awesome, now everybody at work knows i have aspergers

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i told the head chef...and only the head chef.

yesterday was the christmas party (super late....but i assume its cheaper to do it past december) awesome, FoH manager's treat at a fancy asian resturaunt...it was amazing. and it was basicly open bar for anybody to order however much alcohol they wanted. granted people got drunk. afterwards, about half of the people went home, other half went to the bar across the street. i hangout a little bit with one of my coworkers i get along with in the parking lot of the resturaunt. so i show up at the bar 30 minute after everyone else, i order a drink, sous chef tells the bartender he has my first drink on hs tab, awesome. then one of the bartenders that i work with comes over, she is obviously wasted. (she and the head chef have sex, everyone knows it) she comes over and immediatly "i know you have aspergers, i love you, you are a wonderful person, ect." standing next to us was phil...doing nothing, so of course he heard.....and now chances are everybody in the resturaunt knows and i'm calling out today because i do not want to go into that new atmosphere that has now been forced upon me

That sounds like an extremely awkward situation. If I was was you I would do the same thing and call out. Alcohol and co-workers are not a good mix because things are guaranteed to get weird and awkward at work after. I never go out drinking with coworkers. What probably happened was that the head chef probably told her as a secret thinking he could trust her. Some people do that, they'll be like "guess what I found out about josh...promise you won't tell..."

Then after she got drunk, she lost her inhibitions and blabbed and made a big thing of it like drunk idiots usually do. Did you tell the head chef that you didn't want anyone else to know? There may have been a misunderstanding. On the plus side, at least you now know who you can and can't trust with your personal business in the future.

I would never tell anyone I work with about my aspergers because I know from then on, people will start paying closer attention to my behavior and start blaming everything I do on having aspergers. Sometimes I do have an urge to tell when there's a misunderstanding, but I know most people are ignorant about what aspergers/autism is anyway, so there seems to be no point. I'll be misunderstood regardless. I know it will end up being used against me in the future.

This may not help but it may be for the best, you'll never know.

You are obviously thinking about the worst case scenarios and your anxieties are through the roof at the moment. The world is changing and a lot more is known about aspergers , your co-workers could be clued up and not have the pre-conception of Aspie stereotypes. I think the key issue for you now is to try and get a hold of your escalating anxiety and try and rationalise it - not easy I know. Until you actually go into work you won't know if the dynamic has changed. You could be a well liked and respected colleague and nothing will change , you wont know until you try. It may turn out that your colleagues knew something was different about you but didn't know what - Obviously there will be a transitional period but now they know it might be for the better.

If the SO of the head chef likes you, that is a good thing.

Chances are you have nothing to worry about. You are in an industry where the differences associated with the autism spectrum can be put to good use. Sort of like the Patriots Football team that won last night. It is up to the head chef to decide how to best use your talents. And for you to do your job. No more than you are suppose to. No less than your are suppose to. And if everyone does that the kitchen does just fine.

Similar thing happened to me at work a few years ago. I was so angry, because I only wanted to keep that between me and the boss, and suddenly the deputy manager blabbed it out in a meeting, not intentionally, she just brought up AS as she said to me about my anxieties, in front of everyone. I felt like getting under the table. Some of the people in the meeting looked at me a bit confused, as if they were thinking "I didn't know you had AS".

Yeah, it is awkward when something you don't want everyone to know gets blabbed out. I suppose that is more likely to happen when people are drunk.

As the cliche says "live and learn". I hope this "lesson" is not too painful for you.

Wow, this brings back memories of high school, and some staff at the school accidentally, on-purpose-but-with-good-intentions, or accidentally-on-purpose let the cat out of the bag to my ENEMIES who were LOOKING for AMMUNITION to PICK ON me... and I was trying to KEEP A LOW PROFILE and NOT SEEM ABNORMAL... because I didn't want to be remembered by my high school classmates, due to embarrassing moments... the damn adults blew my chance of making THAT happen... I was more concerened by their behavior than by my classmates' behavior, actually, also because they thought I was socially incompetent so paid more attention to me instead of less... I guess my plan to keep a low profile backfired.


That's a big reason I'm trying to be an activist against assessments that generalize, stereotype, shame and make assumptions about Aspies and auties.