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

There's a lot of misunderstanding of what "reasonable adjustments" means; it doesn't mean you can change the entire role or make your employer do things that go against laws or internal policies for example (allowing employees to secretly record other colleagues for example!) But it sounds like maybe this employer over-promised at the interview stage what could be done. I think ACAS would be the ones to advise. There's been some helpful answers upthread as to other professional areas you could try and how to take the feedback on board to hopefully help you in the future.

It's hard to imagine any other marginalised group being told "no, no one is discriminating against you, you just deserve it". And actually, my life is good, I get on with people, I perform well at my job, I have nice friends, all fine thanks. If you assume I'm speaking from a place of bitterness or entitlement, you're way off the mark. I just don't think autistic people deserve to be blamed for the discrimination they receive, because at this point the thread is less and less about what the OP should have done better and more and more full of really unpleasant generalisations.

No one is "owed" a job. It's about keeping people in work and the economy functioning. For what it's worth I think most people - NT and ND - have really low resilience but I don't think the solution is for them to buck up their ideas en masse

Why does the workplace need to adapt? Autistic people aren't owed a particular job just because they want it. Nor are NT people.

Hyperbole off the scale now.

I'm not really sure how to respond to this because there's so much strawmanning - you've assimilated me with a stereotype you hold that I don't conform to. Lots of really unpleasant stereotypes and snipes in your response.

This is ridiculous victim-playing

Such as?

You have read her other threads?

I agree with this. I think an exacerbating factor is that often people who don't have those 'soft skills' (which might include, but is in no way limited to, autistic people) really don't value or see the point of them. You see this a lot, e.g. absolute disdain at the idea that anyone advances at work for getting along with people well rather than just getting 'the work' done well - but actually, in lots of roles getting along with people is some of the work. But because people then see the soft skills as meaningless, pointless or even a sign of someone being less capable intellectually, they then see no problem with not having them even if the job requires it. There are exceptions (some recounted on this thread!) but almost everyone agrees you can't be an innumerate accountant, but lots of people think you can be an account manager with no social skills because they think the world shouldn't value social skills at work.

I think your response here is really telling.

You are angry that people who don't have the required skills to do a job are not keeping the jobs. Because you are putting the focus on a person with autism being able to do and have whatever they want and stuff everyone else. Presumable because you also have autism, and feel you should be able to do whatever you want.

If someone does not have the skills or capability to do a job, why should they be given the job anyway? Should someone who uses a wheelchair be given a job as a firefighter if they want it, even if they can't physically enter a burning building? What is the point of employing someone to be a firefighter? That doesn't mean someone who uses a wheelchair can't have a job and that 'society hates them', but that they can't do that job and need to find something else they can do.

You need to look at why you think autistic people should be exempt from the rules and restrictions that govern everyone else

I can think of many jobs. Reading the OP’s posts though I think those are about her level.

I’ve mentored graduates up to board level jobs in Investment banking, so know all about how to guide someone and help them grow, but am also aware that there are plenty of people with an economics degree who will be doing well to hold down a job collecting trolleys.

If workplaces don't adapt, and autistic people are already adapting beyond their capabilities, what more can be done? 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.

If only she had been articulate enough to use that word…

She seemed to be of limited intelligence, and what intelligence she had was not mathematical.

She claimed to have completed a module in calculus but did not know what differentiation or integration were. I had been told to give her a polite, fair, and thorough second interview to both make sure we were not missing something and to avoid the hassle of lawyers getting involved, so dropped the level of maths question again and again to try to find her level, but never did.

I asked her why she wanted to work in banking if she was not good with numbers and she said she could learn basic numeracy on the job.

She was actually quite nice, but utterly deluded.

I'm maxed out with trying to resemble a vaguely functional human being at work, thanks. AuDHD does that for you. In my case, it also makes me great with data. I'm OK with teaching, I'm fine with training, I'm fine with helping those who don't have the same skills and do not mind in the slightest when various employees can't get to grips with something immediately.

However, there is no way on Earth I'd have the scope to be able to deal with someone who expected me to do 95% of the job for them - including the thinking - and the significant diplomatic efforts I'd have to make to try and smooth things over when they've used incorrect channels, breaching GDPR, potentially putting people or the organisation at risk by releasing a recording, never mind how I suspect I'd be spoken to on a daily basis.

Statistically, the odds are the OP has already been in a workplace with a significant number of current staff that are neurodiverse - Data is like IT and Law/Finance in that respect (and, tbh, I have never met anybody neurotypical working in Data - even if we start somewhere else, we gravitate towards it, usually via conversations with other people who start turning up in IT as well). To be in what is one of the highest density populations of neurodiverse individuals and still piss them off for a) being crap, b) being rude and c) breaking fundamental rules, that's nothing to do with dehumanising, it's to do with not being competent.

The OP sounds like a tricky person to mentor; this PP is just advertising their contempt for autistic people. No reasonable person thinks the only alternative to Big 4 consulting is low-paid manual labour (which, again, I have done many times in many forms, so I don't need disingenuous responses from people who walked into professional roles as school leavers, thanks)

Back in the day, training in social skills for autistic people was considered appropriate and helpful; but now that kind of thing is regarded as ableist. "Masking" is seen as traumatic when it's actually what everyone does to some extent.
Now workplaces are expected to adapt to the condition, rather than the other way around. And here we are.

That’s nonsense and quite unkind to the OP. I’m sure there are plenty of more skilled jobs that the OP can do.

I think the central issue in this case isn't autism per se, but it's good that so many posters are using the thread to advertise their chilling contempt for autistic people. You all do your Big Important Job (you're SO important) and autistic people can what, scrape shit off the street?

You really can't think of anything outside Big 4 consulting besides manual labour?

OP, it's important to see things like "apologising even when you aren't particularly sorry" as a strategy. You will learn as you go, but you need to be willing to learn.

Office cleaning, warehouse work, truck driving, dinner lady.

Something where the task is easy to understand, easy to learn, and repetitive.

I don’t think anything professional that requires interaction with other professionals is going to work.

If they have moved abroad to work without learning the language then they have really messed up.

Never mind arguing, apologising for your own error is basic decency and professionalism. If you don’t see that then I think it proves you’re not right for the role.

Blimey! Was she claiming dyscalculalia (?)

I really do think that asking for reasonable adjustments dooms you to be managed out :/ I think OP hasn't helped herself with how she has handled things, but I really can't imagine asking for reasonable adjustments for autism ever having a happy ending. (fwiw, I've never asked for any, and don't actually disclose autism to employers because I would feel naive in doing so, knowing how extreme the discrimination is).

You need to understand the difference between legal and illegal discrimination, and that discrimination per-se is not a bad thing.

We all discriminate each day, the word just means to choose between.

I was asked to interview a young candidate for my bank’s graduate scheme years ago who had kicked up a stink after being rejected, and who was threatening to sue for “discrimination.”

The discrimination she was alleging was that she was turned down for a trading job for being functionally innumerate.