The polymaths

I’ve just had another of those moments where something comes into sharp focus and puts a new perspective on my life.

This one surrounds work.

I’ve been in the world of work  for the best part of fifteen years now, and over that time I’ve observed that many of my peers appear to be polymaths.

Nothing struck me as strange about this. All I was doing was comparing those I worked with to myself. Compared to me, a large number of the more able of my peers have excelled at a much wider range of skills than I have. I have accepted this as a universal truth, and at each new job I’ve been unsurprised to find people that were brilliant at many different technical skills. I dubbed these people as polymaths, because whilst I see their existence to be expected these days, I see their technical ability to be far wider-ranging than that which I consider average.

When changing jobs I’ve always been faced with interview questions such as “how are you with such and such a skill?” in reference to a skill area outside of my core competences, and I’ve always replied that I haven’t really had a chance to learn that skill, because it was always someone elses job, and jealously guarded. And that is how it has always seemed to me – except that if I really think about it now, the chaps that I would term as polymaths tended to have these skills despite it being someone elses job.

Maybe I assumed they’d learned those other skills in a previous job, where it wasn’t someone elses responsibility.

The problem with this picture, which is one that I’ve held my whole adult life, is that it is wrong.

Firstly, I think I need to point out that I’ve realised that my polymaths aren’t the wonderfully gifted individuals that I thought they were.

They are intelligent, for sure. But where I’ve been getting this wrong is my definition of what average is. Being unaware of my AS until very recently, I’ve always considered my own level of skill to be a good basis for establishing the average. I’m aware of my relative intelligence level from the point of view of exam ability and from an IQ test I took many years ago. I’ve used these factors my whole adult life to form the basis of where an average level of intelligence and technical ability lies.

But my assumptions have been wrong.

Whilst I may have an above average IQ and above average exam results, my ability to undertake work cannot be extrapolated from this information in the same way as an ordinary neurotypical person. I’m not neurotypical, and problems with my executive function and social interaction skills mean that I do not work to the ability of a neurotypical person with my IQ and exam results. This is new thinking for me.

So I’ve suddenly realised that I have gone through my life assuming that my ability to perform at work is that of a neurotypical person with my IQ and exam ability. And so my peers at work who clearly outperform me got dubbed as being polymaths – brilliant (from my point of view) in many technical streams at once. The truth is that they probably have a similar IQ to me and they probably did similarly academically to me too. These are smart people, without a doubt, but they aren’t geniuses – they are just neurotypical.

I can see another perspective on this too.

The reason that I have never learnt the many technical skills that many of my peers do is not because I am average and they are geniuses. Neither is it really because of my usual excuse that the job was someone elses and hence I didn’t have the opportunity.

It’s that I haven’t got room in my head to learn it. Let me explain:

My working memory isn’t like that of a neurotypical person. It’s small and very detailed.

This means that when I get down to a task – particularly an investigative one – I tend to do very well. I don’t see the big picture around it though, and when I move on to the next task, the specialist skills I have learnt for the task are mostly wiped out within a matter of weeks. Frequently I’ll be asked about some work I did a few weeks previously, and I’ll struggle to remember not only what I did, but how I went about it. This often produces strange looks from people – something which I’ve always felt embarrassed about, but I’ve never really considered why they might be giving the reaction they do until now.

They – of course – don’t have a problem with remembering the technical skills they were using in detail a few weeks ago. They have room in their working memory for many things at the same time, and can call each of these things up as and when needed. This is why they are good at many technical skills at the same time.

And this too, is why I’m struggling somewhat in my current job. There is just too much that I need to know. When I need to concentrate on one area of the system for a while, then I do just fine. But I’m expected to know and manage the whole system – and it’s huge, with many different technologies in it – and that feels extremely difficult to do. It goes without saying that the more capable of my peers manage to understand the whole system with apparent ease.

I can now see that this has been an issue at many of my jobs over the years. In the end I’ve tended to try and build a reputation around having specialist knowledge about the part of the system I’m working with, with mixed success. In jobs where this was possible then it’s worked well, I’ve felt confident and capable in my role, and managers have generally been very appreciative of the work I’ve produced. In roles like my current one, where I need to know about many diverse components in a large system, however, I feel inadequate and something of a fool and a fraud.

There is a clear message here. I need to work in jobs that allow me to become a specialist in a small area. That is what my brain is good at dealing with.

My future at work doesn’t – can’t – lie in my current role – it is slowly drowning me.

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