Employer: to tell or not to tell?

Hello,

I was recently diagnosed as an Aspie. I am an adult. I have lost several jobs in the past and am very worried about my current one . Wondering if I should tell HR of the Aspie diagnostics or not. I work for a large company.

If I tell them, I think I have to provide a list of accomodations that would help me perorm my job better?

Has anyone informed their employer? What did you do exactely? Hoe did it go?

Thanks .

my employer sacked me on the pretext of my diagnosis. but given that they knew, that made them liable for disability discrimination, which they wouldn't have been otherwise. that said, the compensation was pathetic.

What kind of accommodations do you think you would want from a large company?

I know what I would want .. but how will they make an accommodation that states that the people act work have to act logically and not let spur of the moment emotional decisions affect how they react to situations.

I think maybe my job is the most accommodating. Everyone is wearing a mask so there is no need to try to understand facial expression; no one uses it. Got to love the Operating Room!

Rolling Panda wrote:What kind of accommodations do you think you would want from a large company?

This is what needs to drive your decision on whether to tell them or not. Would the disclosure of AS help or not? Also, what kinda accommodations are you more looking for?

I'll give you a few examples of where my disclosure actually helped the situation, rather than hurting it...hopefully that'll help give examples of when it's better to say something.

The first situation is fairly recent. I was in a performance evaluation recently, and most everything was okay (as expected). One thing, though, wasn't. My communication, as they saw, "needed improvement". Unfortunately, this kinda thing was consistent on pretty much every performance evaluation I've had ever...so yeah, not unexpected. I mentioned the AS during the performance evaluation as more a 'side comment' to kinda explain the difficulties with communication. We didn't discuss it much then, but they reacted fairly strongly to it (a side effect that I didn't want, actually) and asked HR how they should approach this kinda disclosure. They brought me into a meeting later and asked me if I needed any special accommodations as a result of this. I told them no, but just to be more open regarding communication mistakes I make. They have given me a lot of flexibility in the past regarding my working environment (e.g. I had some lights disconnected above my cubicle, a "sheet" giving me more privacy, etc) so there wasn't much I was really wanting. Needless to say, the disclosure was a more positive thing at that time, but really would have been more positive if I had clear reasons for disclosing it.

The second situation is also fairly recent. A few months ago, in a board meeting, we were discussing the rental of a property. There were some social mistakes one of the people made, that really offended one person on the board. I didn't think it was really a mistake or anything...but she did. Anyways, after awhile of this "He should know better, I'm concerned about him doing X, Y, Z" I jumped into the conversation, kinda angry. I said that a lot of these "social rules" may not be understood for everyone. I defended him because, if I was in his position, it's *very* likely I would have made the same mistakes. I didn't think of them as bad, at all. I more or less said that some of us don't really understand these kinda rules very well and need people to be patient. I didn't disclose AS or anything really, but I did relate him to me. The 'bashing' against him stopped, and I got an email later from her thanking me for putting this into perspective a bit more.

The third situation was extremely recent. I moved onto another job, mostly because my old one didn't align with my obsessions that great and I wasn't happy. When in my second interview, it consisted of two 1-on-1 conversations with others. Personally, I found this really a good way to have an interview (given how my first one was, anyways). During the second of those two interviews, we discussed communication. I was kinda surprised, given how much of an introvert this guy was, that he got to be so much of a leader of sorts at the college. I kinda asked him how he dealt with meetings and social situations, and really bonded with him over those kinda difficulties. AS was brought up during that meeting. We didn't really discuss anything in detail, it was just "in passing". Anyways, the boss I'd work for knows me extremely well. He knows my communication difficulties, AS, sensory issue, etc. I think that being known has had a very big impact right away since they are getting me a relatively private workspace, and he's working with me directly in setting up meetings and attending them for the time being. He's also giving me far more control over how I approach things, when, and by how much. As he said, he's trying to help me balance all this. He used to be my boss in the past, for 4 years, and that's why he knows me so well. I also quit the job he was my boss in due to the number of meetings and the more pressure on being social. So...yeah, that disclosure was fairly good.

Again, it all kinda comes down to what will the disclosure do to help you do your job better.

Thanks for the answers!

I have been in this job for a little bit over a year, I have a new boss, she started a few months ago. She has already sent me for a job retraining, the only person in the team to go through that. Made me really worried. Then she took some projects away from me with some BS explanation. Made me super stressed.

I don't know what to do right now. I don't even know what I could ask for special accomodations. I just want to keep my job, I lost the previous one for no good reason. My husband is pushing me to disclose my AS diagnostic but I am conflicted. Don't know what to do .

from what you say, your husband may be right. if you don't disclose, you can't claim in the case of disability discrimination. it isn't your responsibility to define what are reasonable adjustments. that is a matter for your employer to decide and for the courts to rule on, should it come to that. but what you have is clearly a personality issue. ideally, you should seek to work for someone who is more sympathetic towards you. disclosure may give you leverage in that direction.