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.

You are being ridiculous there. Accommodations have to be made, to talk about being against ramps is absurd but it seems the numbers who feel they need special treatment such as reduced hours swell daily as the culture around this has changed so dramatically. There is no professional pride or resilience anymore, people are becoming very weak. My husbands grandfather lost both legs in ww2 and still returned to teaching afterwards, after he lost his wife he maintained a fully independant life including scrubbing his own kitchen floor with his own hands.
All I was asking was, how far to we go down this road, where do we draw the line?

Can’t answer for the OP, but my autism means I can’t use public transport at busy times. My office is accessible pretty much 24 hours a day, so I just get in early and leave early on office days. But if my office wasn’t physically open until 9, I’d have to get in late.

Why am I being ridiculous? Because disabilities that require wheelchairs are more visible, so those people are allowed adaptations?

If your husband's grandfather could scrub the kitchen floor, does that mean people these days who can't scrub the floor or return to work due to their physical disabilities are weak and lack resilience? Are you going to go into your nearest residential facility for people with disabilities and tell them they just need more resilience and professional pride?

People do complain about adjustments for physically disabled people too, it isn’t only invisible disabilities.
Society does not historically welcome or accept disability. Within living memory disabled people were kept in large institutions out of sight with the added bonus of it being cheaper than individual care or benefits. Some people (and politicians) would prefer this could be achieved now.
Maybe in a hundred years or so things will have improved to the point that others aren’t wanting us to justify any additional needs necessary for our existence.
If the world is still here of course.
That said, I also think that the current trend to claim invisable disabilties without an actual diagnosis and misuse of medical meanings of terms like anxiety, ocd etc is extremely unhelpful to those with genuine disability. Much like the tiny proportion of benefit claimants faking or exaggerating ill health, misuse of these terms encourages the view that we are all liars or simply lack resilience.
Some people don’t seem able to see further than a tabloid headline or somebody telling them about a neighbour with a pretend bad back to accept that the vast majority of disabled people are entirely genuine.

I also think some need to think about the alternative - if no adjustments are made then a lot of people with disabilities will not be working at all. Which people will probably take issue with as well.

I cannot imagine begrudging someone who is disabled in any way having adjustments to help them. Its proper cunt mentality that

i know plenty thanks, also profoundly disabled, and a parent to a profoundly disabled child.

i'm aware the wording is 'reasonable adjustment' but for most outside the disabled working community, they don't really get what a 'reasonable adjustment' is.. its an accommodation for disability.

Get off your high horse.

There is a huge difference though. You implied these accommodations/adjustments have to happen. You must know that that is a gross misrepresentation of the law.

@ChesnutBrown People with ADHD and less complex autism have always worked. But many jobs in the past although physically hard, did not require self motivation or task organising. You sat or stood on a factory production line and you did a simple repetitive task. Or similar.

I don’t think accommodations made by employers to some members of staff should be the business of other members of staff. I don’t care if another employee is allowed to work less hours for the same pay as me.
Unfortunately, due to poor management, these accommodations do sometimes become the business of other members of staff as it negatively affects them.
I worked in a team of two, before WFH become established. The other member of the team was not only allowed to work from home for 90% of the time, but he also didn’t have to take telephone calls at home.
We made complex decisions. His time was ‘golden’ with no interruptions. I was left with all the queries, doubling my interruptions, plus I had to attend all the meetings which we’d previously alternated.
I didn’t blame him, and never expressed my dissatisfaction to him, but it affected my output. I asked my manager for additional resources many times, and eventually took the matter to the union as his performance started to be held as the benchmark for the job.
I am sure that there are some genuinely horrible and jealous people around, but I think many of us feel fortunate not to need accommodations and are only put out when things significantly affect us.

When it comes to making adjustments at work most people are rubber necking cunts who are too busy policing other people when they should be doing their own work.

So you don't think there are any people hamming it up for easier life? None at all?

Because autism is a spectrum disorder and just because your son might be able to cope with travel at peak times because his office environment is quieter doesn't mean the rest of us can cope with that.

I actually coped quite well with a busy office but I self harmed and nearly got sectioned for having a meltdown in public when my train was terminated at an earlier station due to vandalism on the line in peak travel hours as it was too overwhelming to find a new path of transport.

I think such accommodations are "seen as unfair" (I'm not saying I agree with this!) because people see someone else doing the same job as them and finding the same aspects hard to deal with, getting accommodations where they don't.

For example, unable to cope with sensory overload on the shop floor = break times in a different and quieter (ergo more restful, better break) room than everyone else. Unable to cope with rush hour travel, standing in an overcrowded bus the whole way, being jostled by strangers etc = starting 15 mins later and ending 15 mins later to avoid the crush.

Everybody hates dealing with the public in retail, everybody hates rush hour. The difference between "unable to do it" and "hating doing it" is often lost in daily life,, especially when everybody has days where they tell themselves "I just can't do it anymore, I'm going to quit, this is too much". People feel that if they can push through, so should everyone else - and if they can't then the job isn't for them.

I think that there are people who just don't want to understand. It'll be a rare employer who'll pay the same for fewer hours. They're more likely to adjust shift patterns or offer flexibility.

If someone's adjustments are impacting others, then they're not reasonable and it's poor management causing the issue. It's not caused by the disabled employee who has requested reasonable adjustments. Do not accuse them of being the issue, take it to management. Leave the poor fucker who's finally managed to be able to work in the way that they need to succeed alone.

I'd gladly hand over my autism, ADHD and other related conditions and my adjustments if it were possible. I'd love to have a neurotypical brain, even just for one day. It must be so nice to just do stuff without thinking about it.

This race to the bottom, it's not fair, I want one attitude pisses me right off.

Do you think a person struggling caring for an elderly parent, who receives zero flexibility for this, is 'privileged' 😳

Shame on you. Disabled people are NOT the only people with struggles, it's like you think your own struggles will be diminished by acknowledging the struggles of others?!

So, because you think some people might be "hamming it up", what should happen? No adjustments? That takes me back to the point about the wheelchair ramp; someone might be pretending their legs don't work so everyone has to use the stairs?

Where an employee with a disability struggles to commute during a busy time, then Access to Work can provide funding to support them, eg paying for taxis. I would expect employers to assist their employees to apply for this.

www.gov.uk/access-to-work

Could say that about anything though couldn't you - I would still take the adjustments being there for one genuine person to remain in the workforce and have twenty chancers.

It’s true that it’s often bad management but looking at it from the other side, if a company needs something doing eg someone to come in at 9am, but has to make an adjustment for an employee who can’t do that, then it inevitably falls on someone else who doesn’t require adjustments and they just have to suck it up. That’s why people feel it’s unfair.

That assumes taxis are possible for people.

I can use (quiet) public transport. I could not be in a taxi for 1.5 hours with someone I do not know even if someone else pays.

That's how societies work though.

Where one person can't do something, someone who is able to does it instead.

Lobby the government for better rights for carers. Join the groups doing fantastic work campaigning for better carers leave and flexibility; the way disability rights campaigners had to fight for our rights.

Privilege isn't something you just are or just aren't. If you're able bodied then you are privileged in discussions of accessibility and accomodations for disabled people. If you have caring responsibilities, you are not privileged in discussions about the rights and responsibilities of carers. If you're white, you're privileged in discussions about the impact of race in everyday life in the UK. Privilege varies based on the topic.

Also, many carers are disabled themselves. That's the issue with the "other people have stuff going on" argument - many disabled people are dealing with the "other stuff" as well as being disabled, that's why reasonable adjustments exist so that disabled people don't face extra obstacles in dealing with the "other stuff".

My point is that support is available to ensure people with disabilities can remain in employment - obviously their needs will differ.

If they ate all catering assistants, of course they should all get the same pay!

Apologies, I thought your post was implying that there was no reason why people would need reasonable adjustments around timings as access to work would pay for taxis.