Nuerodiverse colleague

[moana35]

I am having a few problems with a colleague at work. She is neurodiverse so adjustments have had to be made but these adjustments are meaning that myself and my colleagues are doing alot more than we did before she was employed.

She is very black and white about time so she will not be at her desk until her digital smart watch says the start time on her contract and again she leaves at the exact time she is supposed to finish even if in the middle of something. Lunch is an hour but due to needing to re compress for the afternoon she needs to take 75 minutes as she needs to go for a walk and eat. She has to sit in front of a window which means all our places in the office have been changed.

From Monday we are not allowed to drink coffee at our desks anymore only tea as the smell makes her gag.

Aside from this she is a very good worker and gets her work done to a good standard but it is impacting on the morale of the team. She is also exempt from training mornings if they are "small room " based as she can't sit in a room with a big group of people. She will be allowed to do her training online.

Management say as she declared her nuerodiversity at interview these adjustments have to be made for her I get reasonable adjustments and I have an autistic son but are these adjustments reasonable to the rest of the team.

If we took 15 mins extra for lunch or asked our colleague to not drink coffee I am sure we would be spoken to by management,

Has anyone else come across this in the workplace.

The “no coffee at desks” thing is completely unreasonable.

The other things may or may not be reasonable, depending on what burden it is actually placing on your team. I think rearranging desks is probably reasonable, online training is probably reasonable if it can be done oniine, the attendance / breaks / finishing exactly on time is a management issue so as long as it’s not giving you extra work then it’s up to management if they’re happy really.

I think you need to go to your LM and ask which tasks you should prioritise due to the increase in workload.

I quite like her timekeeping though. You should all follow her example!

The desk situation and the training are reasonable adjustments. 15 minutes extra for lunch and no coffee at the desks are not reasonable adjustments. If the individual needs 15 minutes extra for lunch then they should make up that time by starting / finishing earlier or later to make up the time - not just get a let as this means they aren’t in fact fulfilling their contractual hours.

It’s all about her isn’t it! Some of those adjustments are reasonable, some are unfair on the rest of you. Management need to do some managing. Personally l HATE the smell of coffee and am neurodiverse but don’t force a ban onto others

Yes we said we should all do the same with start and finish times!!

She is actually a really hard worker and because she wants everything so perfect her work is of a very high standard - it just feels like our workload is harder and more full on since she joined the team.

How is 15 min extra at lunch time adding so much to your workload? Because I can’t see anything else from your post that would suggest that.

I took don't understand why she is adding to your workload. Is she getting less done because she is spending too long on tasks? Fifteen minutes a day is neither here nor there surely. The no coffee for anyone sounds ridiculous frankly.

because when she isn't in the office we still have the same amount of phone calls to deal with but between 3 of us instead of 4 which then impacts on our other duties not being done.

Some people really do milk it

So is her actual productivity higher or lower than everyone else's? If she works very intensively and gets through the work in a shorter time, I can see why management were minded to agree her requests relating to breaks and times.

The coffee part is the only one I think is truly unreasonable. The rest of it sounds more like a cultural fit issue, like she just works very differently and is a tricky personality compared to the rest of the team. But that's just life in the workplace.

Go on then.

I don’t see what the issue with that one is. It’s not a reasonable adjustment to work the hours you’re employed to work. When I’m in the office I leave bang on time because I have to pick DC up. If someone else doesn’t leave on time, I’d say that’s their problem, not mine (our work is separate so they aren’t left doing anything because I’ve gone)

I also think complaining about her doing her training online makes you look unreasonable because that doesn’t affect you.
Rearranging desks also feels like a bit of a non issue.

If your workload is being added to, then that is a legitimate complaint that you should speak to your manager about.

She's not neurodiverse. A population is neurodiverse, an individual is neurodivergent.

How many phone calls can you possibly get in 15 minutes? Do you work in a call centre? Surely when she’s on lunch she wouldn’t be picking up phone anyway, even if she was in the office.

So the main complaint is 15 mins of more phone calls?

I would say she gets the work done but at much a slower pace than the rest of the team as she takes longer to process things and checks and checks and checks to make sure she has got it right, but that is ok we understand that it just seems that our workload has increased and work atmosphere has got more stressful since she started. Another member of staff was taken on to help lesson the load on us but our workload is no less now. Coffee gets us through the day but tea just doesn't have the same kick!

I love these adjustments for her, but am sorry it's impacting on you. I am autistic and left the PAYE workforce in my early 20s as I couldn't cope with a few things, one being sitting in meetings and/or small rooms with groups of people. It probably sounds so daft to many of you, but the anxiety it caused me was intolerable. I'm now nearly 50 and have been self-employed ever since. I often wonder what I would made of my life if reasonable adjustments back then were a widely accepted thing for ND (and I had had the courage to ask for them). I was great at my job. Really great. And it was a job in IT with amazing prospects. I just couldn't cope with certain 'everyday' things that others wouldn't blink an eye at. It's shaped the entire course of my life.

What about coffee in a sippy cup with a lid on it? I can't imagine that smells as much.

I don't drink coffee or like the smell of it but seems Unreasonable.

Also has she tried wearing loop switch ear plugs. They are brilliant. You can be in a meeting in a small room and still wear them. We used to have these tedious team lunches in a tiny room and I would wear them then.

Can you explain why?

What if she said she didn’t like the smell of other people’s food? Her own is fine, but other people eating their food upsets her. Would your management tell the rest of the office they couldn’t eat at work?

Since she has a prized window seat - could she open the window to dissipate coffee smells?

I can't see why she can't finish 15 minutes later as it's up to her to take a longer break.
Tbh we often have colleagues with different start times,rates of pay, children, grandchildren to collect sometimes.I tend to focus on what I'm doing not what other are.
As I'm neurodivergent myself I must say it can be exhausting and if her work is top notch I would suck it up.

15 mins between 3of you is 5 minutes each. How can this have an impact?

Shes entitled to all of it. Stop being so miserable. The coffee thing is wrong and she should work an extra 15 mins.

My dd is AuDHD. She gets overwhelmed by people and also needs decompression time.