Retail sales and Aspergers.

The art of conversation can be broken down into a number of elements. 

1. knowing when it's your turn to speak.
2. understanding the topic of conversation.
3. building rapport. 
4. knowing when it's time to end. 

I worked in retail from quite a young age. As an undiagnosed Aspergers sufferer, thinking back, this might be the perfect environment to start social skills and to advance them to a highly competent level. But there are also drawbacks, which I will explain later. 

As a new starter in a checkout role, customers aren't expecting high levels of engagement. Knowing when it's your turn to speak, in a cash transaction is fairly simple. Many years of this and it becomes a skill you can master. Yet, and this is really important, for an Aspergers sufferer, it never comes naturally, it's a learned skill. You speak, I hear (but don't necessarily listen) and then prepare my next sentence. Conversation skills level 1 achieved. 

Moving from this role into a sales role requires new skills. For me, this meant three thick manuals from Intertan, the American owner of Tandy. Bizarely, I can still remember much of the content from these simple books that seem odd to me. 

• Never assume the sex of a baby. 
• Never talk politics, religion or sport (the potential for upset is too great). 

These two points struck me as incredibly odd. Why would I even think about this, when I'm selling a TV or HiFi, they would all be irrelevant. Nevertheless I learned them and I became adept at learning FABs = features, advantages (or actions) and benefits of each product and cleverly slipping these into the sales conversation. Although the benefits (to me) were clearly obvious from the advantages, sometimes they needed spelling out. This seemed to me like a pointless part of the conversation, but it helped me realise that when I point something out, that the same point might need further clarification if the person listening wasn't on my wavelength. For example, in a sales role, a TV might have a remote control, (that would be the feature), the advantage means that you can change the channel without touching the TV (that's the advantage) and the benefit is that you don't have to get up to turn the news off because it's depressing. You can just sit in your chair, lazily, and click over to something more entertaining. 

Anyway, the close to 100,000 people I spoke to over the 27 years I spent in retail (assuming 15 customers a day, 48 weeks a year and a 5 day week) clearly helped me develop these skills and become convincingly adept at convincing others that my conversational skills were normal. But they never helped me gain new friends. They never felt meaningful, they were transactional conversations. I could use their wants and needs to establish facts about their lifestyle, and relate this to my own experiences and create a superficial bond or, rapport. However, I remember pretty much none of them. As a Manager, I had to listen to others conversations too and I do remember listening to 2 other colleagues. I've purposefully not named them, although anyone who worked with me will likely know who they were... 

1) One was just like me. Although he would try to slip anecdotes into his conversations, they never felt natural and although he did try, he never really gelled with the customers, there was rapport, built in the same way I would do it, and although I do believe he got a couple of dates from his peculiar type of humour, for the most part, his discussions were transactional, like mine. I am convinced that like me, he too was Aspergers, possibly higher on the spectrum than I am. 

2) One of my assistant managers was a complete charm. Well before he got onto the topic of selling with many many customers, he would ask quite open, sometimes personal questions. These questions are things I would never dream of asking, but he got rapport much more easily and it felt much less like a sales conversation and much more like a neural typical conversation. This was one of many moments when I realised I didn't have or hear conversations the same way as others do. 

The training I'd had, the years of exposure to many different people from different backgrounds has made me competent at holding a conversation with others, but I find it phisically and mentally draining. There are only a handful of people who I can genuinely relax with when talking, for the most part, my conversations are transactional. I listen, I understand, I respond when it's my turn. This isn't to say I don't have meaningful conversations, I do, I learn a lot from discussing things with other people, but they're almost always hard work. Given the choice, I would much rather not have any of them. If someone is emotional, I do my best to understand and empathise, but it's never natural, I empathise because I think it's the right thing to do, not because I connect with the other person talking to me or really know how they're feeling. Having said all of that, I am frequently in tears watching programs like 'A Typical', where the main protagonist is an Aspergers sufferer, I can relate to his confusion, his struggling to understand, and I do feel genuine empathy for his plight. Although I really struggle to remember the character names. 

So, is being adept at conversation for an Aspergers sufferer a good thing? Is retail training something others might benefit from? Well it's a double edged sword. Yes, I can converse with others, without it feeling awkward; for them, I can hide my social awkwardness more often than not. But it's always difficult, it's always energy and concentration at a level that perhaps means I end up drained, I do frequently say what I actually think and many people assume that's my sense of humour, and while some of the time it is, it's frequently not sarcasm. The black and white thinker can often have some extreme opinions and beliefs. I can find it so hard sometimes that the physiological changes albeit rarely, result in hot flushes, sweats, palpitations and shortness of breath and that's tough to hide.