Job problems - corporate environment

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.

  • Now everybody looks terrified by me. People keep their distance and try to be a politically correct as possible. They alternate between speaking with me like I was a 5 years old, and just keeping their distance.
  • The manager now tries to keep his distance. Every interaction we have is either recorded or done with another person present in the room as witness. He does not do that with the other people.
  • I asked for homework with some stupid excuse, and they granted it to me immediately. The company is very against homework, and they granted it to very few people, nearly all with serious health problems. I am the only one that got approved for homework without suffering from a serious health risk.

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:

  • I want a better job, getting promoted in a corporate environment without social skills is impossible. Would I be liable if I did not disclose my mental condition in the job interview?
  • Apart for homeworking, is there any adjustment that can be asked for a network engineer? I do not suffer from sensory overload. 

Thanks

Parents
  • Not only are you not required to disclose The average HR department would prefer if you didn’t disclose at least not in your CV or interview. You absolutely cannot be sacked for not disclosing your disability, but not disclosing your disability may limit your ability to rely on certain protections if you have a discrimination lawsuit down the line.

    in my personal opinion it’s best to disclose soon after you’ve got the job.

    reasonable adjustments can include:

    • putting things formally in writing  normally done informally so that you can be absolutely clear about what you’ve been asked to do.
    • job tailoring where aspects of the job  you maybe find difficult get shifted on to the managers or other engineers (customer service?)
    • special seating arrangements putting you in a quiet area where you’re not easily distracted or disturbed by noisy stimulus
  • > You absolutely cannot be sacked for not disclosing your disability,

    You have no idea of what you are talking about. If you have been in the workplace for less than 2 years you can be fired without any reason or explanation. HR will never tell you "we do not want aspies in the workplace", they will only tell you some bullcrap about "cultural fit" or something. 

  • Okay let me put it this way you cannot legally be sacked for not disclosing your disability. So unfair dismissal laws only kick in after two years. But the equality act will apply from the moment you are hired in fact aspects of it will apply before you are hired.

    You can absolutely take your boss / ex boss to an employment tribunal for disability discrimination before two years. Of course proving it is another matter but you can still get the matter in front of an employment judge. In fact if you believe you’ve been unfairly discriminated against during the application process for a job you can still take an employer to employment tribunal even though you’ve never worked for them so long as the discrimination relates to your disability. Again when you get to the employment tribunal you do have to prove it.

    that said proving these things is not as difficult as you might imagine. there is a funky standard of proof for discrimination cases. basically says if you can  present enough evidence to make a kind of on the face of it argument And the employer doesn’t present any evidence at all The standard of proof is largely ‘well there’s something suss going on here and they haven’t done anything to try and prove it wasn’t so they're guilty.’

    at least that’s my understanding, I am not a lawyer. but they did it that way to make sure that employers can’t get out of being accused of discrimination by just staying quiet and trying to bury evidence.

Reply
  • Okay let me put it this way you cannot legally be sacked for not disclosing your disability. So unfair dismissal laws only kick in after two years. But the equality act will apply from the moment you are hired in fact aspects of it will apply before you are hired.

    You can absolutely take your boss / ex boss to an employment tribunal for disability discrimination before two years. Of course proving it is another matter but you can still get the matter in front of an employment judge. In fact if you believe you’ve been unfairly discriminated against during the application process for a job you can still take an employer to employment tribunal even though you’ve never worked for them so long as the discrimination relates to your disability. Again when you get to the employment tribunal you do have to prove it.

    that said proving these things is not as difficult as you might imagine. there is a funky standard of proof for discrimination cases. basically says if you can  present enough evidence to make a kind of on the face of it argument And the employer doesn’t present any evidence at all The standard of proof is largely ‘well there’s something suss going on here and they haven’t done anything to try and prove it wasn’t so they're guilty.’

    at least that’s my understanding, I am not a lawyer. but they did it that way to make sure that employers can’t get out of being accused of discrimination by just staying quiet and trying to bury evidence.

Children