To be filled with panic about WFH culture becoming a thing of the past?

[themusingsofaninsomniac]

prefacing with please read the context before blanket responses 😊

I am stressing away as I tend to do lately on the same topic. I have WFH since the pandemic, with the odd day or so in the office I am lucky to have full flexibility with.

I have Autism. I also have ADHD. The combo together is quite the clusterfuck to navigate as a newly diagnosed female. Essentially the pandemic shone a light on so much and I'm so grateful that it enabled me to seek diagnosis, as much as it's an ongoing struggle.

From working remotely since the beginning I've never felt more stable and successful in my career. I was able to secure a promotion into a field I'd never have had the confidence to try in a non-remote setting in the first place, and I've been fortunate to earn a fair bit more as a result.

I feel completely at ease in my own environment and with the ability to tailor things to what works well for me. Having that commute time back has helped my wellbeing, as has having my lunch breaks in my own home. I am in a routine that I feel helps my mental health and the challenges neurodiversity brings me massively.

My current employer is great but they are the type of company that won't be around forever unfortunately. And from a lot of media and on here etc, it's becoming obvious that things are shifting to either back in the office or a hybrid with a good half your days expected in the office.

This absolutely fills me with dread. I feel like it would turn my world upside down. I'm sure people who don't relate to this will think I'm being dramatic but change and environments outside of your own control are so so hard especially once you've had several years of the opposite.

I guess I'm just wondering where this leaves me. I still have a few friends who WFH but not in my industry. I'm not sure if there would be more flexibility for me, but I also worry about how that will reflect towards my colleagues and I don't want to get anyone's back up. I guess I'm catastrophising that if I need to find another job I'll never be able to maintain what is working so well for me.

Not sure what I'm seeking here to be honest - reassurance maybe or just help to navigate this and whether it's best to be upfront with new employers from the start, or whether that might reduce my chances of being hired. I've been told I don't present as autistic, or typical ADHD but I guess the mix of both means it's a lot more blended. Either way I have generally got good feedback from interviews so it would likely not be known unless I was transparent.

I'd especially like to hear from someone in a similar boat too, if there is anyone? Probably not at twenty to one on a weekday though I imagine 😅

Thanks to anyone who has read this to the end as I know that got wordy!

@S23

There are also lots of employers who don't like change, which is part of the problem too, but you can't simply ignore the employers needs in favour of the individual, ultimately they are the ones paying the salaries.

And by extension, your employer can't ignore the needs of their clients/customers.

Take the NHS, in particular GPs, it's clear from these and other fora that a lot of patients are really suffering from the post Covid trend for GPs to work from home and doing telephone appointments. That's good for the GP, but it's clearly not working for a lot of patients.

There has to be a balance between what works for the organisation as a whole, it's customers, long serving/older staff and younger/newer staff. I think we're seeing the see-saw effect in action. Where something sways too far in one direction and then sways back too far in the other direction. Pre Covid, probably too few people worked from home. Post Covid, I think too many are working from home. Over time, an equilibrium will be reached but the see saw will swing to and fro a few times until then!

Absolutely, and when the WFH pendulum settles somewhere in the middle ground, ND people will be able to sensibly choose their career paths accordingly. But even then they may have to accept that they may need to be F2F whilst starting out for training and mentorship purposes, and also that WFH may have the downside of slower/lack of career progression.

@user1497207191

The 4 day week trial has been a great success. No reduction in pay and no reduction in productivity.

https://www.4dayweek.com/us-ireland-results

There has to be a balance between what works for the organisation as a whole, it's customers, long serving/older staff and younger/newer staff

You're missing one crucial part here, which is the labour market. No balancing exercise is going to achieve anything if it doesn't also result in enough staff with the necessary skills who are willing to go along with it for the money the organisation wants to pay them. Client and customers wanting something doesn't necessarily mean there are workers available to provide it. In just the same way that a few years back, workers wanting something didn't mean employers had to provide it because many of them had other choices. The rules of supply and demand apply.

Fifty years ago, these conditions weren't even recognised. The severely autistic were labelled "retarded" and put in insane asylums, the less severe were labelled "slow" and often ended up homeless because they couldn't hold a job down or dependent for life on the goodwill of their families. The capabilities that autistic people have of problem-solving weren't harnessed and put to good use.

"200 years ago we never heard about ovarian cancer and malignant whatever. We just got on with it." is just as ridiculous as your bullshit.

Please tell me where I said or even implied you're a "hard-faced bitch"?

And I'm not sure how you missed that post, when it was quoted in my post that you responded to.

Oh you and quite a few others have insinuated that about me and others who dare to have different opinions on ND to their own.

I did miss that post, yes, easy to do. Like I said I haven’t read the whole thread. And to be honest, I might’ve read the whole thread before, if I had more time, eg later on today, but seeing as it’s going into attack mode on certain posters then I won’t bother.

Yes, the "equilibrium" will have to include the price that customers are willing to pay for the product/service that they want. All aspects have to come into balance for the longer term.

If people want personal service and/or services outside what are considered "normal" hours, or a faster service, or an enhanced/better service, then they have to be prepared to pay more, so that the organisation can pay it's staff more to work the less popular locations/hours, etc.

We're so glad he was never "labelled" and given special treatment!

He was NT all the time, but could so easily have been labelled

JFC the ignorance here.

1. Autism is a diagnosis, not a label.
2. Neurotypical people do not meet the diagnostic criteria so do not get diagnosed.

Your son does not meet the diagnostic criteria for autism so would not have been diagnosed. He needs no reasonable adjustments for autism because he is not autistic.

Are you suggesting that autistic people shouldn't be diagnosed because your neurotypical son, who you suspected might be autistic because of how he reacted to lockdown, thrived after lockdown was lifted? Because your post has overtones of that.

The only things that your post demonstrates is that lockdown was harmful for many people and that self-diagnosis and parental self-diagnosis by proxy are inaccurate.

"Severely", yes, I grant you. But the majority of sufferers aren't "severe". I started work 40 years ago, and came across lots of what we'd regard today as being "mild" sufferers, who basically had a pretty normal personal and work life. At the same time, most "normal" people didn't seem to be quite so "out there", extraverted, loud, etc., so the "quieter" ones, potentially with autism, ADHD, aspergers, etc., didn't stand out quite so much anyway. I certainly remember quiet people in our office so didn't go out socialising with other staff, didn't go to the works Xmas party, etc., didn't really engage much, other than just doing their jobs, no small talk, etc., but also remember they were usually "heads down, work hard" kind of people, so just did their jobs, quietly without any fuss.

In one firm I worked at, we had a tax manager who literally knew it all, an absolute genius in his own field, wrote articles for professional magazines, etc. It was an open plan office, and he chose to work in the corner of the basement instead where it was quiet and where he wasn't disturbed. Sounds worse than it really was as it was a properly kitted out room in it's own right, carpets, heating, desk, etc., previously used by the secretaries as the filing room was also in the basement in a different room, but he liked it and took it over as his own. In "day to day" conversation he'd just barely grunt, no social skills, no pleasantries, but get him talking about tax and you couldn't stop him talking as he lived and breathed his subject. Heaven knows how many labels he'd get today!

I certainly haven't insinuated anything of the sort, if you've read that into anything I've said that's on you.

In future when responding to a post demanding proof, maybe read the actual post first?

At the same time, most "normal" people didn't seem to be quite so "out there", extraverted, loud, etc., so the "quieter" ones, potentially with autism, ADHD, aspergers, etc., didn't stand out quite so much anyway.

This move to brashness, accompanied by everything being done for social media publication, is a significant cultural shift that has made it harder for autistic people. I don't even have Facebook, to give an example of how badly I cope with online socialisation.

he chose to work in the corner of the basement instead where it was quiet

So he managed to get a reasonable adjustment. It wasn't called that, but in practice that's what it was. If he'd been told "no, you can't work down there", what would he have done? Would he have worked as effectively?

The situation where I am told "no" is where I have to play the "autism" card to remind my employer that it has a legal duty to make a reasonable adjustment and if they deem my request unreasonable then they should be able to justify why it's unreasonable. And that's when the formal diagnosis is valuable.

My dad was a computer geek in the early days of IT and in his down time he was a railway modeller, with a small business with two of his mates from the railway club he went to.

He had a successful high earning career, all his railway modelling friends had decent jobs too.

I don't think it was a question of which of them were ND but more who was the most effected. I think that was his friend who was a railway engineer, lived with his dad surrounded by a horde of railway books (proper hoarders house) and rarely washed. They also had a transwomen (full surgical transition) in their club, totally accepted by the others and things just carried on as normal, but never any suggestion that any of them believed that he had actually changed sex. Simpler times!!

None of them were diagnosed and seemingly none of them let it hold them back too much.

There is definitely a balance to be found between how it used to be and how things are now.

There have always been some ND people, diagnosed and otherwise, who were able to flourish in office and other work in person environments. There still are.

This has nothing to do with whether other ND people will benefit from attempting to do so, and the idea that the pendulum has swung too far now is privilege in action. People who want to work in person still have many more options than those who don't or can't.

And where were the autistic women in this rose-tinted past of men in highly-paid analytical and technical jobs playing with trainsets?

You and a few others here have certainly insinuated that anyone who doesn’t sympathise or has a different take on neurodiversity, they’re immediately jumped on here and there have been insinuations that they’re hard, unfeeling etc. I think I’m quite capable though of reading into a person’s character through my interactions with them eg here, so if I’m reading into anything you’ve written then I’m either taking it at face value or I’m a good judge of character. Typical bully types though always turn and deflect remarks they’ve made back on the person who’s been offended.

Again in your second paragraph, immediately attacking me for not reading the posts/all the posts.

It really is at times like this I realise why I stay away from AIBU and topics which are designed to get posters frothing at the mouth.

I'm not quite sure what you expect of me here. Would you like me to make up an anecdote about a fictional female relative for you?

I am perfectly entitled to share an anecdote about my late father in this thread.

In terms of your question about ND women in the workforce of 80s/90s I would imagine they were in much the same predicament as NT women of the time , in battling ingrained and institutional misogynism and legislation that was the norm in that era, and sadly hasn't improved enough.

I appreciate that on a thread centring around ND that there will be disproportionately more ND contributors than the average MN thread, but black and white thinking as displayed in your reply to my post is unhelpful and seems to be one of the worst and most damaging aspects of the woke culture of recent times.

It's perfectly okay to talk about men, or women, without the need to balance every single statement or anecdote with an equal mention of the opposite sex or group, and I say this as a staunch and vocal feminist.

You responded to my post asking for evidence. I provided it and asked why you didn't respond to the post I was quoting which I assumed you must've seem because it was in the post you responded to. I never bullied you, nor called you cold or hard or unfeeling. That's all an invention by you. If you think I am bullying then feel free to either report my posts or ignore me nut please stop making shit up about other posters.

@basculin
She's not making shit up. You might want to keep your tone in check if you don't want to get pulled up on being a poor debater.

@themusingsofaninsomniac hi, a lot of your post resonates, do you mind telling me what area you retrained in? I'm struggling but my current skills aren't transferable to a WFH environment. And due to lack of imagination () I can't picture an area I could possibly retrain in that could help

@Loulou599 ;@basculin I really really don’t have the time or energy today to respond to this or as @Loulou599 says, I suspect sarcasm on your part.

As I said before I’m out!

They're accusing me of saying things I'm not.

But anyway.

It's perfectly okay to talk about men, or women, without the need to balance every single statement or anecdote with an equal mention of the opposite sex or group, and I say this as a staunch and vocal feminist.

This is a thread written by an autistic woman who is worried about her future career. Not an autistic man. It's entirely reasonable for me to highlight that what worked in the past for autistic men, who face very different gendered expectations of behaviour and interests, will not work for autistic women now. This was what I was trying to highlight with my "rose-tinted" comment, but my text-mode masking of using a rhetorical question apparently failed.

I think the only discussion on neurodiversity in the workplace should be in regard to whether legal obligations of the employer towards neurodiverse employes are being met. Dyslexia, Autism, ADHD, Dyspraxia, etc. are considered disabilities under the equality act and are therefore legally protected characteristics.

I find it bizarre that some neurotypical people think it's ok to consider adjustments for neurodiversity as something up for debate or appropriate to pontificate and have an "opinion" or "a different take" on.

Most people would be appalled if anyone tried to debate whether workplace adjustments for pregnancy or a physical disability were strictly necessary and whether the person in question could just get on with it, if only they had a different mindset. Why anyone thinks it's ok to discuss neurodiversity in this way baffles me.

Very arrogant bloke in our office, who is pushing to become our manager, was saying today he wants everyone in the office 5 days a week. He's so obviously coming up with justifications for something that suits him. If people are working fine at home, it's pure control freakery to force them to drag themselves into the office every day 'just cos'.

And I say this as someone who is fine coming into the office 2 days a week. Some people would resign for sure. Software engineering doesn't work well for everyone in a noisy, crowded office. We prefer at least some WFH.