Published on 12, July, 2020
I don't expect an answer to that question. It's not a real question: just one that I ask myself. I can probably answer it myself, so don't particularly want advice.My last period of employment was so horrible that I retired early (i.e. left without a job to go to) having been on long-term sick leave. Since then I've not been able to contemplate going back into the lions' den (paid employment). The thought of having to show up for work every day and deal with people (well-meaning or not) is something I can't face. Working from home wasn't great either, because it fostered my natural tendency to isolate myself from others. Ugh!
If organisations made genuine efforts to adapt to people with autism I might contemplate it, but which organisation genuinely does this? I had SO many issues, in my last employment.
Open plan noisy offices were the worst. Generally I couldn't focus so couldn't get on with any work. On the rare occasions I could focus on my work, I'd be dragged away by office chat and then find it hard to get back in the zone. I'm either in it or out of it. My most productive job: in an office as one of four computer programmers who rarely spoke to each other.Hot desking! Turning up at work, never knowing if you were going to find a suitable working environment. Bleurgh!
Then there were the unhelpful employment practices that I experienced, particularly in the last few years. The last organisation I worked for got rid of fixed job descriptions as they are normally understood. There was a generic fixed "job description" which didn't say very much at all, as it was couched in such broad terms, and was applied to many different people in very different roles. Then, on top of that, there was a description of your particular role, which was more like a traditional job description but didn't form part of the contract of employment, so could be changed at the employer's whim. The result of this: never ending changes which were beyond my control. Utterly traumatic! I found myself forced into roles that weren't suitable, eventually manage to manoeuvre myself into something less unmanageable, only to find the rug pulled out from under me again. Personally I find it hard to think of a worse arrangement for autistic people. I hadn't considered that I might be autistic then; now that I suspect I am, it's no wonder I had such difficulties.Oh well. I'm not sure how I'm going to fill the rest of my life, because it's not worked out so well up till now. End of rant.
Inactive account said:Hot desking! Turning up at work, never knowing if you were going to find a suitable working environment. Bleurgh!
I was a project manager in the Civil Service when we were merging 2 organisations into 1 and we had to take about 800 staff who were used to their own spaces and move them into large, open plan spaces (apart from the managers of course).
I pushed back against the open plan idea but it was being driven down from the top - the government effectively. This decision spanned both Labour and Conservative governments before any political arguements start.
The rational was:
We have to be fair to the largest number of people and that means the few who have special needs will loose them in order to make the vast majority feel better about loosing their own spaces. In effect - everyone suffers.
Why? There are big cost savings in less space needed, cleaning is simplified, people cannot "hide out" in their offices and are always under the watchfull eye of CCTV, the noisy and messy individuals will be censured by their peers rather than management having to risk discrimination cases, people have to conform and become more drone like (predictable and compliant) and so people go back to feeling like part of the "big machine".
Naturally most of these were never published but were talked about in the high level management meetings in the design stages. We had outside "consultants" from the high level Civil Service always in these meetings so the right path was always chosen.
I thought you may like to see what it was like from the inside of the corporations as to why this sort of thing is happening.
I've seen company after company go down this route and have often been called in to sort out the IT service teams who lost most of their staff through it. This was considered a transitional pain and a good excuse to either outsource support or hire in people willing to take the company line.
I'm glad I'm out that market now - it was kind of soul destroying knowing what was happening, why and that I had to be part of the face implementing it.
Thanks. Yes, I can understand the drivers for it. The inhumanity of it was more than I could (and can) bear. I'd personally be surprised if you have a more productive workforce as a result. I suppose some of the pain might well be transitional. New people coming in and not experiencing those changes obviously would not have the sense of being abused. However, management who introduce such changes will no doubt continue to cause pain.