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.

I'm asking you. Didn't you say they have a minimal impact and the OPs issue is being petty?

What exactly is your logic?

Ok, genuinely here, what do you want? Are we not allowed to fight our corner? What is it about our reasonable adjustments that bugs you so much?

I have Asperger's. Part of the diagnostic criteria is (rough quote) "a sustained and significant impact on your life/ability to do tasks/socialise".

So yes, all people have things they struggle with. For example, maybe anxiety or public speaking. However people with disabilities (including autism which is recognised legally speaking as a disability) are by definition more significantly struggling.

If someone wanted adaptations because they had a physical disability I doubt you'd say "oh but we all struggle with some things."

Complaining about the extra 15 minutes a day is petty. There are 3 other team members that might need to answer a phone call in a 5 minute period. How is this not a petty complaint?

Likewise the start and finish time rigidity. The other employees are free to enforce those boundaries themselves. They can be just as rigid if they want to. Any attempts to stop them would be unreasonable.

The coffee I agree is a difficult one and I think the other employees would be reasonable to ask for coffee breaks. I doubt the ND staff member would have any issue with this at all.

I could understand if it was a much shorter day for the same salary. Management probably need to organise some training as I know ND isn't well understood in the workplace.

Probably she isn't chatty -gossipy type to go through dirty laundry with while sipping on coffee

That's simply not true. For example, my DD has significant anxiety and finds it incredibly difficult to present to groups at work. She has a colleague (same job) who is autistic who has absolutely no difficulties doing this. My DD has no diagnosis so is expected to fake it till she feels it - she has to work very hard to do this part of her job. If her colleague decided one day that she didn't want to present then she could ask for adjustments based on her diagnosis and her employer would have a difficult time refusing her.

It’s 15 mins. A day.. how long does over next 5 years?

I think its quite telling that the OP is mostly upset about how the new employee has the audacity to work within actual paid hours. OP has been "polite" to her employer by doing many hours of unpaid labour to "finish a job" before leaving.

Feels like a generational gap thing to me more than anything else. She works well, but damn it she is demanding her rights, how dare she(!)

I never said they should be. I was merely answering someone's question about whether a 'food phobia' can be a diagnosed thing

Could you and your colleagues use the thermos style mugs for your coffee? They have lids that reduce the smell? It’s a reasonable adjustment that means you still get your coffee.
she may need longer to decompress for lunch, but I would expect her to make up this time either at the start or end of the day. It’s reasonable to ask for extended breaks, but she still needs to fulfil her contracted hours. The disability act is very clear when it comes to equal opportunities, but that should not mean to the detriment of other staff.

Autistic people are just as sick of being treated like a homogenous mass.

Very few people are claiming that NT people have no problems. I'd argue that some problems are more likely to affect NT people. For example, the tendency of NT women to marry and have children causes them no end of problems as evidenced by the Relationships board. I, with my "deficit in social communication" impairing my ability to form romantic relationships, have avoided marriage and kids and hence avoided divorce, cheating, and being abused by someone I have to co-parent with.

Your team leader was a bad manager because your one-to-ones are meant to be about you, not her. Whether ND or NT, if someone can't or won't stick to discussing you and your work in one-to-ones, they aren't fit for the job. She also abused her position of power by dumping her problems on a subordinate. Autism doesn't justify her behaviour because I'd expect an autistic person to pay attention to the management training courses and stick rigidly to those principles of not abusing power and keeping one-to-ones about the subordinate.

I would be really pissed off at not being able to drink tea and coffee at my desk. I see nothing at all reasonable about an adjustment that would force me to alter what I consume based on someone else’s preference.

The extra time for lunch wouldn’t bother me, it wouldn’t affect me personally, the rigid start and finish times wouldn’t bother me in the least.

If someone was deathly allergic to a certain food and would die if someone ate it around them (and btw this shocking would not be classed as a disability) then I would absolutely not eat/drink it around them but just not being able to deal with the smell? Nope totally not reasonable at all in my opinion.

I believe reasonable adjustments can be made for anxiety disorders under the equality act. I fully sympathise with your DD here and hope she can get some adjustments.

I would dispute what you have said here about the autistic colleague, based on my experience. I have difficulty with verbal instructions and have an adjustment for them in writing. This almost never actually gets provided and I get in trouble regardless. Unfortunable a diagnosis does not get you a free pass in practice.

Your imaginary scenario is untrue.

If your daughter has anxiety she is entitled to an occupational health assessment which can also put in reasonable adjustments including not doing public speaking due to mental health. If however it's considered a requirement then it would not be considered a reasonable adjustment and the employment would be reviewed. The same goes for autistics such as myself. There are limits to what is considered a reasonable adjustment as it has to balance with the needs of the employer.

I used to be a union representative. Lots of people like yourself are completely unaware of how employment laws actually work. Blaming ND people for just knowing their own rights while NT don't.

So could your dd if her anxiety is significant and has or is likely to last longer than 12 months.

Literally... who cares? Some people spend more time on the toilet than others. Are you the sort of person who polices that?

Gave you read. A different op?
colleague is whinging about people’s dog in own home…. Finding own clothes for party fun.

I have also avoided that just by not marrying an arsehole so your point doesn’t really mean anything other than being incredibly rude about other women.

I am so glad that I work with better people than some of the people on this thread.

Your start and finish time are your choice. I don't open my laptop until 9am. I'm a mental health nurse. I don't mind staying on for a patient in crisis, or to write something related to safety, but otherwise at 5 I'm done and don't care what I'm in the middle of.

The coffee one is unreasonable. The rest are absolutely appropriate. People moan about disabled people not working, but then bitch about real workplace adjustments. I couldn't bring myself to be worked up about moving desks or 5 minutes extra of phone calls.

I might actually. Because that's what life is. I have empathy, but that doesn't take away from everyone else's struggles or that only one group struggles more all the time. I might not be in a wheelchair, but I have other stuff going on my employer won't care about because the law doesn't. And I understand someone else might struggle in a way I will never be able to understand because I'm not experiencing it. Life as so many facets and people experience things in so many different ways. Don't make your specific circumstances the centre of everyone else's universe. It's dismissive.

You can dispute all you like, but it's true.

Having significant anxiety about presenting to groups of people is not covered by the equality act. For people who find this part of their job very challenging, the expectation is that they develop skills and techniques to help themselves.

It's mind-blowing. You really see this through your own lense. You wouldn't have an issue with it so it's petty if someone else has even you don't know their circumstances.

I think you could talk to her about the start and finish time and the expectations for everyone. Has she been there long ? Maybe when she settles in she will speed up and be more adjusted to the environment.I'm impressed that the company has made these adjustments. You seem to be blaming her for an increase in the stress levels is it the lack of coffee or the extra 15 mins 😂.

@SirChenjins As your DD suffers from significant anxiety, it really could be worth pursuing a diagnosis. I’m diagnosed with GAD and it does significantly impact your life when untreated.

I didn’t understand what it was back in the old days ( I’m 51) and just struggled through like your DD. Even now I occasionally times when I’m struggling, but it’s easier now that I’ve had help. Getting a diagnosis could transform her life. 💐