Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
I am an autistic male with an official diagnosis from Psychiatry-UK. I revealed myself as autistic to my workplace, and the results were disappointing.
My knowledge of corporate environment tells me that the HR is just scared of a discriminations lawsuit and advised my managers to keep me at distance. They cannot just fire me because I waited for 2 years to disclose my condition.
Some questions:
Thanks
Judge Dredd said:Would I be liable if I did not disclose my mental condition in the job interview?
I don't think there is any loability involved unless your condition / disability brings a threat to others (eg being an autistic bus driver who suffered meltdowns in traffic to the point of crashing the bus). If there is any risk at all then disclose it, but as a network engineer configuring routing tables, subnets and installing switches etc then I cannot see anything that would be an issue.
Judge Dredd said:Apart for homeworking, is there any adjustment that can be asked for a network engineer?
This is for you to decide. Do you find anything an issue because of your autism that sensible changes could improve? Think stuff like sound, lighting and smells typically, but if you do not suffer these sensory issues then focus on what does affect you.
Trying to cut out speaking to people altogether is never going to work as you are part of a larger IT team and there are very reasonable expectations for you to act as a part of that team.
Maybe if you tell us your autistic related issues we can help.
Hi Iain, thanks for the answer.
My issues were pretty standard autistic issues: I can function pretty well in a standard work environment, but I cannot perform in the required social environments for a corporate job. I can spend entire days without saying a word, I have no interest in socializing, and going to a "networking" event is just out. As you probably know, corporate job entails a lot of "networking" (brown nosing the right people). The HR accused me of "not being a good cultural fit", while some of my colleagues described me as "scary" even if I never spoke or interacted with them.
Yeah I’ve not heard of any companies that force people to attend work social events like Christmas party but if your company was then that’s probably going to be a reasonable adjustment given your situation