When the workplace is torture
This is the first post in a series of posts about bullying at work - worst jobs for autistic and Aspergers adults.
Work is something many of us face on a daily basis yet for some it has a real cost. When that cost is your very soul, you need to get out.
Seven years ago I was in a workplace that can only be described as a shade of hell. When I describe it as abusive, those aren’t the words I used. Those were the words used by the workplace safety body in my part of the world.
I was made to use unsafe equipment and spent nearly forty hours every week alone in a warehouse. Despite following all company policies, my training, I could do nothing right. I was openly mocked in front of people and there was no support. The same person I should have reported this to was the same person doing it.
My manager.
I can tell you there, I died. My body might still have been there, but that light, that person inside, they were gone. They no longer existed. I nearly gave up the hobbies that I’ve now turned into a business. I looked at a loaded semi-trailer, prime mover and trailer, and thought for a moment of letting it run over me and my car.
Only the thought of the driver and the cost they would pay kept me from doing it.
At first, it only ever felt like a bad day at work. Just things were a bit busy, there’s a lot to get through. There was never enough of us, things going wrong on the floor. It wasn’t targeted, it wasn’t personal, it was just a bit of a rough patch. Nothing to give any more thought to than that. Then, it wasn’t just a bad day, it was bad days, in a row. It was big projects and impossible to complete task lists. It was having to do everything yourself when company policy required someone else to check things off.
Then before you know it, it’s not bad weeks, it’s bad months. It’s being blamed for errors in work you didn’t do. Even being blamed for work you had no idea about at all.
Doesn’t matter how or why, it’s just plain your fault.
Before you think it could get worse, you’re given jobs and the wrong tools. You’re given a job there’s no way to do. It truly is impossible. If you think otherwise, get a 50mm internal diametre 90 degree elbow in stainless steel, power coat it both sides then try to clean the threading on the inside without a full set of dies and taps. What you’re given is a soft steel plug and an air powered impact wrench and told to make it fit all the way.
I’ll wait.
Impossible tasks aren’t all you get. You realise that all of the work you’ve been doing the last week you’ve been doing alone. You’ve not spoken to any of your work mates for the last three days, four days, five days, other than to say hello or goodbye as they’re leaving. You even barely see them during your lunch break.
When you hear the credit given to your manager for your idea of how to rotate people during your lunch break and is being rewarded for it, you feel ignored at best. Bitter at worst. You realise that nothing you do to change the situation matters. You’ve become a psychology experiment in learned helplessness. You stop struggling. You think it’s got to get better from here, it can’t get worse.
Only, it gets worse. What you see is that there’s a favourite. You will see the favourite getting not just praise but easy work. If there’s work to be done that requires two people, they will get two people to help them. If there’s work that means they have to be alone, at height, on a vehicle, they will not be alone and given the best equipment. You will get what’s left, even when the battery is failing, the hydraulics have a leak and there’s a list of problems as long as your forearm.
Then when there’s no work to be done as it’s now that quiet, they always get to go home early. When even there’s nothing to be done and it’s ‘luck of the draw’ you’re still, always, last. When there’s only you and your abuser left, they will unleash the worst. When you’re fresh out of hospital with appendicitis, you will be working and expected to be at 100% when the doctors have given you at least a month at light duties. You will be pushed to work as normal despite any pain it causes. You will be abused for trying to get off light and you will be ignored when the pain is so overwhelming it brings tears.
You might even be denied your lunch break because things took so long in the follow up check-up. When hunger is so bad that it hurts, that’s your fault it took that long. Even then, you still don’t get your full break, because they decided to count your lunch break as your trip to the outpatient clinic. Only they didn’t tell you that. They just want you to work and it’s your fault that you didn’t have your lunch while you were waiting.
You’ve complained about it at this stage. Even to the person who runs the site, warehouse. Despite these complaints to site management, site managers have gotten you nowhere. You’re not believed, not taken seriously. Despite a breakdown witnessed by family, it’s nothing related to your work from your manager. It’s just because you’re being sensitive. When you get pushed further and further down into that dark hole, you start losing parts of yourself. People are told it’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just that you’re bored by your old favourites, you can’t find anything new to enjoy. Everyone including your abuser is speaking for you and you’re openly ignored. Despite the pain you’re in, you’re ignored, again.
You realise there’s no level where it stops, where it goes away and when it will stop. You realise there’s one thing that will stop it, you stopping. There’s no other solution, because there’s no-one else. There’s no-one who will even listen to you, there’s no-one to back you up.
When you feel truly alone, you feel there is absolutely nothing and no-one to support you, it is truly the worst the place you can go. You didn’t think it really existed, but you lived there, for months. You even forgot what food tasted like, what a good day could even be. You forgot that people could genuinely care for you. You forgot what it was like to even have friends, real friends. People who would look out for you. You forgot that you could smile, laugh, joke. You forget that pleasure existed. You got so used to the pain, the silence, the apathy, you forgot what the opposite of that was. There even could be an opposite of it.
You need months, years to relearn. You don’t trust people for a long time. Once trust returns, that trust is fleeting at best. It doesn’t take much to lose faith in people. Just one bite and everything comes back in an instant. Even years later, the twitches, bad reflexes still remain. It stays with you and you’re twitchy, watching for any sign of the past. Even with the best boss you can now imagine, it’s there. Even when they back you up, stand up for you. Even when they’re talking to you over lunch, a lunch they asked if you’ve taken, you’re still unsure. Still expecting the old behaviour of your old workplace.
That was me a year ago.
The final part of this is the part no-one talks about, is the recovery from.
It seems to be obvious to anyone, it takes time to recover. What they don’t tell you is just how strong those reflexes can be and just how strong their hold can be. How much they can change you, how you’re seen. It can change the foundation you build on, how you process the workplace you’re in.
At my first job back in the workforce and in warehousing, I was extremely distant at first. I took a long time to warm up to my co-workers. If it was given to me, I saw it all the way through till dispatch. As much as I could control it, I would. I was more concerned with showing that I could do it, hold my own against my co-workers. Not just hold my own, do it better, do it faster. Make sure I wasn’t the target of any ire. Give the management no reason to be against me.
Only it was the wrong attitude for the workplace I was at. Where I was formal, they were informal. I could casually call up people over in Sydney and ask for them to check aspects on orders. I might have been at the bottom of the food chain, yet I was trusted to book in high value items. I was trusted with checking out flammable cleaning agents, caustic cleaning agents. It became part of my daily duties.
Yet, despite the confidence in my ability to organise shipping and in handling all of the goods, computer entry to the system of a national corporation, I was worried that it would be just over one day. That’s it, kicked out of the door. Not just that, the people around me would turn on me, not back me up. When there were issues in transitioning to a new work process, I was worried that the problems would be blamed on me. Not just blamed on me, recorded, written down and used to get rid of me.
Every time I checked the forklifts, pre-start checks, I was surprised that I had my choice for the job I was doing. I wasn’t assigned a vehicle unfit for use. I was surprised that all vehicles were in good condition, properly serviced and actually safe to use. The workplace had its own problems, I won’t deny that. Yet, those problems were being worked on and everyone was involved in trying to improve them. It was a very good place to work, yet I still needed a good four months for that to really sink in.
When I say this stuff stays with you, it really does. It rewrites your brain, your reactions, your very foundation for being at work. It changes how you approach your co-workers, your new manager. It changes your trust in the policy, systems at place in your work site. It changes how you approach applying for jobs and what jobs you even consider. It makes getting into the work force at all harder, much harder. Where the normal months turn into years. Where all it takes is one person to find you weird and that’s another job you’ve just missed out on. It’s on the pile of the hundreds of jobs you’ve missed out on.
Should I disclose my autism to my employer - last post in our serious
Regarding the question of whether autistic employees should disclose their mental health status to employers, based on my experience in two disparate jobs the answer is boiled down to an Aspie-friendly Yes or No. What is likely the hardest part, however, is deciding how to read the room and then decide to disclose it or not.
In my first job, I came home from school after leaving college rather early. Thinking I would soon return I got a full-time job working for an automobile parts store. It was not the polished sort of place most of us go to when we want to fix a car; it was an ancient building with sixty years of disorganization. Ironically, autistic traits helped me navigate the insanity of this place. I memorized the back room in two weeks’ time, at least well enough to find parts reasonably quickly.
This was a place where I was able to do a good honest job, in part because of autistic traits. However, mentioning the fact would have been very bad for my job. The owners were of the peculiar rudeness of the unlettered and arrogant; after overhearing them talk about mentally disordered people I figured it was unlikely that I could mention on-the-job difficulty and hear any more than “get over it” or “make it work.” There was (to my sense) a certain decay of etiquette and standards here, and it was quite nice to finally be out of there. They liked me, but superficially; no surprise, they were superficial about most other things and I did not want to consider them friends anyway.
After quite a long time working there I and the boss had a falling-out over lateness on a delivery, which is not surprising when not even the company knew the address of the house. I went instead to work part-time at a coffee shop. This one was different; here I mentioned to the manager & assistant that I was autistic and, thankfully, they did not care at all. The job had potential to be worse than my auto parts job; it was so in some ways as I was dealing in customer service, but in other ways, such as my trousers not falling apart from exposure to battery acid, it was far superior. And of course it was nicer to leave work smelling like delicious coffee than like sweat, oil, grime, and rust.
In conclusion, I would say from my own experience that it isn’t wise to go to work waiting for the opportunity to tell all about mental conditions. However, reading your boss’ reaction would help. Ask friends or family for etiquette tips, and if you find yourself swindled, leave. Happy working!
Subtle as Thunder: The Two-way road to Coming Out as Autistic to my Employer
By: Matt Medina
The CDC estimates that 1-2% of the population is autistic (1) however, as diagnostic processes improve, and as we come to learn more about the various presentations of autism, we should expect that percentage to increase as it has over the past several decades.
For the suspected 1-2% of us with autism who work, we are told to navigate a space that was never designed with us in mind and to interact with others who expect us to behave in ways that benefit their modes of socializing often at our expense. Autistic people tend to cut to the chase, which, largely, is thought of as rude.
The double empathy problem may explain why neurotypicals and autistics often talk past each other (2).
Also, it’s common for neurotypicals to apply an emotional valence to what autistics say, adding a subtext. The predictable result is that the dispassionate language of the autistic person is thought to carry a callous—if not hostile—meaning that leaves both parties confused and hurt. The autistic employee is left wondering what went wrong while the neurotypical employee feels her autistic peer is a jerk at best or a bully at worst. This is the double empathy problem at work.
While interactions between neurotypes often end in miscommunication, a little understanding goes a long way.
At my last workplace, I found myself having difficulties with some paperwork (an experience many autistics are familiar with). My handful of questions about the paperwork, my style of communication, and, more generally, the way I viewed the world baffled my boss.
So, one morning I decided to come to her office and tell her about my diagnosis. For the reasons outlined above, this isn’t a decision I made lightly. There’s a high margin of failure since many people don’t know much about autism and so looms the risk of discrimination. Still, communication is a two-way road and I felt confident in speaking with my boss.
After telling my boss, her face grew less tense and she apologized. She told me she felt I was being defiant when I was speaking honestly. She has experience with autistics and so she quickly understood my perspective, as well as a neurotypical, could. From that point onward, the tension withered, and our relationship grew closer. She made sure to make her directions thorough for me, and she knew she could leave me to own (eccentric) devices when on the job.
I know I got lucky in that instance. And, honestly, there aren’t many other situations where I’d ever let my boss know about my autism. Unfortunately, the stigma surrounding autism is great. As an autistic person, navigating the workplace feels like I’m always walking on eggshells.
Employers can do a better job to learn about autism and how it manifests. We offer a lot of distinct advantages in employment.
Autistics do their best to act by the unspoken social rules because we need to. What we’re asking is not that people change who they are for us, but that you meet us half-way so that autistics aren’t bearing the brunt of the weight. As it stands, autistics are expected to act neurotypical and are reprimanded for reminding people of their differences. This is inefficient and unsustainable.
However, if neurotypical employers took some time to understand us and to train the staff accordingly, we could live far more harmonious and efficient lives. To me, this sounds far more pleasant.
Sources:
An Autistic in the Workplace: Should I tell My Boss?
I was already employed for a few years in the IT field before I was diagnosed. But I had experienced some trouble in a newly assigned task. I was asked to be on a helpdesk team, taking tech support calls from individuals within the organization and from users outside.
But, I struggled, to say the least. I couldn’t figure out what people were saying. I couldn’t distinguish accents (I live in a VERY diverse country, racially, linguistically, and educationally). I was terrified of speaking verbally. The thought of the phone ringing was horrifying. I was afraid of sounding terse, angry, unhelpful or stupid. I couldn’t “hustle” my way around a user’s problem. I struggled to ask for help from a supervisor who would say to me “you need to learn to think” and left it at that when I asked for help with a problem. I hated it. Even though the products and systems I supported were awesome, the inherent lack of clarity of the job description and the muddiness of undefined social interaction made it incredibly difficult. I wanted to help people with their tech problems. But SOMETHING was preventing me from using my brain to do that. I wasn’t diagnosed at this stage.
I was granted a change in an assignment (assisting in setup and configuration of network equipment), and here, I was given “finite” or discrete projects, with clear boundaries that I could tackle on my own with some training from others here and there. It was amazing. My productivity soared. I could work alone, either at the office or at home. I worked fast and loved what I was learning. I was officially diagnosed around this time.
I toyed with the idea of disclosing my “status” to my manager. He knew I previously had struggled with depression and anxiety and he was supportive then. So, I decided to tell him. But I did have my misgivings. Unlike depression or anxiety, which are now getting more support in the workplace, in a lot of people’s minds, autism is a mental disability, not the “difference” we autistics know it to be. The result is that we are treated in a way that we see as condescending. We are not suddenly “beneath you” mentally and cognitively. We are so often treated like little kids. Comments like “good for you” and “Aw, you are trying your best” are insulting. The mental benefits that come with autism are ignored.
When I told him about my diagnosis, he thought back to how I struggled with the helpdesk assignment. He needed a bit of help understanding what autism/Asperger’s syndrome really was. After I explained, he then said he was happy he changed my assignment to what it is now. After I described it to him, he said “well, you could say that about a few others on this team too, couldn’t you?” and he laughed. I took this as a sign of acceptance. That “despite” this difference, I was still a valued member of the team, and he could see I was happy in the new assignment and he was happy with my work. The pieces fit. So, my experience at my current employer is a good one. This isn’t the norm though.
What Worked and What Didn’t
If you had to ask me if I would have disclosed my status upfront, perhaps at interview stage? No. For this job and anything prior that I interviewed for, I would NOT have disclosed at that initial stage. Why? Because no matter how understanding an interviewer may be, autism and social skills do not immediately associate with each other in the common person’s mind. Rudeness, bluntness, social awkwardness and other unbecoming traits are associated with us. We aren’t associated with being a “team player”. Which would rule us out.
But the strengths we have, don’t immediately come to mind when neurotypical employers interview us. Where I had success, I attribute to the following autistic traits:
Social indifference? No! Whatever you call it, it makes us impervious to the effects of office politics and the petty squabbles that often exist. We simply don’t care about these things, allowing us to focus on the goal at hand.
Over-analytical? No! Yes, we analyse more than the usual person and it can sometimes be a hindrance. However, wouldn’t you prefer a person who thought about a solution more rather than less? Besides, this trait allows us to connect seemingly unconnected ideas and we can come up with novel concepts this way.
Not a team player? No! We CAN play in a team. Just don’t expect the quality of the results to be the same as it could have been had we tackled the task on our own. ☺
Rudeness and bluntness? No! It’s in how you frame it. The workplace isn’t high school. It’s a place to get things done. We appreciate this and as such, being clear and expecting clarity is not to be confused with rudeness.
Hyperfocus? In my opinion, this can only be seen as a positive thing, if of course, it is accompanied by a guideline as to when to lay off the hyperfocus and to see the bigger picture. If the bigger picture is clear to us, hyperfocus need not be an issue at all.
Poor verbal communication? No! If anything, we rely of the unique ability of humans to use language to communicate! We value what is said, not necessarily HOW it is said, or the body language employed when a thing is said. We may not speak like neurotypicals, but get us to write out our thoughts, intentions, or pretty much anything, and what you see will make sense and be helpful and clear. We highly value the use of language. Why waste that incredible area of the human brain? ☺ You will always know where you stand with us. If you listen to the words.
The “image” of adult autistics needs to change. We aren’t just Sheldon Cooper, Dr. Greg House or Rain Man. We can be kind, gentle, loving, intelligent, independent, entertaining and funny. But these things don’t come to mind right away, and the stereotypes are hauled out instead.
How different is that from racial prejudice or sexism?
My choice was to NOT disclose my status upfront, but rather let the evidence speak for itself once I was employed. If, however, you are an employer, I would appeal to you to consider what you think you may already know about us. Throw away the stereotypes as you would expect when it comes to gender or racial issues. You will be better for it.
Should I Disclose My Autism at Work?
I started this job wondering if I should disclose my autism to my boss. I hadn’t at first, but once the sensory demands started wearing me down, I approached her. I was determined to do what it took to keep my job.
By: Vanessa Blanchard
Shortly after I found out I was autistic, I got an office job. I chose not to disclose my autism during the interview, opting instead to aim for being agreeable and hardworking.
There were parts of it I really loved. I was a part of something; my contributions helped others succeed. It was fun and purposeful to organize and coordinate with people.
But the office had glass walls and I could hear people shuffling papers and talking all day. There were constant interruptions and demands for masking. I was trying to be tougher than my needs. After just a few weeks, I started burning out.
I started this job wondering if I should disclose my autism to my boss. I hadn’t at first, but once the sensory demands started wearing me down, I approached her. I was determined to do what it took to keep my job.
She said, “I don’t see it.”
From that point on, any time I tried to discuss accommodations or challenges I was having, I was met with suspicion. She didn’t believe me. She framed my requests as laziness and weakness. Like I thought I was too good for the job. She told me that I’d never find a better position and said I was ungrateful.
There wasn’t an HR department to protect me. Less than four months after I started, I was fired.
What I Did Wrong
I started this job as if I had no other choices. Being chronically underemployed, stuck in poverty, and desperate to prove to “others” that I was a real adult, I approached my interview as if it were my only option. I didn’t self-disclose in the interview out of fear of ruining my chances. I didn’t realize that urge to hide myself was a huge red flag.
My need to prove myself as capable had stripped me of all of my negotiation power.
Instead of making sure that I would benefit from the position, I masked and people-pleased, setting up expectations that I couldn’t consistently meet. I presented a false self that was certain to be my undoing.
What I learned:
Most people are dismissive of autism at first.
We live in a “good vibes only” society that values conformity. We have to be productive workers who fall in line. Placing your needs above the expectations of others is borderline blasphemous in these conditions.
Ignoring a person’s needs doesn’t change them. Unmet needs will make themselves known.
My energy and time have value and I should take that effort back from people who don’t earn me. This doesn’t mean I get to walk around acting entitled. It does mean that no one job is ever my only option.
So, Should I Tell My Employer/Boss/Potential Employer?
There isn’t a clear cut answer to this, but I will say that my experience leans towards yes. Will you lose some opportunities? Yes. Many of them, but this doesn’t mean you should change what you’re doing.
The fact that so many workplaces have no idea how to accommodate autistic people is not a reflection of your worth. It’s laziness and misinformation on their part.
Other people’s discrimination isn’t the same as having no power. And for me, this is what disclosure represents. Can I weed out the people who will be wasting my time? Autistic folks are taught that we are burdens who must sacrifice ourselves to prove we are “better now.” That we can keep up. But what good is nailing an interview for a job that will destroy me? How will I eat in six, nine, twelve months if I can’t get out of bed anymore?
So I won’t work in a place that makes me feel unsafe in disclosing. This limits my choices, but saves me a lot of time, pain, and recovery. The more I embrace this, the less it hurts when people react poorly to me. I know me and I’m good with me.
And I know that if someone tells you that you are disposable, they have made the same true of themselves.