I’m excited about my autism, and my workplace is too
I hate small talk. Always have done. If we’re not talking about something that will take an idea from point A to point B, then what’s the… point?
I do, however, do a very good impression of someone who enjoys small talk - when I have to. If I have the sense that it’s beneficial for someone else if I bear talking about the weather for a bit - or my weekend, perhaps, and all the times I chose not to go outside - then I can do that.
It never occurred to me until very recently that some people enjoy small talk. I’d always assumed we all hated it as much as I did (which made the pointlessness of it that much more pointed). In fact, I thought everyone struggled with a whole heap of things, including smiling and laughing on cue, accurately assessing someone’s expression and body language, understanding the cadence of a normal conversation, maintaining eye contact, quelling panic in group settings...
… hiding distress when a door slams, feeling deep discomfort breaking from my routine, not understanding which emotions are which, needing efficient processes for even the simplest tasks, hating surprises and spontaneity … the list goes on. I thought all of this was totally normal, and that I was doing a really bad job of dealing with it compared to everyone else.
I checked this list off on my fingers a few Mondays ago as I spoke to my therapist about maybe, perhaps, considering whether I might have autism. One diagnostic process later and, surprise! I almost definitely have autism. I am autistic.
(NB: it can take up to and over a year to get a ‘proper’ autism diagnosis in the UK - I have been waiting 26 years to reach this point, and I will not wait any longer).
This is a good thing. Please do not apologise or feel sad for me (though I am always open to being sent chocolates). If anything, congratulations are in order. Let me explain.
I’M BASICALLY INDIANA JONES (BUT I DON’T GET A COOL HAT)
To put it plainly - as I often do - being autistic is the answer I have been searching for, since forever. I have always felt a yawning divide between myself and everyone else. The secret of how to make friends and not be weird felt hidden from me, and me alone, the ancient artifact sleeping in an Indiana Jones-esque temple which I navigated every day, quivering hand holding a lit torch aloft. I learned to dodge the sawblades of small talk, confidently cross the invisible bridge of ‘Is this what people do with their eyebrows when they’re happy?’, and now I stand before the word-puzzle of ‘You’ve just asked me an open-ended question and I have no idea what you actually mean and you’ve got that face on that means you’re probably disappointed or confused’.
I brazenly step forwards, except - Shock! Horror! - everyone else somehow instinctively just knows that Iehovah’s actually spelled with an ‘I’. Everyone apart from me, it seems, and now I’m free-falling into the bowels of the earth, having stepped on ‘J’ like some kind of idiot. How was I to know?
Maybe that metaphor is a little strong, and the traps are in the wrong order, but I like the reference, so we’re keeping it - editor, hands off my tortured reference.
Autism will never bridge this divide, but I’m becoming okay with that. I will always be different, and different is good. Knowing why my path twists and turns in ways others’ don’t has provided context. A blueprint to what was a growing scrapheap of seemingly disparate pieces. It’s only now I’m able to start recognising how they might fit together.
With the tragic backstory out of the way, I can move onto the main reason I’m writing this.
Many, many autistic people can’t find or maintain employment.
February 2021 saw the Office of National Statistics publish new data showing that just 22% of autistic adults are in some kind of employment in the UK. For many, the demands of a rigid work schedule that isn’t their own, the hustle and bustle of your typical office, retail, or customer service environment, or the navigation of complex interpersonal relationships, will send them spiralling. I’ve experienced this and nearly lost jobs to it. The thing is, working life doesn’t have to be this way.
WORKING AT DESKS IS OVER. IT’S TIME TO LAY DOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR INSTEAD
Consider this: I feel simultaneously elated and saddened when I consider what lockdown and the work-from-home push in the UK has meant for me as an autistic person, even before I had that word to describe it. Working from home freed me from what I experienced as oppressive office spaces. In the office, I can’t comfortably sit at my desk and watch cat videos for two hours straight when I’m experiencing sensory overload and can barely string a sentence together. I can’t escape the raucous laughter of colleagues, or the tinny timbre of someone’s music pulsing in their headphones, as I try to deconstruct a concept that seems to make sense to everyone else but me. Try as I might, I can’t lay in the middle of the floor in silence with my eyes closed while I work over an idea in my head.
Working from home fixes all of this in one fell swoop, and much more for differently abled people besides. So then, why does it take a worldwide pandemic to change society’s approach to working from home when neurodivergent and disabled people have always existed?
If I had had the language and/or bravery to explain my situation before my diagnosis, I feel very confident - and fortunate - in saying that I know Fourth Floor would have accommodated my needs. I’ll be honest with you, though. Despite knowing Fourth Floor to be a hugely inviting and receptive environment that adapts to its employees rather than the other way around, I was absolutely bricking it going into my one-to-one that recent Tuesday, my diagnosis fresh in my mind.
I needed someone at work to know why I am the way I am, even if the conversation was difficult. But I was scared that I’d be seen as an equality lawsuit waiting to happen. I was worried I would be given a wide berth because I worked differently from everyone else, and no-one could be bothered to accommodate.
I was concerned that it would result in heavy-handed attempts to ‘fix’ what wasn’t wrong.
None of that happened.
I hope my manager doesn’t find this embarrassing - you wouldn’t be reading this if she did, I imagine - but I was met with a disarming warmth and heartfelt compassion, and, most importantly, an instant reassurance that she was there for me, and the company was, too.
We talked about what support could look like for me. Would I like to provide resources to help my manager understand my autism? (yes). How about the freedom to step away from my desk when I needed, no questions asked, so long as what needed to get done got done? (yes, please). Would retrospective conversations about social situations that were difficult to navigate be helpful? (oh my god, yes). Would I like to have a think about if and how I wanted to tell other people at the company that I was autistic? (spoiler: I chose to write an article about it. Hi, everyone!)
I couldn’t have dreamed for a better response. My concerns were immediately put to bed, and I ended the video call feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. This is incredible - and rare.
I have been lucky that my personal brand of autism has allowed me to just about get by working in office spaces, even if it means I’ve had to normalise panic attacks I’ve privately endured in public bathrooms, or once I got home. That said, the near-literal social mask I’d been wearing seven and-a-half hours a day, five days a week to hide my atypical behaviours and pretend I was normal-ish eventually gave way to serious identity-related mental health struggles that, being honest with you, nearly got the better of me. Autistic women tend to mask, learning social behaviours by observing patterns rather than picking them up ‘naturally’ - whatever that means - or allowing themselves to experience their true identity.
ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS, AND TAKE YOUR WORKPLACE MENTAL WELLBEING A STEP FURTHER
I’ve been luckier, still, that Fourth Floor’s attitude towards my autism diagnosis thus far has been actively supportive. The question ‘How can we help you, and understand you better?’ is an incredibly powerful one, and it’s one that Fourth Floor ask often. It’s a relief to know that it encompasses everyone, even if their requirements aren’t what you’d typically expect.
It’s time to reconsider what our workplaces have to be, and to address the possibilities that our status quos might just be causing some to struggle in silence. Hard truths: the inflexible 9 to 5 is outdated. Expecting everyone to work their hardest in an office environment is unreasonable. Being gregarious at all times is impossible for anyone. If you’re in the position to, ask the people around you what they really need, and don’t balk when their requests aren’t ‘a foosball table’ or ‘free coffee and snacks’.
While it seems, statistically, that the vast majority are much happier having the freedom to work from home, something I’d like you to take away from this is the understanding that individual support is important. What might work for one person might not work for another, especially if your default assumptions of ‘good’ are built on the requirements of neurotypical people. Asking the right questions and being receptive to unexpected answers could be the key to your organisation opening its doors to huge amounts of untapped potential - that unemployed 78% of autistic people in the UK makes 546,000, by the way - with unexplored perspectives and new ways of thinking, whose requirements aren’t at all unreasonable. They’re just different.
Ask yourself: Did your company get to where it is now by being the same as everyone else?
So let me round this off by making it clear that there’s a lot that’s great about autism, too. A great deal of typical autistic traits (or typical traits of other neurodevelopmental disorders or chronic mental illnesses, in fact) can actually result in your neurodivergent employees excelling in specific areas of work.
Having to deconstruct concepts I don’t understand and rebuild them in a way I can means that I can catch details others might miss. My inherent need for absolute efficiency sees me getting tasks done at double-speed. Masking means I have learned the ins and outs of effective communication, which has helped me immensely in providing above-and-beyond service to our partners.
And lastly, my personal favourite: if I am working on something I love, it becomes the truest obsession. Our advocacy marketing service at Fourth Floor has become this for me. I am quite literally neurotically passionate about its growth and success.
Autism defines me, because I would like it to. I am excited about what it means for my future, even though it means some things that other people find easy, I find hard. The opposite is true, too, and I feel incredibly fortunate that Fourth Floor is just as excited about my future as an autistic person as I am.
If you’d like to know more about autism, https://www.autism.org.uk/ is a great UK-centric resource.
If you’re looking to work with / donate to an organisation, Autism Speaks will likely be your first search result. Autism Speaks is not supported by the vast majority of autistic people. Please bear in mind: autistic advocacy should focus on supporting autistic people, not curing autism. The best information on autism comes from autistic voices.
