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.

There is also likely to be a feeling in the workplace that staff cannot voice any objection as it will deemed discriminatory - which is not necessarily the case. Some adjustment may well be justified but not all, this is an example of other staff feeling they have no voice or rights and have to accommodate every action the new employee makes etc which is not the case.

What makes you think that you'd be swapping PTSD, childhood trauma, self-harm, and ED for autism? What makes you think that autistic women don't get that other bad stuff too?

I was sexually assaulted for the first time aged eight. Note: the first time.

Autistic women and girls have a 90% victimisation rate of sexual assault, compared to one in three in the overall population. Our social skills impairment means that we misunderstand other people's signals and so fail to recognise predatory behaviour. We also take suggestions like "do you want to come to mine for takeaway and a movie?" literally. As Carly Jones said in the "autism in women" seminar I was at, "when does coffee mean coffee?" And yes, #metoo. It's a stroke of luck that I was on the Pill because he didn't use a condom 🤮

When you are talking to an autistic woman, you are 90% likely to be talking to a sexual assault victim. You are also talking to someone who has been told her whole life that she's rude, antisocial, and weird. She's been punished repeatedly when she can't even understand what it is that she's done or said wrong. My sense of injustice for that still burns 35 years later. She's been bullied, beaten up, isolated, manipulated, and made fun of all her life. She may well also have PTSD. She may well also have or have had ED. She may well also have self-harmed. She's probably been misdiagnosed with BPD at some point and been given DBT that isn't appropriate for autistic people. She's probably been diagnosed with depression.

And the icing on the cake is that most counsellors aren't trained in techniques designed to work for us. If she was diagnosed autistic as a child, CAMHS will have refused to take her as "too complex". If she wasn't diagnosed as a child, she'll have been given inappropriate treatment.

My scars are still visible 25 years later. I still freeze if a man walks up behind my desk at work. Some words make me freeze and feel sick. And I have to deal with all this whilst also autistic.

That is my point exactly, thank you for summarising that.

Before you get offended I didn't say id be swapping. I misunderstood another poster who talked about swapping, but not in the way I understood it.

I've always suffered from all these sensitivities but in my day nobody thought about all these conditions

For a very long time, girls just weren't diagnosed with autism. I was diagnosed in my forties. You might be autistic but undiagnosed.

I somehow manage to sit there and live to tell the tale, unpleasant though it.

Different autistic people are affected by sensory stuff to different degrees.

Why can neurodiverse people not also be expected to do the same?

Short answer: those of us who have this problem cannot cope with it.

Longer answer: I used to think that, until one day, my sensory threshold was exceeded. I was at an amateur orchestral rehearsal and we were doing some John Williams film music. JW doesn't do subtle. I play trumpet, I sit near the kettledrums and the trombones, it gets loud. Never a problem before. But, the community hall had just replaced its fluroescent strip lights with those LED batons and they are bright and blue.

It felt like the lights were getting brighter and brighter and the sound was getting louder and louder. Across about ten minutes, I went from playing upright to being bent forwards, eyes shut, fingers in ears. It wasn't a panic attack, I've had those and this wasn't the same, it was just painfully loud and bright. I couldn't open my eyes and I couldn't take my fingers out my ears until the music stopped for the tea break.

I put a trucker cap in my case before the next rehearsal and I've worn it in every rehearsal since, no more problems. If I forget to put it on, I'm forced to by about the 30 minute mark.

What I find interesting is that it's light and sound together that cause the problem. I can cope with either on its own.

You've got some control here, firstly, everyone should now go by the clock, that's only fair.

As for the coffee, get a cup with a lid, this will keep it warm longer too. Tell everyone it's tea.

This is another reason why the OP needs to set aside her "it's not fair" feelings and ask herself whether her work is affected. It is legitimate to criticise the adjustments if they impact her work, because they might not be reasonable. It is not discriminatory to raise concerns about matters that impact her work.

It is not legitimate to criticise the ND colleague for basically asking for support to do her job. Attacking the colleague for her disability is discriminatory. It's also not legitimate to cite "it's not fair" as an objection. At my college, many decades ago, mobility-impaired students were allowed to use a lift that was otherwise staff-only (and mostly used to move large items) as a reasonable adjustment. Ambulant students who whined "it's not fair" were given short shrift. It is fair to reserve a reasonable adjustment to only those who need it.

Would you be saying this if she had a more obvious disability? I just don't think you would. If she needs those adjustments then she needs them and that's that.
Nothing you have listed is really any bother apart from possibly the coffee..

That is my point exactly, thank you for summarising that.

I don't understand how that follows from my post. Did you mean to quote someone else?

Look for another job. Once you have one secured and are leaving make sure to tell them their unreasonable demands are not reasonable adjustments. She won't become reasonable about this and management will just bully you more if you try to kick off.

Yeah and that works out as over 5 hours a month. So that’s more than a half day off a month - I agree that it’s unfair if you look at it that way.
Surely it would be fair for her to clock off each day an extra 15 mins later than you others.
Or, a different way to keep things equal could be if you others could be given 15 mins worth of coffee breaks a day! ie go and drink your ‘smelly’ coffee in another room (3 x 5 mins a day, or 2 lots of 7 and a half mins a day, or one 15 min break - depending on how many coffees you like to drink!), thereby solving that issue she has with your drinks.

The idea is to enable her to work. It’s not about fairness. NT already have an advantage. It’s to equal that out.

i bet you’re one of those people who thinks teachers should wear uniforms because the kids have to.

Thank you for this excellent post. The fact that girls were missed in childhood is a huge part of the problem that people need to understand. I was missed in childhood (despite presenting the same way as the boys who were not). I was not supported, but forced more and more to try to fit in. This does damage that cannot be undone.

I think it is wonderful that workplaces are becoming more disability friendly. It's a shame the (seemingly women) cannot be supportive here. We should be supporting each other rather than saying "but what about me?!". The ND person has told the company what her needs are. Believe her.

God, I feel this so deeply.

The coffee thing is tricky because (although I can't stand it personally) I understand that it's pretty much an essential part of most people's working day. Closed cups seem like a good compromise.

But, although the adjustments seem unreasonable/petty to an NT brain, they will make total sense and be necessary to her. I'm a teacher which isn't really a job where you can predict timings, things that neeed doing etc. I had a young person working with me a few years ago in the Performing Arts dept. He was a to the minute clock worker and abhorred coffee. I didn't really notice at first but at busy times it would suddenly become very difficult. But difficult for me. His life just made sense to him. For example, I had an exam day with dozens of children needing accompaniments, practice time etc and a very demanding examiner. I asked the young person to make the examiner a coffee and he said 'I don't go near coffee.' So I had to leave the children and make it myself, knowing that he wasn't capable of helping them either (because of his age/experience, not his ND). Second example, at show times we come off timetable and work long hours at predictable times. We were doing a very important rehearsal that he was involved in which ran across a time which was normally break. We were going to give the children a break at another time. The young person walked out of the theatre mid way through playing a song because it was break time. Useless for the rehearsal but the only thing that made sense to him. Same with the evening work. He couldn't help because it wasn't his normal hours.

Long term, unfortunately, someone with that level of need probably couldn't work in a school tbh because it would become a safeguarding issue. Or he would have learned to adapt as he got older (he was only 18/19). But, in an office, in the siutation you describe, it seems fairly reeasonable to me.

No I was responding to you. Are you baffled that I have experienced exactly what you described as a NT person?

This thread has been eye opening. ND here don't give the people around them the same grace and understanding they expect to receive. There is a real theme that ND or any disability is THE struggle and everyone else has an advantage. The reality is some people might be able to handle aspects you struggle with much better others might not.

You aren't doing yourselves any favours. ND dismissed NT. No NT said that ND aren't experiencing what they experience and shouldn't have adjustments. NT people said that they felt dismissed for their own experience and expectation set on them as a result of ND around them. Life isn't black or white. Life isnt NT or ND. Life is many other things and pathologies.

I came to learn that everyone carries pain. And for them their pain is what they manage, adapt to, live with. What happened here was that peoples struggles were dismissed because they aren't ND and therefore it doesn't compare and isnt as bad.

You do well to understand nobody is against you. People might not understand your lived experience and you might not understand theirs. Nobody is more or less special and most people are just busy managing their own lives and don't look all that much around them or think about others including yourselves. Youd do well to understand that many things aren't personal. Everyone is acting according to their capacity.

Yes the world is cruel and life can be difficult. But it isn't either NT or ND difficult. There are many types of difficult.

But the problem is if they need to be at their desk to work then they can’t work whilst drinking their coffee. If someone isn’t working at a desk then they can’t probably put their coffee near by and sip it whilst getting on with work.
If you can’t drink as you work you need to have a break in order to drink it

You are only taking from this what you want to take from it. No one has said that ND is "THE disability". All disabilities deserve accommodation by their nature of being defined as disabilities.

I am really trying to empathise with you here. Of course we all (NT & ND) have struggles and pain. All humans do, and we are all humans. But it’s difficult to take you completely seriously when you don’t seem to understand that people with disabilities have their own unique set of needs above and beyond normal human struggles. Medicine recognizes that these needs require specific adjustments to help them live their lives in a way that levels the playing field with everyone else.

Why would you (and I don't mean you specifically) begrudge someone a bit of extra time in their work day to make them more able to perform in their job? Would you rather they didn't work and took benefits instead?

Also, you have constantly used minimising and ablest language in this thread. Do you not see the problem here?

So I guess my main point is that I’ve been forced to cope with these things alone and have learned to do so. Same goes for you and the concert.
At the end of the day people need to be responsible for themselves.
I think help should be given to neurodivergent people in the form of coping strategies, not demands on others.
I don’t think it helps the neurodivergence cause when people up the anti, introducing red herrings like the ARFID poster
I have relatives who literally did starve to death in other historical circumstances and it really upsets me when people jump so lightly on the bandwagon of starvation Having read about true starvation ( as in Gaza), I don’t believe anyone could self impose this. It’s just bs..

And here we go again. I know you want to be understood and accepted, so does the person like in the OP. Is it really to hard for you to understand and accept that this is where they currently are at in their perception?

Is it hard to not take it personally? Can't you see that the OP isn't about you and other ND, but about themselves? That is something they need to figure out for themselves?

So I am using ableist language I am not aware of. So what? I haven't made ND the centre of my universe. I am not perfectly educated on every single topic in the world or another person's life. Neither are you. Again, that's about me. Not YOU. I get that it offends you. And those feelings are for you to deal with because you won't be able to control how I speak or whether I change my style. But the way you behaved and name called I find it hard to want to be interested and learn about ableist language and adjust because I didn't feel an ounce of grace from you.

I fully agree with you. It's best to decenter, take a step back and take responsibility in the best way a person can (full of ableist language I guess). I think thats all that's expected of anyone regardless of what they struggle with. And then what goes around comes around. Hopefully society will be in better shape in 50 years time.

To be honest, I'm not offended by you. You are a random person on the internet, hiding behind their keyboard. You have no effect on my life and I don't care about your opinions.

I am calling you out (and others) because their is a general negative sentiment on here towards disabled people and it is not on. Why punch down? Do you apply your logic to sexist or homophobic comments too? It's ok because it isn't me? Do they need to just accept it?

The world would be a much better place if people were understood and accommodated. You can say "so what" about ablest language. Do you apply that logic to sexist or racist language? If not, why not?

Also the way I behaved? I did have one comment deleted that I posted in frustration. I will own that. Look at how many you have had deleted.

Which is a “them” problem.

The OP hasn’t yet explained how her workload has been increased.

She has said the new staffer works to a high standard - perhaps the OP feels pressure to meet the same standard, but this is not the fault of the new staffer.

The OP is assuming the new staffer is paid the same despite having 15 minutes less time. I’d love to know where she works that HR shares pay details with the general staff.

The OP’s only example of extra work is taking phone calls during the 15 minutes. So my question would be when do the other staff take their lunch? Presumably if calls are that frequent this applies during their lunch breaks and holidays as well. I’d also say that if the new staffer takes so many calls in 15 minutes that three other members of staff feel a conscious increase in workload when she is not there, then possibly she is dong rather more than they are in her working time.

I’ve worked in places where no food or drink is allowed at desks (and yes its perfectly legal) and many which do not allow food at desks. I’ve also been with teams where one member was suffering from perfume/coffee/other triggered migraines or morning sickness and we all took our coffee away from the desk areas. It wasn’t difficult or a great hardship.

Its worth recognising that the shift to open plan offices creates a bunch of problems for many staff, (not always ND) in terms of noise/sound/smells and limiting food and drink at desks is one way of keeping the overall environment pleasanter for everyone. Its also better for most of us to leave our desks to eat and get away from the screen.

Actually yes. If someone is sexist or homophobic it helps a great deal if I have a real sense in me that this is about them and their capacity and not me as a person. It is very freeing and empowering. I can only control myself and my life. I would like to live in a society that isn't sexist or homophobic, but the reality is that I am not and probably won't in my lifetime. I have come to learn that there is no point trying to educate or get someone to change their views. It's intrusive and I don't have the right to infringe in that way. They will do it in their own time should they be ready. All I can do is keep my boundaries, assert myself and live according to my values. That's where the power lies.

Don't fall victim to the 'calling out culture'. I really believe it is a trap and a hype that sucks the energy out of you. It isn't very empowering. As you said you don't know me. I'm just a random person on the internet. You haven't advocated well for ND in the way you thought you were calling me out.

You are correct, it probably won't change any time soon.

But I personally feel that change will only come if people try. So I do feel the need to try to educate. In fact, one of the traits of my condition is a strong sense of justice and black and white thinking. Change only comes when people challenge. Thank goodness those before us challenged sexism and racism. There is still plenty more to do of course.