[roenxi]

> I think if a person like this is struggling to find work, but the donkeys who code my government's dysfunctional websites are all fully employed...

It's effective to apply a filter of eccentric vs predictable on these sort of matters. The issue isn't so much whether someone is capable or not, but whether they fit into one of the standard boxes the bureaucracy has prepared. And to make it even worse, managers don't have the skill or inclination to try and make the best of the specific person who they employ. They generally have an approach that they've worked out based on the average of people who they have managed. If they get an employee who falls too far outside that range they may literally not know what to do. Usually at that point they will decide that they are dealing with a deviant and the problem must inherently be the deviance.

It's an unfortunate situation. Particularly if you're the sort of person who cares about getting to the best outcome and you realise how many geniuses must get shut down when the best way isn't the usual one. In practice incompetent but routine gets a lot more tolerance than competent but eccentric. Someone needs to be very competent indeed to overcome eccentricity.