So I've got this female co-worker, let's call her Christina. She's Vietnamese and appears to have some form of high functioning autism (probably undiagnosed, but has eye contact issues, trouble with social cues, obsessive about certain things etc.) She's a contractor who was hired by another dept but she pissed off the boss there and got shunted around departments until she ended up on my team.

I've got a high pressure kind of job (I run the verification team) and quickly learn why her old boss got rid of her. She asks too many questions. Not just "I'm new at this, give me some pointers" type questions, but really detailed "Should I use this shade of blue for the form or this one" type questions. Questions someone at her level of education and experience shouldn't be asking.

Still, she's on my team and clearly brilliant, so I patiently guide her through the process and within a week she's doing a pretty good job. It goes along like that until two weeks ago they announced that a round of redundancies. I got a letter telling me that I'm being let go end of the month once the project was done. I was expecting it, it happens.

Anyway, the announcement hit Christina pretty hard. Seems like her autism issues interfere with her ability to network effectively, so she worries about how she'll find her next job after this one (they always fire contractors without notice and always before staff like me). Seems her issues with her old boss aren't unique to him and she's getting blackballed at other firms around town.

Anyway, she starts trying to get friendly with the bosses as they've got gigs lined up after and getting nowhere. She's basically a laughing stock at this point and angling for a job with these guys is beyond futile.

Like I said, nothing wrong with her work, but her social awkwardness is just that bad. It doesn't help that she has a very... Southern accent which is unusual around here and I've heard people describe it as grating.

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