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.

For goodness sake, this woman is disabled. Would you get annoyed if she needed a specific desk for a wheelchair? Or extra time on breaks because of mobility problems?

As a neurodivergent person in the workplace this mades me angry. These minor changes are having minimal impact on the rest of you and make a huge difference to her. Suck it up.

Also ND with heightened sensitivity to smells.

Still doesn’t give me the right to dictate what coworkers eat or drink.

A good way of managing it yourself is to have something strong smelling that you can tolerate to hand, to mask the smell. I often use coffee(!) but have also been known to have an unlit scented candle in a tin or one of those ball things you can put perfume in and sniff (can’t remember the actual name).

Ok. I suppose it would be. I'm a bit like this myself, I have a long term illness so I do emphatise. I'm like this to protect my health if I'm being honest, i have to ground myself regularly and go somewhere quieter for lunch. I think she could definitely talk to her manager about having to take on the extra workload. The lunch thing is up to her boss really I guess

I think the coffee is the only thing that’s unreasonable. Everything else is and shouldn’t really impact you. A lot of your complaints are around ‘unfairness’ ie, she gets to and you don’t.

You’ve talked a lot about workload but it’s all ‘it feels like’ ‘it seems like’ ‘the atmosphere feels’… you don’t seem to be able to quantify anything.

if you have an issue then take it up with management but don’t take it out on the new colleague who clearly disclosed all of this at the interview and your company still decided to employ her

What a nasty suggestion. Shame on you.

Could you go back to management and suggest a more reasonable adjustment regarding the coffee would be for coffee to be in a closed cup/flask. Then she wouldn't be able to smell it but everyone can still drink it if they want.

Not having coffee at my desk would not be a small thing. It honestly helps get me through the morning and I’d be miserable if I weren’t allowed it.

I don’t recall saying it gives anyone the right, I believe I said I’m not saying it’s correct 🤷‍♀️

suck it up so do other peoples work and with joy or get the usual abusive ‘bigot! ableist!’ shouts.

All sounds very reasonable and sounds like they work really hard generally. The coffee thing is annoying but it is what it is, it's important that we make adjustments for people so they can access work. You sound like you are making a mountain out of a molehill really, it doesn't sound like any of these things are having a huge impact on you.

When l think of the lovely supportive workplaces I’ve been at.

You’d have been out with this attitude.

It’s not hating on a disabled person to want to drink coffee at your desk in work. Come on.

if you’ve chosen to work in an office, then yes reasonable adjustments should be made if you need them but they do need to be reasonable. You cannot dictate other people’s beverages.

One way supportive clearly!

If she gets an extra 15 mins at lunch, could you put a request in for each person to have a 15 min coffee break each day? Since you can’t drink coffee at your desk because of her?

Just drink coffee as normal and see what happens. She is taking the p*** Find a reason why you need to drink coffee if necessary (because it is part of being neurotypical maybe?)

You’d hate working with me then. No food or drinks at our desks is allowed full stop. Doesn’t bother me too much because I don’t drink tea or coffee but lots of people have objected to it with no avail.

Well aren't you a piece of work.

I wouldn’t be skipping to her tune of no coffee at desks. Tell her to put Vicks under her nose. Go to your manager as a group having written down these issues. She’s got an issue, well so do the rest of you!

No one is saying that OP should do someone else's work. Bar the coffee ban, these adjustments don't affect the rest of the team.

You’ve explained that really well, thank you.

I can only assume you work with very delicate materials. I couldn’t work in a standard office where I couldn’t have a drink at my desk but thankfully that has never been the case in the multiple workplaces I’ve experienced.

No coffee...I suppose if someone was allergic to peanuts, people would accommodate. 🤔

I don’t think not having coffee at desks is unreasonable. Some people have health issues that cause sickness and certain smells (for example coffee) may set it off. It is a work room with work desks, not a break room. If it doesn’t affect anyone, drinking coffee at desks is fine, but it shouldn’t be a given.

@moana35 This. If adjustments really are reasonable they don't have a negative impact on colleagues. If this person had rare exceptional skills much needed by the company maybe there would be an argument for special accommodations, but this sounds like a fairly generic role. Where is the effort by this person as an adult in the real world to manage her issues and demonstrate some adaptation from her side? In your shoes I would advise your LM that you will take 15 minutes a day of coffee breaks out of the office and your ND colleague can cover to balance the current inequity.
@Pricelessadvice is spot on. The current neurodiversity bandwagon is getting out of hand. And I speak as the only neurotypical member of my extended family so am very familiar with the challenges and reasonable expectations.

She’s not going to die from smelling coffee.