes me quite a while to wake up. i get to work at 10am, but before 12pm i’m pretty much useless as far as conversation is concerned, though i’m good via email, and can get work done.

this morning, one of the other 2 members of my department comes over at approximately 10:45am, drapes her arms over my cube wall to talk to me, getting all entangled in the notes and photos i have pinned to my wall at that spot.

i have a very large cube, with a big entry space. unfortunately, the entry space is located at the opposite end of my department, so my team members usually come to this tiny little spot near where my monitor is situated, and talk to me over the cube wall.

to dissuade people from hanging their arms over my cube (when they would, they’d invariably knock something off my wall), i fashioned a little barricade, a piece of fluorescent orange paper folded into an elongated trapezoid, and then taped onto the rim of my cube at that exact spot. largely this has prevented people from hanging over my cube; since i did that, they just stand and talk to me, without hanging over. this, i’m very aware, is a noticeably ocd thing to do. but i’ve found things like this necessary, if you’re like me, all neurotic and whatnot. people generally don’t notice what’s around them, and will invade your space without even thinking about it, and i find little guides the best solution, a very non-confrontational solution. i figured this out a couple years ago, when i was doing word processing for a utility company; i had the back cube, which was nice, but right by the door. people would continually cut directly thru my cube space on their way into the room, not aware of what they were doing, and then sweep their arm over my cube wall, half the time knocking something off. exasperated by this, i got an idea, rolled up an 8.5×11 piece of paper into a thin tube, and taped it so it was standing straight up from the corner, like those flagpoles sticking up from shopping carts to prevent them from being taken outdoors, and lo and behold, no more people cutting thru my cube space, and no one was the wiser what i’d done. i found it very much like herding cattle. =)

anyhow, as i mentioned, my tiny little 2 inch tall orange trapezoid barrier has worked quite well, except one person, one of my teammembers. the past week she has, for some reason, taken to coming directly to that spot to talk to me, and will drape her entire body over my cube wall. previously, both times she’d done this, the first time i’d lifted an eyebrow and waited for her to leave, and then re-straightened all my push-pinned items into their proper position, exasperated. the second time, i looked at her in consternation and said, “do you not see my masterpiece of a people barrier?,” which, i know, was passive aggressive, and she didn’t know what i was talking about, and she said, “i was just coming over to talk to you” and all i could do is stare at her arms readjusting all my pushpinned items’ positions, growing more agitated by the moment. she’d said, “geez, i was just trying to be nice” and left, and i’d sat there, confused by what’d happened.

so she’s standing there this morning, half her body hanging over my cube wall. i see my pushpinned items being moved by fractions of an inch. her arms are pressed onto the orange barrier, respectfully but still touching it. her curly hair is falling over my cubicle walls, i can see tendrils of it, curls sweeping everywhere over my cube wall. i’m sitting there in my chair, staring up at this in a sideways way as she’s talking to me, and i am in an absolute tizzy, driven to distraction by this, and i can’t even hear what she’s saying. somehow i am able to figure out what she’s asking, requested changes to a program i’m designing for her, and i tell her i’ll do it, but the entire time i’m driven to distraction by her hanging over my cube wall like this. i finally say to her, in a way that has nothing to do with the conversation she’d been involved in, “you know, it would only take 5 more steps to come the other way around, actually into my cube.” i know this because last week, after everybody had gone home, i’d walked both pathways from her cube to mine, counting out how many steps each path choice took, to see if me asking her to stop hanging over my cube wall would cause her a needless navigation hardship. to my delight, i found that for her to hang over my cube wall, it would take 20 steps, while her to sit in my nice little chair inside my cube space, where i’ve cleared all my personal effects away, would take her 25 steps, which i found quite reasonable.

she says, “i know, but i feel closer to you here,” with a smile, and starts talking again. i look over at my visitor’s chair, which is clearly even closer to me, and in more advantageous a position to have an uninterrupted conversation with me. she’s still talking. i furrow my brows in an exasperated way, say, “you’re moving all the stuff on my wall.” she looks down, arms still hanging, and says, “no i’m not.” i look at her, all consternated. she says, waving her arms back and forth across my cube wall, my pushpinned items swaying in the created breeze, “see, i’m not touching them.”

i am not dealing well with this. it is much too early in the morning, and i got nowhere as much sleep as i needed. i say, in a slightly more whiny voice, “yes you are,” as i watch my post-it sway in the breeze, and her hairs falling all over my pushpins. she continues to wave her arms, hanging even more fully over my cube wall, now her arms are brushing the push pins, and she whisks her arms back and forth in front of me, saying, “no i’m not, no i’m not, see?”

this is going to turn quite grade school, i am about to find out. we go thru several more rounds of this, her continuing to wave her arms back and forth, telling me she’s not moving anything on my wall, and i’m growing even more tense with frustration, watching my carefully cultivated space invaded like this, and now the new girl, just started yesterday, on the other side of my cube wall, pops up, starts watching what’s unfolding. as my team member continues to wave her arms back and forth in front of me, my post-its swaying in the breeze, her hair falling all over my notes, she’s continuing to insist, in an argumentative, messing with me tone, but amused, “see, i’m not touching them!”

and i immediately adopt the tone of 2 grade school boys sitting in the back seat of a car, and i intone in that voice, “i’m not touching you! i’m not touching you!,” trying to get her to see what she was doing. by this point, the new girl is clearly amused. my teammember stops, and then starts doing it again, waving her arms back and forth “i’m not moving anything” and i say again in the grade school voice, “i’m not touching you! i’m not touching you!” at this point, i think she gets what she’s doing, and she stops.

i say, “that’s what my little orange architecture thing is for, to keep people from hanging over my cube” and my teammember says “i didn’t even know what it was for” and i’m still in a tizzy, all quiet and tense in my chair, and the new girl, a smile in her voice, says, “you know what would be even better, you could put up an electrified perimeter to keep people out”, and i exclaim, “yeah!” and i’m quite serious, and she’s clearly entertained. i think my teammember is confused by what’s going on, but enough to the middle of it that she’s wanting to see the amusement in it, cuz she’s just that kind of person.

i say to her, “don’t you see how i’ve created a special chair just for you to come visit me?” and i point to it, a chair beside my desk, over on my right, pushed against my cube wall, over which hangs a little hand-written note that says, “brilliant, docile people sit here”, with an arrow pointing down at the chair. she says, “oh yes, your chair for brilliant docile people.” the new girl is still amused. everyone stands, expectant, for several moments. then my teammember comes completely around the circumference of my cube, enters, and stands in front of the aforementioned chair. to give you some background, she is the only person at my nonprofit who knows i have asperger’s syndrome, and she herself is knowledgeable in it, as she, during her undergraduate time in college, nannied a boy for 4 years who had asperger’s syndrome. she points to the chair, on which i’ve put two binders. “can i move these?” she asks, all respectful but still amused. i’m completely strung out at this point, and can only nod. she picks the binders up. “can i put these on the floor?” again, i can’t speak by this point, and just nod, and she carefully sets them on the floor. then she genially sits down and stares at me, hands folded in her lap, saying nothing.

i sit in my chair, confused and not knowing what to say, because in the time she’d been at my cube wall, we’d actually concluded our business. i say after several pauses, “i don’t think there was anything left to discuss.” at this point, the new girl busts up laughing. my teammember says, “then why did you ask me to sit down?” and again i’m confused, because i don’t remember asking her to sit down, specifically for this occasion, i’d only referred to it in a general sense. the new girl says, “you *did* invite her” and she sits back in her chair. my teammember stares at me, in her own exasperation, then gets up, says, “fine” and exits my cube space. i sit in my chair, staring at her, feeling completely helpless. she stops and looks at me, smiling. she says, “it’s all going to be okay, you know.”

i say, “you KNOW i don’t wake up til noon,” almost like i’m pleading with her to understand, and she replies, “well if that’s the case, you shouldn’t have brought this job request up until 1pm” but she’s smiling, joking with me, and she walks away, almost winking at me, and says again, “it’s all going to be okay.”

i sit in my chair, now alone, staring at my computer, feeling at a loss. at this point the new girl slams the drawer in her desk so hard that my monitor shakes, and i nearly jump in my chair.

i leave at that exact moment to go take a very early, and much needed lunch, in which i would sit eating french fries, staring blankly into a noisy water fountain, thinking of ways i could add some sort of vibration absorbing padding to my desk surface so that other people slamming their desk drawers wouldn’t make my working surface shake so. at approximately 40 minutes, i was finally able to start to laugh at what’d happened, but in an out of sorts, “this has happened SO many times” kinda way.

yeah, i can be all brilliant and creative and do awesome things and do a good job, but come talk to me and hang over my cube wall, and watch me absolutely fall apart. this, people, is the kind of stuff that makes a person with asperger’s/autism have such a hard time in the typical work environment. pity us poor misfits. =)