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professionalism management human-resources autism-spectrum

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June 5, 2025 Score: 8 Rep: 12,280 Quality: Expert Completeness: 20%

Speaking from the experience of a tech business owner with one code/qa employee that is autistic and also has 2 adult children (twins) that are autisic.

With the understanding that occasional flare-ups will happen and that isn't what we are talking about.

This is the disconnect in the actions of the employer, which seem to be in complete disregard of you and how to get your best work. You can't control the actions of another person in a situation like this. By "like this", where the company (HR) ignores you and the manager is an ass.

Most people are reasonable and most employers want to setup their employees to do good work. That just isn't what you're describing.

Sucessful long-term comfort depends on reasonable and repeatable behavior from the employer. Without this, @philip Kendall's advice is best (finding different employment).

I wish there was a better result. There are much better places to work. Consider finding one.

June 6, 2025 Score: 21 Rep: 152,119 Quality: Expert Completeness: 30%

I will come to the same conclusion as the other answer, but I would like to offer you a different perspective on why:

What you describe is your managers brain at work. That is how he thinks. And while he might be a little more flexible than you in this, changing how your brain works is incredibly hard, even for people for who it is theoretically possible.

HR is stuck between a rock and a hard place here. They could tell your manager to make these accomodations. They probably did. But it might not work at all, or if it works it will be at severly reduced performance and comfort of your manager.

If they have any experience in this, they know they will lose either of you, because you have incompatible patterns of thoughts and brain-wiring and there is nothing they could do to change this. His brain is optimized in the exact opposite fashion of yours. There is no "course" or "training" or accomodation that would be a win-win. Their only option is to pick the loser. And right now, their inaction is a pretty clear sign that they don't feel comfortable doing that.

You said you work in a big tech company, I think your best bet would be to explain this situation and ask if you can be transferred to a team with a manager whose mode of operation is "optimized" the same way you are, organized, planning, more long-term.

Preferably, you try to word that positively and not as an accusation. Try to find a way to picture it as wanting to grant both you and your current manager the opportunity to work to your full potential and not have to go against how your brain works. This way, you show HR that there is a way to make this a win-win and that they don't have to pick a loser. I mean it is their job to get to that idea themselves, but they are probably frightened that if they suggest you switch teams or departments that that would be seen as retaliatory or discriminatory. Quite frankly, maybe it is. I don't know Irish laws. I just think that you would be a lot happier in your life if you worked for a different manager that is more aligned with your way of thinking.

You said in your other post you got a bad performance review. It might be way better for your well-being to get a well earned good performance review under a different manager, than to try to show why factually being less productive isn't technically your fault under this manager.