An Autistic Elder on the True Cost of Career.

This was an important meeting… Talking… freaking Senior Partner.
He turns to me. Clipped tone, frigid calm, approaching Absolute Zero Death Chill…
“We were hoping we might have a brainstorming session… right now. Client meeting scheduled. Friday over lunch.

I may bill like a VP. But I take home like a receptionist.

I’m in what anyBODY can see is Autistic Hell… I mean, ANYbody who knows autistics at work. Maybe has a distant autistic cousin. Damn… ANYBODY flicking through 30 seconds of Love on the Spectrum.

High-stakes creative meeting. Grey Advertising… San Francisco office of a global behemoth. High-rent view out the window. All skyscrapers and waves on the Bay.

We’re pitching a HUGE tech account. No Non-Disclosure Agreement, not dropping names, but… (cough,… “Microsoft”).

It’s the 90s. I’m busted back to freelance consulting and copywriting. It’s my only income… after investors kick me out of my startup, Unix World magazine.

Like a lot of founders, I end up hitting the street when they get bored…
Sigh.
Vulture capitalism.
Like a roller coaster.
With no brakes.
Just an accelerator.
Thrilling… til it’s not.

And I hit bottom hard. So, I’m peddling my portfolio door-to-Silicon-Valley door. Doing okay showing off Bank of America, Charles Schwab, a few “high-tech” software shooting stars… and my magazine.

Short version… Grey Advertising bites.

Brings me in as a hired gun. Cuz…

Well, seems I could talk PCs and Berkeley Unix with Microsoft’s tech guys. Grey’s agency guys? Not so much.

Plus, well… Grey has this reputation for its “grey” creative. Kinda defensive about it, to tell the truth. So they get this crazy idea that I’m creative from my magazine awards.

Thing was…
This creative autistic wasn’t built for high-speed agency account managers.
Not wired for rapid, chaotic change.
Or on-demand, it’s-always-a-3-Ring-Fire-emergency meetings.
Or throw-shit-at-the-wall-observe-who-salutes brainstorming.
Or agency politics…

Imagine a tank of ravenous, narcissistic sharks.
High on cocaine… Peruvian Flake… the Good Stuff.
Circling a vast, solid, dark walnut conference table.
In a freezing, glass-walled aquarium… uh, Client Conference Suite #1.
Smelling of leather,
warm wood,
rank human sweat,
a thin spray of bergamot & citrus for New Age inspiration… and…
Was that a trace of blood in the air?

Yeah. Sensory nightmare.

Only outshone by the social frightmare about to unfold.

My first sit-down creative meeting… with the entire dozen-member team?

My head’s already spinning from intros. THEN… professionally, politely… the lead account executive says to me, “What do you need to jump in and get to work. Immediately.”

I’m thrilled! Asking what I need. What a great way to start a complex, high-stakes project. I answer rapid-fire, cosplaying “being professional.” BUT I do say it straight.

Cuz… autism.

“Well, I need a room.
Quiet.
A buncha pads & markers.
Some kind of summary what they’re looking for… and what we want to give em.
Any marketing insights you got so far.
Some kind of schedule.
And then…
Time.”

I flash my mirror-practiced, knowing grin. Into shocked silence. Except the nagging buzz of fluorescent lights…

This was an important meeting.
Talking, lead account executive.
Talking, entire creative staff.
Talking… freaking Senior Partner.

Who right now calmly glances around the room. Impeccably enveloping every attendee with his warm gaze. Then, narrowing his eyes… and lowering his glasses, he turns to me. Clipped tone, frigid calm, approaching Absolute Zero Death Chill…

“We were hoping we might have a brainstorming session… right now. Client meeting scheduled. Friday over lunch.”

Today’s Thursday. Just before lunch. Prepping and rehearsing? Already drained me before I show up. I desperately planned… hoped… to grab the rest of today for recovery time. Alone. Ya know, after?

My personal Fun-to-Panic Meter swings from Green to Red.

“Get me the room. I’ll see what I can do.” I may have been a tad cool in tone, as well. I got my problems with rank and their imaginary privileges…

Notebooks slam shut. Chairs scrape like fingernails on a blackboard. Bodies push through doors.

5 minutes later… I am alone in a room. Pen hovering over pad.

Not writing. Looping instead on…
High stakes.
Hidden agendas.
Emotional landmines.
And drowning in the very culture that drove me out of publishing.
You’re either Food.
Or you’re climbing over bodies to move up the Corporate Food Chain.

Now, some autistics sail through these choppy, cubicle-strewn waters. But 40% to 70% of us are unemployed. No matter what our IQ is.

I’m good at following rules. I adore them. They tell me where I stand. How to act. How to perform…

Problem is… corporate policies, guidelines, rules of conduct?

All largely bullshit.

Public models like books and movies… where I learned how to cosplay being a professional? Worse than useless. Dangerous.

In this meeting, I’m playing Bogart in 1952’s Deadline U.S.A… a newspaper editor who’s all steely integrity.

These sharks, however are playing for fucking keeps. Think 21st Century Game of Thrones’ Tywin Lannister.

What really rules a modern office? All those unwritten rules. The messy Unnamed Unspokens. Which are perfectly invisible to autisticaf me.

You wanna know what’s not a joke in a cubicle… or executive suite?

“Ya gotta always be closing the sale. Gotta get the client laid? Do it. You gotta sleep with the client… you do it.”

Who knew? Not a metaphor.

I’m an aromantic ace. Sex for me is love-locked. You might imagine some of the complications in business.

Like that, surprise… first,
then… stony fury
on the face of
that high-powered,
HP product manager
of my biggest ad account…
back when magazine-publisher me
lets her down ever so gently, so composedly
in that Star-Wars-white office corridor…
to nuclear effects.

Now take that metaphor about sex? Stretch it… to everything. Everywhere. All at once.

Every human’s got an itch that needs scratched. If they got power over you, they presume you will scratch it.

Unwritten Meta-Rule #1?

Blessed be the Powerful for they shall receive unto them whatever they can get away with.

Observe with me now, just how that Bestitude on the Mount plays out.

Cuz right this instant… it’s my time to face the sharks.

As I turn to leave, the lead account executive snags my elbow.

“Say? You like German? I know the best German around the Bay. Let’s me and you grab a quick bite.”

We jump in his black-and-gold Mercedes. Buzz over to Schroeder’s in the nearby Financial District. Famous for business men wheeling their luncheon deals… No women allowed entry until 1970.

He orders for both of us imperiously. Bossy, not my favorite move. Even on a date. And this ain’t one of those.

He’s about to mansplain what he thinks my “winning play” is. Over a plate of what he ordered for both of us.

Pig’s knuckles… my anxious stomach revolting. Probably some alpha-male mind game…

He watches my face intently through my first bite… and swallow. Nods to himself, then rolls casually on.

“It’s easy. Help Alex beef up his ideas. Then? Just sell them to our client.” Alex is his creative chief. “Use that publisher passion of yours they love.”

Requisite infodump for this sci-fi dystopia: Account Execs make money on commission. Creative “niceties” are just personal peccadillos… kinks. Roadblocks to overcome toward commission.

“I make money, you make money. You get more work out of the agency.”

Did he just wink at me?

“Everybody gets to go home happy.”

I put my poised fork and knife down. Part drama… part relief from lunch as greasy anatomy lesson.

I point out I was hired to be “real” for the client’s engineering team. That Microsoft requested my thinking… because they dug my magazine. And my insight.

Ok. That went well.

In some alternate universe, Rod Serling intones a lost episode of Twilight Zone…

“Imagine, if you will, an average business lunch.
During which you witness the formation of a new circle of Dante’s Hell.
A place crafted specifically for the emotionally terrorized.
Inhabited exclusively by neurodivergent professionals…
In the Employment Zone.”

All right, let’s break it down. Cost-benefit-wise…

Yeah, I got paid around $7K. For 50 billable hours. Meetings, working with a talented art director, most likely neurodivergent… and my solo writing time. Plus a nifty bonus. Cuz the client was thrilled.

I bill at $125/hour. Annualized, that’s roughly VP pay at Grey. But my takehome? More like their receptionist.

Call it the Autistic Tax. A tax I gotta pay Society to support… well, everybody who isn’t autistic.

Because that check gives not one thin dime for post-meeting recovery time.
From stress, anxiety, panic.
In the dark.
At home.
After each daily 2-hour meeting.
For two weeks.

And not a red cent toward the extra month long, post-project, forced “vacation.” Before I could work with the next client. Like, to pay rent.

Cuz then, there’s ALWAYS… the Aftermath.

Day after freaking office day.
Their cumulative impact gonna kill me.

Pivot: I don’t wanna play stupid human games. Any more.

Cool Rocks

Wanna see my cool rocks?
Do you like cool rocks?
You got any cool rocks?
Wouldn’t it be fun to trade…
Even steven?
Forever?

That’s how I approach human interaction. Which is why I can’t play poker.

My interaction is based on curiosity, wonder and wanting to share.

Modern American culture as I know it?
Based around somebody else
trying to sell you
into giving them
what they want…
so they win.

That game is Knowing What the Other Guy Wants,
secretly knowing what you want,
knowing just how far you are willing to go…
and getting that out of you.
Like Texas Hold ‘Em poker.

They learn your tells
they learn your betting strategies
they constantly compose
what they’re going to say
before you speak.

And you can’t believe a word they say. Because you know they’re motivated to get whatever they can out of you. Life as Used Car Lot.

I could know numbers. I could know stats. I could be a Boy Genius.

I couldn’t play fucking poker to save my autistic fucking life.

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• If this excerpt grabbed you… more here: The Book: Frag by Frag.

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This is Fragment 7 of my upcoming autobiography, My Autistic Life is My Art, arriving Fall 2026.

I’m building a book out loud. Frag by frag. Just like I lived it.

The Next Act

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• I’m writing an autobiography… out loud. Frag by frag. Just like I lived it. Unlock the next act for free.

Why I Write My Autobiography

I’m only an expert on my own life. Born 1953, diagnosed at 63. Your mileage will vary.

Individual marginalized voices speaking truth out loud? They build bridges to mainstream readers. Think Malcolm X. Think Maya Angelou. Think Janet Mock’s Redefining Realness.

This Fall, I hope to deliver that kind of impact, that power with My Autistic Life is My Art. For our neurodivergent community.

Since 2019 I’ve published a quarter of a million words. Over half the size of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Gotta be a pony somewhere in that shit.