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

[SereneRoseRobin]

I’m looking for honest views because I’m not sure whether I’m being unreasonable or whether this was genuinely unfair.

I was recently dismissed from a graduate/analyst role after my probation was extended. I am autistic, and my employer knew this. I had raised the need for clear written instructions, defined objectives, examples of similar work, timelines, and timely/direct feedback. Some support was put in place, including coaching, but I don’t feel the actual adjustments were properly embedded or reviewed before the decision was made.

The difficult part is that the concerns raised about me seemed mainly to focus on communication style, professional behaviour, asking for clarification, Teams messages, and quality assurance under pressure — rather than on whether I could actually do the analytical work. Some recent written feedback said my analytical skills were good, that my work did not contain relevant errors, that I was taking ownership, and that I sought support appropriately. Another person said I had picked up on a complex project well.

The project I was criticised on was not straightforward. I was a first-year graduate with no prior experience in that sector, and I was assigned open-ended/data-heavy modelling work with a lot of ambiguity and short deadlines. Some outputs were expected within hours or by the next day, so there was not much time for structured review. I also didn’t always get timely feedback while I could still act on it. Some feedback came months after the work had ended.
My probation extension was meant to allow support and coaching to take effect, but I was dismissed before the extension period had fully ended. I had submitted evidence of improvement the day before the decision, but I don’t feel it was properly discussed or considered.
The coaching report apparently said the benefit of coaching should be assessed after a longer period, because performance can dip while new strategies embed.

I’m appealing because I think they didn’t properly separate disability-related communication issues from actual capability, didn’t give recent improvement enough weight, and didn’t consider alternatives such as letting the extension run, providing clearer QA/communication frameworks, assigning more standard analyst work, or redeploying me to a more suitable team.

I’m not saying I was perfect. I know there were areas to improve. But I feel like I was assessed against unclear expectations, on complex work, without the timely feedback and structure that had already been identified as necessary for me.

AIBU to think this was unfair and potentially linked to disability discrimination/failure to make reasonable adjustments? Or is this just how probation works, and I should accept it and move on?

No, there's no shame in it - I've done lots of menial jobs myself. But you can't generally say, "maybe X marginalised group should stick to menial work" about anyone else

The majority of posters have said over and over again that the OP needs to take personal responsibility.

Has anyone said that all autistic people should do menial work?

They've said it might be a good option for the OP. The OP isn't all autistic people.

If you haven’t got the skill set to do a job though where’s the shame in taking a lower level job in order to develop skills? Isn’t that what everyone has to do?
Just as it’s not the fault of autistic people that they may not be able to multitask for example it’s not the fault of an ND person who can.
And autistic people are not hated - they are still on many levels misunderstood but it’s much better than it was. Change takes time .

I'm not saying that all autistic people should do low status low paid roles.

Rather that high status high paid jobs often require similar skills that are hard to teach. These skills autistic people often find difficult. It's not realistic or fair for employers to employ people who do not have the required skills and make unreasonable allowances to keep someone unsuitable in a desirable job, when other people would love the job and perform well.

What would make the world fairer is if we give more status and pay to job that require other skills

I don't really understand the motive for saying that autistic people aren't hated. We acknowledge that racism, misogyny, ageism exist... but all of a sudden when it comes to autistic people, there's a perfectly sensible reason why they should be ostracised and denied opportunities? Hmm.

Read the whole sentence. I was saying that's what the OP doesn't want anyone to do. I know lots of people have done.

There’s not been anything posted so far that suggests that a discrimination claim would be successful. The company can let you go for no reason at all if they choose to and I don’t see that you are going to be able to demonstrate that it was for a disability.

As others have said, your responses and attitude on here do seem indicative of a lack of self-reflection.

It’s not uncommon in young people in their first jobs, but trying to reframe work to a question of “what am I bringing to the table here” rather than “why are they not doing what I want” tends to pay dividends in the long run.

Part of the job of a good manager is to help young people in that journey, but they tend to want to do that more if they see a willingness to learn.

No one is saying they shoukd be osteacised or denied opportunites.

Look at OP, she was given a chance in a desirable job, given a coach and lots of adjustments. She's been given extra opportunities compared to most. She hasn't succeeded as it sounds like she doesn't have the skills required.

I have read the full sentence. That’s not what it says.

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.

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).

Blimey! Was she claiming dyscalculalia (?)

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.