Empathy?

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Today at work, I was really thirsty and wishing I could have a bottle of water under the counter to drink instead of having to get permission to leave my register to get a drink.
This got me thinking about the reason we aren't allowed to have anything to drink where a customer might see us- it would apparently come off as unprofessional or rude.

Now, if I was in a store, and I saw a cashier reach under the counter and grab a bottle of water and take a drink, I'd think "She must be thirsty, it's pretty dry in here and she has to talk to alot of people." That's all.

It confuses me because I assume that most company policies are based on NT reactions, and Aspies supposedly lack empathy, while NTs are supposed to be empathetic, but it seems to me that expecting someone to go hours without anything to drink is not showing much empathy.

Thinking more about empathy, if I see someone whose hairstyle or jewelry is unusual in a way that does not appeal to me, I just assume there must be a reason for it, and that people make choices about their appearance based on personal aesthetics or what is considered attractive by people they want to attract. However, I've encountered many people who seemed NT who would assume I dyed my hair purple because I wanted attention, or that I was irresponsible, on drugs, or some other negative thing. It seems difficult for most people to understand that different people have different aesthetics, different values, etc. I might be confused about why someone would alter their appearance in a way I find ugly (like spending way too much time in a tanning bed) but it would never occur to me that the person made that choice in hopes of getting negative reactions like mine.

So, is this just my own personal weirdness, or do other people here feel the same way?
Am I just interpreting empathy in an unusual way? How can people be seen as empathetic when they show so little tolerance of variations in human behavior?

You're not running into the differences in empathy, you're running into the differences in herd behavior.

Companies have NO empathy! Banks and financial companies want men to get EXPENSIVE low quality clothes for LOOKS!(Thin fabric with single stitching! And it has to be DRY CLEANED!) It has been PROVEN they REDUCE performance! A friend once told me of a plight, and I told him THE secret to make him more comfortable, reduce downtime, and prevent SEVERE injuries that have NO reliable cure. His response? His employer won't let him take a minor break, and THEY are an HMO! UNREAL! They would rather pay THOUSANDS in a few years, injure an employee, and LOSE him, than SAVE the money now, save MORE later, and KEEP a healthy employee! They just think his working longer means more work. AGAIN, it has been proven NOT to work that way!

SAD, but TRUE!

Steve

Things like having to "get permission" to get a drink of water is a reason why I have no plans to ever work for anyone again.

boy howdy!

I concider myself very lucky not to have to.

If you've tried to do that in Sweden, you'd as a employer get sued your a** out frankly. Not by the employee, but by the union, and they would have won bigtime.

I don't know what country you live in but most countries have laws regulating work, and in a dehumidified airconditioned air you have to drink regularely to give some relief to your dried out mouth. Especially if you have to be polite to people all the time.

Most of the people I regularly meet in stores have at least one bottle of water to sip from, and I don't talk "desert" here, but it's nessecary to keep the body up and working! It also keeps the amount of unscheduled breaks to a minimum so It's just pure swedish effectiviness.

You need to drink regularly, that one needs permission to drink is inhuman, but the economy is like that, hope I never have to do this kind of job

There are more and more places that allow bottles of water at registers. My husband works for a very popular grocery store chain and they all allow water bottles. The managers also often allow some of the "spoils" (unsellable food) to be opened and consumed in the break room, which is great for people with blood sugar problems (it curbs stealing too).
Water fountains make me thirsty.

I have empathy when the time is right.

I suspect that many Aspies are very empathic because of ego boundary issues. One of the common traits of full-blown autism is a lack of ability to separate "this is what I am thinking" from "this is what he/she is thinking". This creates the inability to communicate because, well, why bother talking about it?

For Aspies with a better handle on reality, it may flow the other way. If we see some simple, obvious reaction to pain, thirst, or other physical stimuli, we react as if it were our own. I for one am very prone to sympathetic pain, and will ask my co-workers if they need help when they don't look right.

These are just my personal theories, except for the part about autism and ego boundaries, which is documented.