Employer lays off an aspie!

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I just read on another aspie website that an employer laid off an aspie! It takes someone particularly evil to do what this person did.

There was once this employer. He took an aspie under his wing and gave him a job. This aspie was particularly one who had a bit of trouble finding and keeping a job to begin with. This employer claimed to have respected him, putting up with a lot of his quirks and offering him the best. Then comes this one day when this employer laid off a hundred people, and this aspie person happened to be one of them. The employer apparently kept many on the job, but when push comes to shove, he let this aspie go. Now this particular aspie person has trouble keeping a job even to this day, and his parents are looking for supplemental income.

What happened here was a crime against humanity. It was an act of utter discrimination. Imagine you were an African-American person who was taken in by an employer, only to be told a couple of years later that you were let go "because you were black." If you agree with this, then you have got to be a very evil person. This is how this employer treated this aspie person. This particular person had a disability, and when push comes to shove the less fortunate one is to be let go.

Are you aspies going to sit back and let this employer get away with this? There are probably laws on the books which can possibly be invoked upon acts of discrimination. It is illegal for an employer to discriminate, and this employer probably can get away with it, because he also let others go. It would be hard to prove discrimination in this case, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that it was discrimination. The law does not operate on rational terms. It operates on terms protecting private property and the rights of property owners. This employer is a property owner, and many judges and legal officials probably believe that he should be allowed to do whatever he wants. But we, as a collective group of aspies, do not need the law on our side.

Are we, as aspies, going to sit back and let this employer get away with what this employer did? There are many movies centering on the concept of evil that tend to make evildoers out to do some really nice things, only to turn the tables towards evil when push comes to shove. This employer fit the profile of evil. We should not just sit back and allow this deed to go unpunished.

I, for example, can email the person who wrote the message and get the name of the employer and his company. I then can do a search for where this particular person may be right now. Then, I can give the name and telephone of this employer to all of you aspies. Then, you can all call this employer up, one by one, and make his life miserable by telling him what a fool he was to lay off an aspie. It would be the most embarrassing thing we can do. It would even be more embarrassing if we took the time to go down to his office and stipulate this to his personnel and customers. Evil needs to be confronted!

- Ray M -

Oh! Yeah! By the way, I thought about this while re-reading the original post ...

I know some of you have expressed concern about the concept on an other aspie website about the creation of some sort of aspie island project. Maybe this incident will open up some minds as to why it is virtually impossible for us aspies to live peaceful lives in the framework of a neuro-diverse world. Neuro-diversity is a myth, and it is not because of of aspieness versus NT, but rather due to the notion that the people running the show are hyper-narcissistic NTs. Even a compassionate NT will be rundown. That's sort of why there's no compassionate people in high places. They don't last too long.

I doubt that another aspie would ever conceive of doing something so evil ...

- Ray M -

The NT's want be happy till they weed us out. Their system is based
on a boot in our faces. We will never be respected till we become an
independent state with the means to defend our way of life.

Are you all insane? In case you forgot, there were 99 other workers that weren't aspies that also got laid off. How, exactly, is this discrimination? What you're saying, is that if one person has a disability, and the other 99 don't, then it's discrimination. What if it were 999 workers, and 1 aspie? I bet you'd still be crying "Discrimination!"
Perhaps the aspie was among the lowest 100 workers scaled on how well/efficient/effectively they worked. It's not "evil", it's not discrimination, it's just business. You yourself are only assuming it's because he's autistic that he got let go. You have no basis for it. You WANT it to be discrimination. That's all. Not that it is discrimination, but because you want it to be! Take, for example, your black man scenario. Have you ever seen the Ali G Show, where he asks "It's cause I'm black, innit?" Of course it isn't, but it's the same kind of mentality displayed here. Look at it this way: 100 normal people get fired, and even though the aspie is a crappy worker, the aspie is kept. THEY HAVE A LEGITIMATE CASE FOR DISCRIMINATION. I bet you'd just consider it fair and equal and just. You don't want equality, you LIKE being able to cry "Discrimination!" when something sh***y happens.
Just one question about the "way of life" you want to protect. Would this include working when you want to, stopping work when you want to, working only as efficiently/effectively as you want to? How exactly will this "nation" support itself? On donations from other "nations" that decide to take pity on it? Face it, no matter how much you want it, there is never going to be an "aspie nation". It wouldn't be able to support itself. And even an "aspie nation" would structure itself to support the dominant type. Look at WP, even though anyone can post, it's still structured to be most advantageous to those who can post a lot, and about stuff they want to talk about. You say it's virtually impossible to live with NTs in peace, but many of us would disagree, and what's more, establishing an "aspie island" is even more impossible than living with NT's in peace.
I, for one, am behind the employer 100%. If it's most advantageous for his company to lose a crappy worker, than to support a crappy worker at the expense of a better worker, then lose the damn crappy worker. So what if it is harder for the aspie to do the same quality of work. You do what needs doing to get ahead, and if you can't, you don't deserve to survive anyway. Isn't that the nature of evolution? Of course you're going to fight it, if you're the one who is losing out, but that doesn't make it evil.

I agree with danlo. The fact that 99 other people lost their jobs at the same time makes it difficult to believe that he was unfairly discriminated against.

Also note that the employer is operating a business not a charity.

Well I was an Aspie who was laid off too. I don't think the employer actually knew I had it though, I think he had to lay off a few people, and I was one of them because I was still fairly new and not quite as fast as some of his more experienced employees, and there wasn't enough work to go around, so he only kept the more qualified people on. But I know he thought highly of me and wouldn't have let me go if he had enough positions. But it was a slow season for work, so I had to be let go, and I'm sure it had absolutely nothing to do with disability - unless it was because of my slow speed of working, I dont know if thats an Aspie thing or not.

I was joking:)
I support business also.

After I read your post.. I was like

w...................t.....................f

What the hell is wrong with you? "being an aspie" probably had nothing to do with it, 100 people HAD to go! If that's a crime against humanity you'd hate the real world.

Tell me this: Why should someone get treated better than others because he or she is an aspie? You're either good at the job or you aren't, in my opinion it's discrimination against the others if he WAS kept because he is an aspie.

It's impossible to tell, from your post, whether or not any discrimination occurred. Employers have a duty to make reasonable accommodation of disability, but not to employ disabled employees if those employees cannot perform to an adequate standard. As well, if the employee feels that he or she has been discriminated against then the only way to get compensation is by making a human rights complaint through the local human rights office.


The analogy between an African-American employee and an Aspie employee is interesting. If an Aspie employee is laid off only because of his aspieish appearance or mannerisms, that, to me, would amount to a similar discrimination as when an African-American person is laid off because he is black. To draw a further analogy, if an employer lays off an Aspie because of his or her odd gestures or eccentric social behavior that would be similar to the discrimination that a gay man might experience because the employer thought the gay man behaved in a way that was too feminine. I'm pretty sure an analogy like that would hold up in a human rights tribunal or court. I do think it would be damn hard to prove though. If the aspie employees standard of production had been satisfactory or better, then the discrimination might be much easier to prove.

People who discriminate against people of color are called racists. People who discriminate against gay people are called heterosexist. What are people who discriminate against the neurodiverse called? Neurotypicalist?

You don't mention which country this is in.

In the UK + EU there is discrimination legislation to prevent sacking someone because of sex, sexual orientation, race, religion or disability. I believe the situation in the US is far more geared towards the employer.

If this took place in the UK to set up a redundancy the employer will have to have determined criteria for staff to be made redundant. eg. last in first out (redundancy for the people that have been employed for the shortest length of time) - this should be disclosed to the employees. If anyone who does not fit the criteria has also been laid off then there is a cause of action for wrongful/unfair dismissal. Therefore if the aspie does not fit the criteria originally set down for the redundancy there would be a good case that the dismissal was on the basis of Aspie characteristics and arguably unfair/wrongful.

Jelly

Yes ... It's not about numbers. It's about looking at people for whom they are. Out of those 100 people, or 1000 people as you would put it, it's about comparing the people being let go and those that are on the job already. I imagine that someone "normal" still on the job can be let go, since this "normal" person readily doesn't have as much trouble as an aspie to be let go.

It is a form of discrimination, because the employer knew this person was an aspie and failed to provide him support for employment. If this person was an aspie, and the employer had no idea, than that is different. But this employer knew, providing he gave him support in the first place, and then turns his back on him when things got rough.

So, I guess we all will do what we need to survive, by your argument. Does that include robbing cashiers and stealing and theft? Fraud? Mugging? Do you think that qualifies, because this is how many crimes happen in the first place. I imagine you're also the type that wants to throw these people in prison, just for trying to survive? Would you throw a mother in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed her and her son? I imagine you probably would think about it.

- Ray M -

I don't know what his production on the job was, because the post I read didn't say. He was kept there for quite some time, and this person felt particularly good about the job. That much I have read. I imagine his production was average. If his production was awful, that would be another story. If his production was average, then this person should have been kept on the job. I find it particularly evil because the employer had no compassion for this person when letting him go, yet he managed to find compassion beforehand and take him under his wing.

You don't treat people like this. It's wrong, and there should be some sort of legal standards in place for this sort of thing.

- Ray M -

Aeturnus, there's a point where you have to let all that AS-NT stuff go and realize its hard for everyone these days. Think about the fact that there's NT's out there who have a really hard time making ends meet because they may have some learning problems but unlike us they *have no excuse*.

In your scenareo for instance, what if the empoyer was looking at it like - "Ok, I've got this guy I'm laying off because he's highly employable...I've got this lady I'm laying off because she's also employable and her husband has a good enough job to take things over for a few months...(50 or 60 people later)....wow, this is getting tough... almost all these people have kids, some of them 4 or 5.... this guy over here is struggling and barely making ends meet trying to put his oldest son and daughter through college... this lady has a mom in a nursing home and is struggling to front most of the payments and her relatives and sisters refuse to help.....this other guy is about 3 years away from retirement and has worked here almost since this place started.... I hate to let Jeff go, I know he's got a social disability and has a hard time finding jobs but he's just paying for an apartment for himself and only has his own mouth to feed and his own bills....well, I'd like to think I can at least give him a good word of recommendation on his next job - I'd like to keep him but it would be really unfair to these other people right now."

That's what layoffs pretty much are, it's triage and unfortunately as you can see there's lots of people without AS and other circumstances who are even more strapped and just barely making it.

If this was a firing, I would have to agree with you but seeing as this is a layoff and part of a group, I cannot see how this is discrimination. When it comes to layoffs, the owner/manager has to make choices and they are painful choices. I have heard from coworkers that after my manger had told me and another employee that we were being laid off, she shut her office door and cried the rest of the morning (and this was a big company where the person deciding to do the layoffs is layers from the person having to do the act).

Most of the time, a layoff affects a manager/owner just as bad as the employee (unless the employee was not working up to their potential or the manager/owner had it in for them). Unlike a firing, the employer really had no reason to let the employee go except that they needed to reduce expenditures. Unfortunately, labor is the largest expense of a business (you can figure that each person costs a business about 150% - 200% of what the person earns due to benefits and taxes). Since this expense is so huge, it is the first one looked at when expenses are cut.

In any case, which is a bigger crime, this one person laying off an aspie with 99 other persons, or a company like BoA who tells their laid off employees (not directly of course) that their severence depends on them training their cheaper replacement.

Honestly, this story should serve as a warning to all on this board, NT and aspie alike, that we need to save some money (usually 3 - 6 months) so that when things do go sour, we have a way to land without losing everything. I know it is hard when you live paycheck to paycheck but look at it this way, the bill collectors will have their hands out next month and the first person you should be looking after is yourself. No one else is going to be looking after you.

If you still feel that this is discrimination, then the best weapon at your disposal is to not purchase their products. That is how capitalism is suppose to work.

It was part of a larger lay off as painful as it is the people who are the best at a job and make the bussines the most money are the ones to keep AS or NT. Thats what they are in it for in the first place you can't blame them. I was always on the other side when I worked for other people one company I worked for went from about 50 installers in my department to 12 I survied many lay off mainly becuse I was very good at what I did and was somewhat obessed with work and getting things done I also didn't stay out all night then call in a lot like many others

I would want more details... the employer's side of the story isn't told.

I'm semi-unemployable; but some people don't give me a job for a good reason--for example, I'm often late or even totally absent whenever my obsessions take over. Or else I'm overwhelmed at work because of various things, and I work slowly thanks to perfectionism or boredom.

People don't employ people who can't do the job; it's simple as that. I guess I and other Aspies are in that category, and there's really nothing (beyond magically becoming NT) to be done about it.

Either that, or getting a college degree and working at a more desirable, interesting job.