AIBU to think dismissal during probation was unfair given autism adjustments?

OP, it’s you that isn’t helping your situation. If you were anything like this at work, it’s astonishing that they put up with you for any time at all.

You wonder why you were let go!

I would like just to add. I’ve been up half the night worrying that I’ve been recorded without my permission and that these recordings are god knows where. I do recognise that I am spiralling because of my trauma, but it’s not some wee slip up what the op has done. It has real life consequences for other people.

They accommodated you by extending your probation. Probation is often three months so you were given a very good trial. You do not meet their requirements.

Appeal if you want but I sense part of your problem could be stubborn refusal to accept a directive.

I think the op is skirting over the conduct issue, to be honest.

I’ve had times when being recorded without my permission, and not knowing where that recording went and who had it, would have seriously damaged my mental health.

As much as the op he reasonable adjustments in place, she was still responsible for a data protection breach. Everyone else on the call had their personal data rights infringed. And, depending on where she stored it, it may not have been stored according to policy. Which is also a breach. As is not adhering to the data retention policies.

finally, there is likely to have been proprietary and/or confidential information discussed in the call that the business now has no idea where it is held and how long it will be retained for.

That isnt the sort of breach of policy that most organisations will just skate over, and the op’s refusal to apologise for that is a fairly big deal.

Edit to add. The op wouldnt necessarily know who has reasonable adjustments that mean they can’t be recorded. Im also autistic so I do understand the challenges, but if the call was being recorded anyway, why did the op need to record it herself? But I don’t have to reveal to all and sundry that I can’t be recorded. That is my personal private information and the world and his wife isnt entitled to know that. It’s supposed to be enough in a professional setting to have a policy around recording. Which will take all parties into account.

Perfectly put.

Those ‘reasonable adjustments’ came across as producing more work for the employer. Take it as a sign that it isnt a good fit for you and look elsewhere. All the best.

OP, I’m sorry this didn’t work out but I would move on. Employers are not expected to implement every possible adjustment that would assist you.

Just those that are doable and reasonable.

They tried, you tried and it didn’t work out.

You’re focusing on the micro and technicalities instead of the bigger picture i.e. probation is for them to decide if you are a good fit and for you to decide if they are.

When it’s the right post, ‘passing’ becomes a formality and you will with flying colours.

Here it seems you struggled with some things and despite them trying with what was reasonably within their control, that didn’t help.

Workplaces are busy. As someone else said, colleagues are not twiddling their thumbs and don’t have time to carry team members or write written instructions for everything.

If you weren’t able to sink or swim in 9 months without a lot more support, which likely they didn’t have resource to provide, it maybe wasn’t the right post.

Think about the aspects you did well in, and liked and apply for jobs in those areas. Don’t lose heart either, there are many jobs that wouldn’t be ideal for all of us, so its no reflection on you or them, but to answer your original Q, do I think you suffered unlawful disability discrimination, no.

How would you translate this into practical advice for op? And what is the poor advice on the thread? Did you see op also faced conduct issues, not just capability?

Read the ACAS website and watch webinars on employment law changes that are coming up next year and always read organisations performance policies.

I'm neurodivergent. You need to demonstrate proactivity in problem solving, at a higher rate than neurotypical people. Never come just with problems, always come with solutions even when it relates to your own adjustments.

:

Clear written instructions - write your own process notes as you go for different tasks

Defined objectives - ask would success look like in this activity / present a brief plan / make sure your objectives are SMART.

If unclear, achieve one step then get feedback, before moving to the next step. Make each step / chunk of work visible. Share the work in progress / draft (very painful for a neurodivergent person I know!)

Examples of similar work - start to build a professional network, go on workshops, attend webinars, ask for shadowing opportunities, ask chat GPT / Google or look on LinkedIn

Timelines - create your own, share them to sense check, ask what the expectation is

Timely/direct feedback - ask for it / create a Microsoft Forms survey / follow it up / tell people that you're happy with direct feedback / ask for a coffee to chat about any feedback and how you are developing and want to develop / clarify (do you mean in that situation I should have done X / or do you mean that overall you'd like to see me do more of X)

Ask what the purpose of a meeting is in advance. If expected to contribute and not been briefed, ask to send written contributions afterwards.

Take short courses in Influencing skills.

Continue with a neurodivergent coach.

Consider Access to Work when you start somewhere new.

I think many of your requests are basic things a manager should do, or working style preferences. Focus on the next thing because you may be surprised how much you've learned in this role - think of this whole period as being about learning.

Let it go and move on. Don’t ruminate, just find another job.

Oh. Lots of ableism on this thread, that's nice <Sarcasm>.

OP, I was in a similar situation to you - I was sacked during my probation for having a (different) disability that they could have accommodated with some quite basic equipment, (funding was even available for it) but they didn't want to. 20 years later I realise I am probably AuDHD and that this may have had an impact on their decision that essentially my face didn't fit. I chose not to fight it but to move on. It sucks, but the reality of employment tribunals and fighting for it to be considered as disability discrimination is that the law is geared up to support employers, not (ex) employees, and it would be very stressful without likelihood of a good outcome for you to go through it. I know it's an injustice and that's awful, but I don't think any good will come of fighting it.

There are workplaces that attract neurodiverse people, and I have accidentally fallen into one of those and I've been happily here 14 years now.

I haven’t read the full thread so apologies if I’m repeating what others may have mentioned. There is some really poor advice on this thread. And what feels like a real lack of desire to understand the world from the perspective of someone who may not be neurotypical. The Equality Act 2010 places a legal obligation on employers to make reasonable adjustments for colleagues with conditions that put them at a disadvantage, such as disabilities. There are many good employers who search for clarity on their obligations here and will do their best to support disabled workers. As a Society we want people to be in employment rather than doing nothing. There is an obligation on all of us to begin to challenge our own assumptions in the workplace and change practices that deliberately exclude people with disabilities by being inaccessible.

Honestly as an employer this will be blunt and many will agree but keep quiet as it’s not PC, I’ll say it anyways.

All additional adjustments and requests are a massive extra hassle for employers to remember. It’s an extra workload they don’t have time for or want to do - written instructions etc take time, complaining when we don’t do it correctly is an extra headache we don’t need. I could go on but you get the picture. Small companies especially don’t have the capacity to cater for it.

This is a workplace and though they have a duty of care to employees it is not the same as the duty of care a university has to students - so you mate have got used to being accommodated in all the precise ways that make it possible for you to achieve well at uni. But now this is real world, where you are an employee and the overarching objective is to get the job done. Other people are busy and cannot prioritise your disability needs over the word and responsibilities elsewhere. Your requests may seem reasonable to you but they are onerous and require labour that someone is doing in addition to the other aspects of their role. It would be better to find a job and move on than to continue with this .

Honestly, sometimes I do want to say to (some) other autistic people, "for fuck's sake, play the game a bit!" But sometimes even if you're willing to, you can't, because you're just too autistic! It is tough. And there are studies about how people form an instant subconscious dislike of autistic people based upon very subtle traits and signals. Because I DO try to play the game and I DON'T have a victim mentality, I try to make a bit of a game of it and think, "right, how can I try to hack this situation to get on this person's good side/make them feel at ease etc" But it's bloody hard.

I'm really the opposite of a victim mentality person, but I appreciate that you don't know the ins and outs of my life and it would be a bit weird for me to broadcast them, so I'll leave it there. The problem from my POV is that when people in general seem to be suggesting that X group is unemployable (save for, supposedly, shortage-sector manual labour jobs, which, again, I have done quite a few times) but also aghast at the idea of said people being out of work on benefits, you do get to a point where you wonder what on earth X group is supposed to do. Pigheadedness, feebleness etc are not traits of autism any more than they are of non-autistic people - people just have different temperaments even within groups and diagnoses. There are lots of autistic people who I do think have a victim mindset and an unwillingness to "play the game" - but lambasting those people for their shortcomings doesn't solve the actual issue.

Me mentioning collecting trolleys up above reminded me of my first job which was in a supermarket. I worked on the checkouts and did some cleaning.

I would have liked (in the summer) to work on the trolleys, out in the sun, but was not allowed to.

The job involved pushing long lines of them up a long ramp, so went to only the staff who were physically strong and junior, which turned out to always be the teen boys.

Perhaps I ought to have raged at the unfairness of it all. Perhaps I could have asked for someone to be assigned to help me push them up the slope. Perhaps I could have asked to be allowed to operate at half of the capacity of the people currently doing it, or for the shop to invest in lightweight carbon fibre trolleys.

One of the joys of social media is that people have a platform to talk about the groups they hate, so women are threatened with rape and migrants with being burnt out of their homes, which reflects real life facts of women being raped and migrants being burnt out of their homes...

I haven't come across any demands for autistic people to be kicked out of the work place, or forced to do manual work - cleaning shit off the ground is how you described it. No one is taking your job off you, unless you're as unsuitable for it as the OP is for hers.

People don't hate all autistic people and want them to die. I'd say everyone knows autistic people, from their family, workplace or their kids school. Not even Tommy Robinson seems to hate autistic peoole, and he hates pretty much everyone who's not exactly like him.

It does feel that you're playing victim Olympics, and that has no winners.

I'm sure plenty of people do feel that way. I haven't pinned it on a particular individual or group. But of course some people feel that way.

I don't think there is any insistence that employers do all of the adapting, or indeed any. As I say, I have never disclosed autism or asked for reasonable adjustments - where I have found a role or a company unsuitable I have just given notice and worked out my notice in a professional and conscientious way before looking for a new role in a different sector. No entitlement, no nothing, just trying to avoid aggro. But I really do think that asking for adjustments for autism would be like waving a big flag saying "please pathologise my every action and manage me out!"

Unpleasant generalisations such as:

I actually think lots of people would rather autistic people just died, but they can't say that. Well, they can. They just don't.

That sort of unpleasant generalisation, do you mean?

Honestly I really think:

• don't ever ask for reasonable adjustments for autism, and don't disclose autism unless you absolutely have to.
• change companies, if not sectors, loooong before it gets to this point.
• don't be pigheaded.
• remember the workplace dynamic is not a uni dynamic.

My point is that not encouraging autistic people to adapt WITHIN their capabilities (because it's ableist), instead demanding all the adaptation be done by employers, is not reasonable and is doing autistic people a disservice.

Almost every post has referred back to the OP. If anything you've been the one making sweeping generalisations about NT people wanting autistic people dead.

From what the OP has written and her replies, it's pretty obvious she can't do the job, whether due to autism or something else. You don't deliberately record a meeting without asking permission because you're autistic. You don't refuse to apologise for that gross misconduct because you're autistic.