Any success with accommodations at work?
I am a valued employee with over 17 years at my job. I am a recognized expert in a number of critical techniques, processes and platforms and have key roles in national and global projects on a regular basis. I am also a mystery and a PITA for my management.
For years I was part of a very small group, with little need for contact with the rest of the organization beyond my immediate internal clients. Now I am part of a much larger team and always in team meetings and working with extended groups and having to go out with people for lunch or after work events.
Before the change I was always a top rated employee. After the change I have oscillated between top ratings very low ratings and even the lowest possible rating.
My evaluations always say that I am the best in the network at certain very difficult things and regularly deliver top level work of the highest importance. Unfortunately I also routinely screw up trivial things that any idiot could do in their sleep--the paperwork and records, for example or the very easiest projects... That require little or no creativity or thought. I am also sometimes faulted for over analyzing those simple jobs and treating them with the attention due to larger projects.
Time management (not a problem when I give all my time to a big project) is a problem with the small ones as is organization and paperwork.
Does anyone have any experience with accommodations for these sorts of issue?
I feel that it's basically my job to make myself fit their world, but I wish they could come a tiny bit my way in helping me overcome the small obstacles that get in the way of the large contributions I make to the firm.
I would greatly value any experience or advice you can share.
I've never received accommodation for these issues, but I do have some experience with HR, and two main thoughts occur to me:
1. I was glancing through your posts to see where you live (since different countries have different laws) and noticed that you were just recently diagnosed, and you said you can get a note from your psychologist to give your employer. Do this. If you're American, the Americans with Disabilities Act states that the employer must provide accommodations to anyone with a disability, provided those accommodations don't unreasonably interfere with business operations or have a prohibitively high cost. Judging by what you've said, you should be able to talk with your supervisor and come up with a few accommodations that would make you more effective at your job (make sure you emphasize that part) and cost the company little or nothing. If you live elsewhere, I'm afraid I'm not as familiar with the laws outside America, but there's likely an online resource that could help.
2. Is this shift from a small group to a large group the result of a promotion/change in job title, or did the company just change how it operates as a whole?
Thanks.
1. I work in New York City my supervisor will be happy to work with me on this. He has often said that he considers the areas of difficulty trivial and just wants me to find a way to deal with them with greater ease.
2. The company is very, very large. My sub-organization within the company changed how it operates. The new structure is quite logical and has many benefits from an organizational standpoint. I just happens to have made areas that I have trouble with a routine part of the job when they were rare before.
I've had success. When a certain evaluation criteria came into place my boss and I had a talk about how my trouble with multitasking would affect one aspect. After they saw my report they agreed I would be scored in that area (I have NVLD). I've been honest with the learning disability though since day one.
I have no formal diagnosis hence no formal accommodations but I do get them by the nature of my job. I work alone in a large organization in a VERY aspie-friendly environment and my boss has many Aspie traits as well so he probably understands my personality well.
Sounds just like my boss. I recently sat down with him and was blown away with how intelligent he really was. He really knows highly technical stuff inside out even though he doesn't look intelligent but boy he messes up the simplest of tasks and over analyzes simple things all the time. I have to correct him all the time on basic grammar and his writing is nothing short of atrocious. He comes across as aloof and dare I say stupid but he is about as smart a person as I have ever worked with.
I do honestly believe that many people in my organization already know I have Aspergers/HFA and if not, everyone knows that I am highly introverted, very friendly and the most reliable person you will ever meet.
Aspiewordsmith
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Joined: 2 Nov 2008
Age: 58
Gender: Male
Posts: 572
Location: United Kingdom, England, Berkshire, Reading
I have never had any accommodations in any work I done. The first job in 1986 was just exploitation and Asperger syndrome was not part of my vocabulary at the time. The boss was a verbally abusive person and wanted rid of me three months later. The other job I also didn't have any accommodations and was like a sensory torture and I had a meltdown which was seen as behaviour problems that could upset other people. The worst thing is that they knew I had Asperger syndrome having been diagnosed a year before and had to get the day off to go to Cambridge for the diagnosis.
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