Published on 12, July, 2020
I had to go into work this morning and deal with a customer, I can act really slick and spend 15 minutes talking in a way I’m expected to. It leaves me drained, my wife was with me and we went to the nearest supermarket afterwards, I know in hindsight, I shouldn’t have gone. The supermarket was very busy, I started to lose words in sentences and spike.
What I have noticed is in the entrances, there is always a charity collection, last week they had covered 3 different entrance points, I’ve noticed, the same people are there for different charities. What I really struggle with is that they actually approach people and ask for a few minutes of time, I find it a big struggle to engage, it’s hard sell. I can’t blurt it out to them but, I’m autistic, please leave me alone. They don’t want some change, they want a direct debit signup. It can upset my day for hours. I can leave feeling physically sick. Has anyone else had to deal with this?
My last supermarket was a busy store in the city centre and I honestly don’t know how I lasted there for 17 years before my redundancy in Sept 2019 - I tried to leave and do other things and get a transfer, but all I got was ridicule and bullying as I’d had prejudice and discrimination from the day I started long before my eventual diagnosis after I left, after being constantly screamed at by everyone on the Shop floor in front of customers to “be quiet” as I was deemed “negative” despite thier policies claiming otherwise in compliance with law - the other 2 people that I knew of who had autism were also treated horribly and were both sacked, one was falsely accused of theft from the store (“evidence” was “planted”) as I discovered later - things got really bad in the last 5-10 years of my being there and the bullying “discipline” got far worse, including by misuse of the disciplinary process which the in-house trade Union totally supported because of the partnership agreement (you had to join that trade union as part of your contract, renewed annually), the useless union being “yes men” for the management and when I left (despite knowing about redundancies at the start of 2019) gave no help nor support, as Shop stewards not there, head office gave no help and terminated my union membership the day after my redundancy date which I only found out about 6 months after I left when needing help with jobsearch