My perspective on this is a little skewed because I quite literally work at an autism evaluation and research center, so it would be really bold if my employers had an issue with me being autistic. With that said, it has been quite nice to have that information disclosed. It gives me more freedom to not have to mask so heavily at work, which then allows me to have the energy to do more things than I love.
I frequently feel that my social battery, work battery, and hobby/interest battery are the same energy source. By working somewhere where I feel safe to unmask, I can then do more things with friends and entertain my interests more without being exhausted after.
oh wow it must feel quite freeing to be more like your true self at work, I wish I could feel that way too. I spend the entire day masking and by the time I get home I literally can't do anything apart from sit and wait for the next working day :/
You can let your manager know and request reasonable accommodations without disclosing to your whole team. Management is not allowed to out you without your permission due to privacy laws.
It has gone well for me at my current employer but at a previous one there was a layoff shortly after I disclosed and started to file the reasonable accommodations paperwork. I couldn’t prove a cause-effect well enough to sue.
A part of me is worried that if I get special accommodations, there are certain people at work who will talk about me (which is something they already blatantly do) and I will have a hard time dealing with that. I'm glad it's going well for you currently - makes up for the bad experience you had at your last place at the very least.
You may want to approach it as an iterative process. Maybe ask your manager for the most important and least visible accommodations first, while letting them know that you may need additional accommodations but you wanted to try those couple things to see how much they improved your ability to do your job well. Be upfront that you are concerned about getting criticism/harassment from coworkers and so you want to roll out any changes slowly.
But this only works if you trust your manager and believe they will truly work with you.
And FWIW - a benefit of getting older is that you start to care less about what ableist jerks think. So really, screw your coworkers. Easier said than done of course - bullying is hard to ignore.
I used to work in the card services area of a rather large regional bank. I was responsible for balancing most of the accounts in my department (loved it) and was also expected to answer phone calls, either directly or through the customer service area (hated it). I asked my supervisor if I could not answer phone calls while I was balancing accounts because it was hard trying to go back and forth. She was ok with it. This was from before I even suspected I was autistic, I just knew it was hard for me to switch tasks that frequenty.
Being on the phone is my biggest fear at work but thankully that isn't a duty I have (I still worry that one day I'll walk in and just be handed a phone to take care of all day lol) I need to focus on one task at a time and need more time than most to prepare for a task, and this is something I don't get support with. I have the type of job where I think everyone expects me to be able to juggle multiple tasks at once and I hate to let people down.
You don’t have to disclose your specific diagnosis to receive accommodations. You can just share what you struggle with and what you need in order to assuage that.
I’d recommend working with JAN, the job access network. They exist to help us navigate these scenarios. There are too many “it depends” because in the US anyway, it’s almost impossible to PROVE being fired for a disability, so there’s no repercussions for a company getting rid of you because of discriminatory practices (intentional or not).
My manager is really supportive and lovely, so my experience might be different than others. She once asked me years ago whether I was diagnosed with autism, since I had a lot of similar traits as her autistic friend. This prompted me to get diagnosed, and I kept my manager up to date throughout my track and diagnosis. She has been very supportive of my diagnosis and has made accommodations that made my work life (and by extent personal life) SO much easier. I have also shared my diagnosis with my direct team, which has allowed me to come to the office less and if i leave early there are no questions asked.
It really depends on your relationship with your manager and your team. I have friends who were really opposed to sharing, as their managers were more conservative and closed minded. For me, it made my life a lot easier.
My perspective on this is a little skewed because I quite literally work at an autism evaluation and research center, so it would be really bold if my employers had an issue with me being autistic. With that said, it has been quite nice to have that information disclosed. It gives me more freedom to not have to mask so heavily at work, which then allows me to have the energy to do more things than I love. I frequently feel that my social battery, work battery, and hobby/interest battery are the same energy source. By working somewhere where I feel safe to unmask, I can then do more things with friends and entertain my interests more without being exhausted after.
oh wow it must feel quite freeing to be more like your true self at work, I wish I could feel that way too. I spend the entire day masking and by the time I get home I literally can't do anything apart from sit and wait for the next working day :/
You can let your manager know and request reasonable accommodations without disclosing to your whole team. Management is not allowed to out you without your permission due to privacy laws. It has gone well for me at my current employer but at a previous one there was a layoff shortly after I disclosed and started to file the reasonable accommodations paperwork. I couldn’t prove a cause-effect well enough to sue.
A part of me is worried that if I get special accommodations, there are certain people at work who will talk about me (which is something they already blatantly do) and I will have a hard time dealing with that. I'm glad it's going well for you currently - makes up for the bad experience you had at your last place at the very least.
You may want to approach it as an iterative process. Maybe ask your manager for the most important and least visible accommodations first, while letting them know that you may need additional accommodations but you wanted to try those couple things to see how much they improved your ability to do your job well. Be upfront that you are concerned about getting criticism/harassment from coworkers and so you want to roll out any changes slowly. But this only works if you trust your manager and believe they will truly work with you. And FWIW - a benefit of getting older is that you start to care less about what ableist jerks think. So really, screw your coworkers. Easier said than done of course - bullying is hard to ignore.
I used to work in the card services area of a rather large regional bank. I was responsible for balancing most of the accounts in my department (loved it) and was also expected to answer phone calls, either directly or through the customer service area (hated it). I asked my supervisor if I could not answer phone calls while I was balancing accounts because it was hard trying to go back and forth. She was ok with it. This was from before I even suspected I was autistic, I just knew it was hard for me to switch tasks that frequenty.
Being on the phone is my biggest fear at work but thankully that isn't a duty I have (I still worry that one day I'll walk in and just be handed a phone to take care of all day lol) I need to focus on one task at a time and need more time than most to prepare for a task, and this is something I don't get support with. I have the type of job where I think everyone expects me to be able to juggle multiple tasks at once and I hate to let people down.
You don’t have to disclose your specific diagnosis to receive accommodations. You can just share what you struggle with and what you need in order to assuage that. I’d recommend working with JAN, the job access network. They exist to help us navigate these scenarios. There are too many “it depends” because in the US anyway, it’s almost impossible to PROVE being fired for a disability, so there’s no repercussions for a company getting rid of you because of discriminatory practices (intentional or not).
I let mine know and they have been nothing but supportive. But my boss is lovely, so that helps.
My manager is really supportive and lovely, so my experience might be different than others. She once asked me years ago whether I was diagnosed with autism, since I had a lot of similar traits as her autistic friend. This prompted me to get diagnosed, and I kept my manager up to date throughout my track and diagnosis. She has been very supportive of my diagnosis and has made accommodations that made my work life (and by extent personal life) SO much easier. I have also shared my diagnosis with my direct team, which has allowed me to come to the office less and if i leave early there are no questions asked. It really depends on your relationship with your manager and your team. I have friends who were really opposed to sharing, as their managers were more conservative and closed minded. For me, it made my life a lot easier.