Published on 12, July, 2020
Just wondering is there any point declaring your autism at work? Would be interested to hear people's experiences
I declared mine before starting a job for the first time ever with my new job. I thought it would help but I'm not sure it has. I feel like my bosses treat me with more understanding which is a good thing but everything else is the same or worse
I had an Occupational Health Assesment where I said what my reasonable adjustments needed to be. The main one was having a regular timetable that didnt change without warning
2 weeks into the job and I am still the only teaching assistant in the college without a timetable. My boss said to me "You can design your own timetable" since she knows I need one. In a new job, where I know none of the classes or students. Also, the only way to do this is to use software systems that I have never used before and havn't been shown how to use, even though I am supposed to have been trained on them. She also sent me a email notification to have a 1-2-1 meeting with me at the end of the day with no message attached to explain what the meeting was about or any warning that it was going to happen. Yet she writes blogs on autism for the organisation's website so I dont understand how she doesnt understand these things.
Everyone's telling me different things today in the office. Different people from different departments are coming up to me telling me totally contradictory things about what I am supposed to be doing till the end of term, there's no communication and it seems even more confusing than my previous jobs.
Makes me wonder what the point of disclosing my autism was
I've been in my current job 18 months, got diagnosed 6 weeks ago (ish) and haven't disclosed yet. My diagnostic team advised me that I should, because I'm high-masking and at risk of burnout, but I worry that people just won't know what to do about it or will think I'm making excuses.
For the most part I don't need any accommodations because I work from home, but I do visit the office for a week every 6 months or so and it would be easier on me if I could have some alone time, a good sensory environment, etc. But I have no idea what to ask for or what would be seen as reasonable.