Why are accommodations for autistic people often seen as unfair?

[YourPoisedFinch]

In my last job, I received some accommodations and explained them to colleagues when they asked why I was coming in late. Instead of understanding, they accused me of fraud and faking my condition to get special treatment. This isn’t just my experience—many people with mental health conditions and other invisible disabilities face similar challenges. They’re either not believed and resented for receiving accommodations or believed but then negatively stereotyped.

It’s pure ignorance and disablism

It existed but people pretty much did get on with it.

I'm Autistic. Aspergers specifically.You wouldn't guess. On the surface I'm sociable but actually hate socialising outside a chat at work.

I also have ADHD. This is very obvious to people around me.

Anyway. I also take sertraline as I struggle with anxiety and irritability as I can't cope with things out if routine & I suffer with sensory overload.

I also strongly feel that I expect people to understand that I'm chaotic and I tire easily but I also think I'm paid to do a job and therefore I should get on and do it. I have a colleague who is perpetually off work as she has absolutely zero resilience. Frankly I think it's ridiculous.

‘Struggling with childcare’ is NOT a disability!
Seriously?

Head. Bang. Wall. I’m out of this thread. It’s one of the most ignorant and ableist I’ve seen for a long time. Genuinely disabled people are being kicked off benefits and back into work - mainly because piss takers have ballooned the benefit budget. Now we have piss takers wanting the same adjustments given to help disabled people find and keep employment - for reasons that really should have been left behind in the school playground. My five year old grandson has a better grasp of, and is more empathetic towards his disabled peers than many posters here. I give up

Also, in your average office we all have something going on:

Barbara has arthritis
Zoe is a carer for her Mum woth Dementia
James has a son with cerebral palsy
Charlotte is Autistic
Angela struggles with depression
Kate has endometriosis and doesn't function well 4 days a month
Chris is going through IVF
Alex has a husband who has just been diagnosed with a chronic illness
Hayley has an adopted child who is a school refuser

Get the idea? We all need allowances but the office wouldn't function if everyone had allowances beyond what is reasonable and fair.

A partially sighted person who needs physical adjustments or someone with MS needing accessible entrances is very different fir example.

A reasonable Adjustment or an accommodation is not given out' willy nilly' in my experience.
The adjustment must meet the needs of the service as well as the individual.

I have M.S and have an accommodation.

This must meet the needs of the service not the bloody needs of my co-workers who ask why I am not in a fuckin wheelchair😡

Eh???
So you’re saying that not being able to manage your own childcare and get to work on time, is equal to having a disability and needing appropriate reasonable adjustments?

I think it’s mad that people still think someone having no resilience is “ridiculous”. There’s always a reason behind it.

If people “got on with it” without being detained in institutions, then they did so with great difficulty. These people were often ridiculed, tormented, abused and left to suffer, most likely dying well before the average life expectancy of the time.

As an autistic person, surely you understand and appreciate it is a very wide spectrum. Some people with autism/Asperger’s or however they like to identify can cope very well in the workplace, have high-flying jobs, can cope socially and need little support with day to day life.

Other people with autism will never be able to live independently and will need 24/7 care in supported living or hospitals. And then some other people will sit at varying places in between. You know, because it’s such a wide spectrum and not a “one size fits all”. It’s literally in the name. Autism SPECTRUM disorder.

I have a colleague who is perpetually off work as she has absolutely zero resilience. Frankly I think it's ridiculous.

Frankly, I think this is an incredibly ignorant and nasty statement. You should be ashamed of yourself for speaking about a colleague who you have absolutely no idea what struggles and trauma they may be facing. What a disgusting view to hold.

I’m saying the exact opposite of that.

I don’t understand - are you aiming this at me?
im totally agreeing with you!

I was commenting to the ableist person who was stupidly saying that childcare struggles are the same as disabilities!

Autism definitely isn't invisible when it comes to people immediately identifying and treating us as weirdos. We're only making up being different when it comes to adjustments.

I don't disagree (I work in medicine, I understand psychology and trauma)

However, if you lack resilience there a comes a point that you need to address your issues. If you are constantly off work because you can't cope with having a cold, then it's your stress levels because you are behind at work because you are never there.... then there is a problem.

I wholeheartedly support the need to accommodate people that have extra needs. What makes me cross os that the support and empathy isn't there for the people that genuinely need it because its been used up on the flakey and those that don't help themselves.

So was I!

Think perhaps you meant to quote the orignal person who said about childcare struggles but in error, quoted me.

I think it’s about 1 in 7 people in the UK.

it is a significant number of people - and many of
the adjustments required to help people are very straightforward for employers and schools. The rewards are massive.

Ah, right. I thought it was odd !! But if you have a look at your post, you’ve quoted mine so it looks as it looks as though that’s the one you’re responding to.

I’m sure that has greatly advanced the cause of acceptance and accommodation.

Sorry - l tagged you because l was agreeing with you. Should have made that clearer - apologies.

It makes me really sad reading a lot of answers here. Both of my DC have neurodivergent conditions. DS1 is autistic has severe social anxiety and despite being clever is never going to reach his potential and at the moment is struggling to even engage in looking for a job. He is going to struggle to live a normal life, have relationships, function in terms of living independently and yet it sounds like people would prefer that he continues to sit in his bedroom for the rest of his life instead of contributing to society, paying taxes and generally having a better quality of life for the sake of some accommodations that might mean he attends work slightly less hours....really?

DS2 is dyspraxic and has ADD, socially he is fine but he is likely to have different struggles when he graduates due to issues with his executive disfunction.

Do people really want to sit and bleat about how unfair it is when employers are good enough to give opportunities to people who have a lot to offer?

I've worked since I was 16, I've now paid 42 years worth of taxes and NI, No-one wants to work with folk that are lazy and take the piss but we need people capable of working to be working even if that means they get support to do that.

I'd also note that certainly in my DSs case, a lower wage for reduced working would be fine, but we need to get away from simple clock watching and presenteeism to actually measuring what people are contributing to the workplace. There are also many many jobs where people will be on a whole range of pay for the same job which is supposed to reflect experience and competence rather than getting a set £x per hour.

If we as a society want more people to be working and not claiming benefits then we have to help facilitate that but it’s hard to know where the line is - I’ve had some very traumatic life events that have made going to work really challenging at times. Some of the adjustments mentioned would have really helped me and I definitely experienced things other posters speak of like burnout where I would literally go home and crawl into bed and struggled to be around people. None of this was my fault any more than someone’s disability is theirs but adjustments weren’t available to me, I just had to suck it up. Not saying that is right either but how far can we reasonably be expected to accommodate everyone’s different needs?

Again. The op asked. “Why it’s seen as unfair”. I have not said it’s unfair at any point. I’ve said if badly managed it’s seen as unfair!

'None of this was my fault any more than someone’s disability is theirs but adjustments weren’t available to me, I just had to suck it up.'

Did you ask? Or were you too busy 'sucking it up'?

I think it's also important to note that for many employers, they're not that reasonable.

You're really lucky if you can say "hey, I am diagnosed with X, and I need Y to continue working to the best of my abilities, can we sit down and talk about reasonable adjustments" and they say "of course, we will implement XYZ ASAP"

It's really not like that with many employers.

I've had to have countless meetings where they come in and objection handle, blame you, make you recite ridiculous scripts about how what you're asking for is going to negatively impact everyone (even though in my case it was a contact centre that employed thousands so really wouldn't have made a difference), make you feel immense guilt, meetings, requests for highly personal information, fannying about delaying any requests for an occupational health meeting because they don't want to pay the fee, absence meetings if you have to take time off due to your disability and because of their inaction, the added sickness that comes with the stress of having to simply fight for your right to have reasonable adjustments at work, and often the additional fees of seeking legal advice.

In my first position I needed a specialised chair and a desk that could stand or sit due to a clotting condition I have that has nearly killed me. I jumped through all the hoops, got access to work funding, passed on the relevant information to my employer and I still never got that equipment. I was employed by them for 6 years. It really should have been sorted within months. Instead I kept redoing my access to work application and they kept on dillydallying about getting anything sorted.

In my second job I needed reduced hours because of my disability but couldn't because others already had reduced hours for childcare purposes, and had to get all the way through the appeals process before they conceded that there was more that they could do as a multi-national organisation to accomodate my disability, but still sanctioned me when all became too much to cope with full time in the interim.

So if a colleague does get reasonable adjustments made for them to level the playing field, don't just assume they've been given to them on a silver platter because the chances are they haven't. There's a lot many employers will say is too unreasonable when actually the requests are very reasonable.

Disabled colleagues don't need envy making their working days harder.

I am curious how these hours help your autism? Not judging- I have the same accomodation for a hidden physical disability that means I need a seat on public transport. It's an issue in the morning but not the evening as I'm returning from the end of the line. I have felt some employers were resentful of the request in the past but at my current work we all have flexible working and anyone can start at 10 so it's a level playing field and wonderful.

If it was a sensory crowding/ noise issue I assume the crowd levels at 6 wouldn't be any better? Is it a time blindness issue? If the latter I can't see that it would make much difference changing one deadline for another?

The reason some people see accommodations as unfair is because of the extent to which some people take the piss now.

Details changed for obvious reasons, but I had a patient who was on medication for moderate anxiety - no other diagnoses - and wanted a doctors note to say she could go to the front of the queue at Starbucks because queues made her anxious. It’s attitudes like that that make life harder for the people who genuinely need accommodations in order to work.