Published on 12, July, 2020
Recently diagnosed and first time posting! Hello!
I am having difficulty at work in so many ways and desperately want to keep working. One is the main things I really am struggling with at the moment being able to use a headset for meetings and things over teams as I get so distracted by background noise around me, get really overwhelmed and then cannot focus or concentrate, so I loose my ability to engage in a conversation which is obviously really affecting me. I spoke to IT department today about getting a noise cancelling headset but been told anything like that has to go through HR as a reasonable adjustment and would have to provide medical evidence etc I don’t know how I feel about being open about my diagnosis at work and how it affects me. Any experience with this? Positive or negative? anyone tried a noise cancelling headset? Did it help? Any other suggestions to try? thanks!
I think you have 3 choices here:
1 - ask you manager if you can have the headphones on expenses as you have problems as described. No need to disclose the autism. No need to go through IT.
2 - tell HR and request them as a reasonable adjustment
3 - buy them yourself.
I did some research and when you look make sure it specifies the headphones are noise cancelling - most just have microphone noise cancelling.
Logitech have some promising models but prices are around £100.
If you can afford it then option 3 is the logical choice.