I despise “track changes” with such a burning passion that it literally raises my blood pressure instantly.
It’s unreadable to me as an autistic person and does not actually help me edit or refine the document at all. I am too irritated and annoyed at the crossed out, multi-color mess on my screen to even process the information.
In case you think I am joking, I just sent out an email to my team for input on some documents and added:
“If you want to suggest edits, please for the love of all the gods, do NOT use track changes, It makes me irrationally furious. I would rather just schedule time to discuss anything you want to change so we can make sure it works with the overall curriculum arc and voice.“
There are a lot of these allegedly helpful functions that are absolutely annoying to neurodivergent employees. If you aren’t neurodivergent, you may not realize how your standard practices actually create a roadblock to communication for them.
I worked for an organization that required I use “track changes” and it literally stalled my productivity. I eventually created a work around to accommodate my own needs by creating a copy that I could turn the stupid thing off on and comparing the suggested changes manually to the original draft. The accommodation that I really needed was just use the comment function and tell me what you want to change and why it needs to be changed.
I need to know why, because I am not a mind reader and if you want something done a certain way, tell me why. Half the time, there is no good reason, it is just some neurotypical need to suggest a change so they look like they are contributing. The other half of the time, there is a reason that needs to be communicated so everyone understands how to do it correctly going forward to avoid needing more stupid, irritating track changes in the future.
When I asked why we used “track changes” I was told it was required. End of discussion. Want to see an autistic person lose all respect for a process? Just tell them it “has always been done that way” and see what happens.
Accommodation isn’t always big, expensive changes to the workplace or even visible action. Sometimes it is as simple as letting people tell you how they work most productively and what their struggles are with current practices and reviewing the “why” of that practice with a willingness to consider changing it.
