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.

Presenting information to others isn't a "normal day-to-day activity" but is an occupational skill, so it is excluded from the Equality Act. This is by design: the EA excludes exceptional and occupational skills because a law that allowed, for example, an actor to claim discrimination because of stage fright would be patently absurd.

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.

If the job genuinely requires presenting as a non-optional part of the role, the employer can refuse the adjustment as being unreasonable, by the same logic that Tesco can refuse to make adjustments for wheelchair users when employing people to stack shelves.

If not being able to drink coffee at your desk makes you feel suicidal than I would suggest you see your GP, because it is clearly indicative of a mental health crisis and you may be able to get reasonable adjustments plus medication and therapy.

That maybe your opinion, but legally it's simply untrue.

from mnnet I’ve established “shut the fuck up, you’re nt bitch, your opinion and views count for fuck all’

As opposed to 'shit the fuck up you disabled bitch, your opinion and views count for fuck all'.

Not one ND person has been swearing or calling NT people bitches.

Put the wine down.

I would be interested in whether they could actually refuse, or whether they'd put adjustments in place that would still require her to present but in a different way. My money would be on the latter.

Part of the reason I went self-employed 20 years ago, not because of ND colleagues, because then it was not fashionable to parade this sort of thing, but because we were expected to pick up after colleagues with 'special circumstances' - it was a big ask of us, but the management seemed to think it was OK. People have to realise that honestly, nobody cares about other people and their shit, especially at work. Nobody wants to pick up after anyone else regularly, full stop. We just have to acknowledge it and be honest. Our private lives are different - I bend over backwards to include in our week-end activities and be nice to our mentally unwell neighbour, but no way would I want to pick up his shit at work - we would be paid the same, so why would the circs be different for us at work?

Nice ablest language there.

It’s probably having to finish work she leaves incomplete when she walks out at the end of the day.

Having a ND son yourself, are you not pleased how things are changing so that hopefully, your own child may have a better future? Do you know how many perfectly able autistic people are unemployed because accommodations are not made in the workplace? It's most of them.
Is coffee really that important, can you not see it like if someone had a peanut allergy? Have it before work?
Same thing for the training..does it really matter..what difference does it make to you?
You could maybe be a bit more welcoming.
Yes, she is getting " special treatment" -aka "accommodations". I hope someone gives your kid the same chance.

Wtf?! Talk about minimising suicide 😲 nothing was said about that poster feeling suicidal because they couldn't drink coffee, so to link the 2 is such a snarky manner is offensive.

Or she just finishes it the next morning. Mind blowing.

Sarcasm is known to be a coping mechanism.

Don't make your specific circumstances the centre of everyone else's universe. It's dismissive.

That's literally what the OP has done: she's made her "wah, it's not fair, someone's getting something I don't get" sense of petty grievance the centre of the universe, ignoring the fact that the contract and agreed terms between her employer and her ND colleague are none of her goddamned business. In doing so, she has been dismissive of the professional opinions of multiple medical staff and has been dismissive of the assessed needs of the ND colleagues.

Banning coffee and needing to sit at a window are absurd. The other things are dependent on what she’s worked out with management/occ health.

I can only hope that it's due to ND and not simply that they're a dick.

Do you really not see what is wrong with your attitude here?

Sorry, what? It is the truth that if you are feeling suicidal, for any reason, it is a mental health emergency and you should seek professional help. That's not minimising it. That PP was giving solid advice.

I think part of the problem is that so many people are struggling and hanging on by a thread - NT or otherwise. And yes losing that window seat if you are a depressed NT person could be enough to send you over the edge, or not being able to have a coffee at your desk can increase your errors and workload and cause burn out. In an ideal world everyone could have the adjustments they need without anyone else feeling impacted. But at the moment most of us are just exhausted 'human resources' and in a form of survival mode that doesn't always leave space for compassion.

You perceive the ND posters defending themselves as “being a dickl?

Point to where that poster said anything about not being able to drink coffee and suicide.

Perhaps she asked for a window seat to mitigate the coffee smell and it didn't work. Hence why the coffee adj has come later

They wouldn't, There is a similar clause for models, people can't say they're being discriminated against due to looks so no adjustments will be made.

Read my subsequent post.