Would you resent a colleague who has this ‘privilege’

[Resentedpumpkin]

Which is actually a reasonable adjustment?

Asd and adhd plus ME - I’m needing more and more breaks due to ASD and avoiding shutdown. It’s been agreed on my return after 2 weeks off (shutdown and selective mutism) . So now when it gets too much I’m able to log off (if WFH) or leave my desk for up to 30 mins as many times as needed per day.

it’s been once or twice a day but yesterday happened 4 times (10 mins, 30 mins, 25 mins and 5 mins)

Had some sarcastic and off remarks about it from others and now just feeling shit and embarrassed. Everyone is aware of my conditions so it’s not like they don’t know

That is fair, but I wish people would resent the manager instead - which is why I keep banging on about it!

I hate the idea that OP could feel pressured into dropping breaks or giving up her work. There are so many barriers to working with a disability. Imagine having it on your conscience that you'd pushed someone vulnerable out of the workforce for the sake of not much more than an hour's break the week after she's been off sick.

Go for the manager!

Thanks, I’m not an expert in this area or even that knowledgeable. But even after reading this, unless I’m really not getting it, does seem to be along the lines of
’removing barriers’ for people with different needs so that they can do the job.
It is not substantially reducing the job.

Or maybe people can help me out, is this totally wrong?

It's not Op's job to deal with workload of colleagues. It's on manager. If colleagues feel they are have unreasonable amount of work, they can talk to manger / employee. Stop making this Op's responsibility. Another poster suggested Op change her job, why should Op.

@Resentedpumpkin please take care of your health and do not let people stress you about your so called privileges. If breaks given to you are not fair, then can single men or men without kids can also complain about women getting maternity leaves. After all that impacts workload of other colleagues or hiring of a maternity cover disrupts the flow of work. It's shocking a forum like mumsnet.com have posters justifying resentment to you by other colleagues. So sad we have such double standards here.

Don't let them get to you OP. It's none of their business. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest!

My son has asd/adhd and had a movement pass to leave lesson when needed but it was for something like 5 mins. 30 mins multiple times a day seems like a long time.

Agree completely, if OP had posted that she had hyperemesis gravidarum during pregnancy and a young male colleague was making snarky comments about her needing more breaks even though her employer had agreed to reasonable adjustments 99% of posters would be outraged. There wouldn't be talk of her doing overtime to make up for it or reducing her contract to a 0.8FTE whilst pregnant so as to not be unfair to men who don't have the privilege of morning sickness...

If you are getting your work done - fine.

If you are not doing as much work perhaps you could ask for any time off (over half an hour) to not be paid.

I don't think that's a good idea.

This is a short-term arrangement. OP was on sick leave last week. This arrangement is for eight weeks only.

Our HR department (and payroll) would be horrified at the idea of docking pay from a colleague returning from disability related absence while they returned to full health. HR would want to know if OP would be better off financially on sick leave; what precedents we were creating for other conditions and disabilities; and what contractual details would need to be changed for eight weeks; what systems (that would not disadvantage OP) were in place for monitoring everybody's breaks; whether everyone was equally productive over x hours per day ...

Payroll would just hate the unnecessary complication, and rightly so.

Arranging for an employee with disability related absence to pace their return to work is normal and sane practice. Nobody should be guilting the OP by suggesting she should take a pay cut. It would be way more trouble to the company than it is worth, OP.

Disgusted at so many comments here.

I have the same problems, plus a load of others. The atmosphere at work would be counterproductive to my recovery. I know this for a fact because I've been going through something similar. I'm reacting similarly. I'm absolutely burnt out.

As for the delightful poster who said anxiety is not an illness but a reaction to something, congratulations on being a wrong, and ableist insert whichever four letter derogatory name you prefer.

As far as I'm aware depression can be reactive or endogenous (i.e. non-reactive). It can be caused by your life circumstances or it can have no relationship to them whatsoever. Not sure if anxiety works in the same way but they're both definitely disabilities either way if they persist for any significant amount of time.

Agreed. My daught has anxiety as part of her autoimmune disease Graves. I reduce as many stresses as possible however it very much is a disease

Because quite obviously, if someone is doing the same job getting paid x amount for y hours and OP is getting x amount for y-1(or whatever that day) hours then that would irritate people.

Like I said I know she needs the adjustments. Just trying to explain why her colleagues might think it is a 'privilege' answering the question.

Not sure why you think this has any relation to benefits or single mums? The question was about how her colleagues perceive her adjustments. I stated what I imagine is the issue.

It is exactly the same as children in my classroom, some get to have iPads to work on, that is a reasonable adjustment for them. The other children get irritated that x gets to go on an iPad. They can have it explained a hundred times it is an adjustment to help x work but they will still see it as unfair. The situation doesn't change by them feeling that way x still needs the iPad, but that is why there is a bit of resentment between x and y.

My point is that the adjustment doesn't affect the team. I am commenting because it was a broad sweeping and lazy prejudice

it’s a shame because more information from the op would have guided the debate more productively

PP does have a point…. the job itself is important because some really do not lend themselves to employees taking multiple breaks with no notice ie the emergency call handler example

also quite clearly these adjustments aren’t helping the Op as the need for them is increasing rather than decreasing. So perhaps her colleagues are worried about whether there are any parameters around this adjustment or whether just liable to continue to increase

and the absence of this information has meant that anyone posing questions has been bellowed at as being disabilist

That's not how adjustments work.

I would much rather you did this if you were in my team than lots of time off.
I also am not bothered on the number of hours anyone works, I just need the job done on time and correctly. Always peaks and troughs with this.

People who clock watch their team members obviously aren’t busy?!? I can see it might be frustrating if other people rely on you to do something for them to complete their work, but a reasonable manager would have processes in place to ensure there isn’t this type of bottleneck.

You wouldn’t resent a disabled person who has reasonable adjustments if she worked later, even though they have said their workplace has told them they don’t need to do that because of the extra stress? Do you think disabled people should sacrifice their lunch so that you feel better because , because of their disabilities, they need to take a bit of time out during the day. So when are they supposed to eat their lunch and get a proper break away from the office? You really haven’t got a clue. Have you understood absolutely nothing of the OP diffficulties and how hard it is for her?

The adjustment affecting the team is a management issue, not the person having the reasonable adjustment.

@Lymq we don't know if the adjustments affect the rest of the team, the OP has never responded to that question

@LauderSyme no it’s not a presumptuous mischaracterision of you and I was actually similar wondering how both NT and ND workers work together.

Even now on this thread a ND poster is getting a hard time but then are many NT people who’ve known people to get on with it and mask, yes that’s a generational thing.

@roughlyexactlythesame again many people with disabilities do and have to work my DB with chronic asthma for one. No one is ever saying that because you’re disabled you can’t work, more companies are getting on board employing people with disabilities and making reasonable adjustments for them too, as it should be. But dire management (which can eventually seem like it’s managing out someone with a disability) is rife in the workplace.

Exactly @velvetoptions

We need more information from the OP before we can make an informed judgement. Either her colleague are disablist bullies with a vendetta against the OP, or they’re struggling to pick up the additional work this decision by management (and others?) has resulted in and which hasn’t been addressed, and are concerned that it’s just going to increase. Or something in between.

The issue with this debate is that a lot of posters are working off the assumption that OP having these additional breaks is causing her colleagues workload to increase. We don't know if that is the case or not-it could be-and that could be creating friction in the workplace.

However, it could equally be true that OP's work is "self-contained" which means she has her own caseload that she works independently of others and they do the same. Thus, so long as her work is getting done-there's no added strain to the rest of the team.

There are people who will get resentful of people having anything they deem a "privilege" even though it's their legal right to seek it and be granted it-just because they don't have it themselves. Even though, if they needed it, they could apply and be granted it, too.

Some people are just like that. Spend too much time focusing on what others are getting and trying to weigh it up to make themselves seem hard done by.

Any additional strain to the team ought to be raised through management, not by making snarky remarks to the OP. It's not her fault if the manager has, erm, mismanaged the adjustment.

Which they should raise through management, not through snide remarks to the OP.

So, either way, they are being bullies by picking on someone who requires an adjustment and blaming her for their potential workload increasing-rather than raising their concerns through management.

Whichever way you cut it, the colleagues are nasty people.

It would be great if OP told us if her situation is causing extra work for others.

As I said before it’s complex, they either keep OP’s reasonable adjustments in place and if less work from her look to employing someone to pick up the slack. But not all managers think this way.

it is as though she decided to ask the question but resolutely refused to answer any question that may actually allow for a reasoned discussion