I reluctantly divulged my aspergers diagnosis to my manager and HR because someone who had bullied me was prospectively going to be hired by the company I’m now working for. I’m on a temporary contract.
Since then, when I go for break or lunch in the communal lunch room (I rarely go these days), there is always a comment about aspergers in relation to the manager’s nephew. Comments being made include aspergers being an excuse for bad behaviour, how you can tell that the asperger traits are ‘put on’ for the person to get their way, the mention of extended family members or people known to the manager and her friend having autism and how it’s so challenging for the rest of the family (spoken like the autistic person is a burden and is non intelligent and is not a normal person like the rest of them). The managers friend has a daughter with aspergers and talks about her long monologues and how they are so annoying.
All of this is spoken about freely and all the while, I have to sit there and listen to it. I am fed up with it.
The senior HR person has described my department as a family and has said that the company does things ‘in house’ when I mentioned I had asked an external party to help with reasonable adjustments. I have had no reasonable adjustments made for me by the way. She treats me rather coldly now.
What can I do to fight back? Has anybody else experienced this?