Telling your employer you have AS

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I have been working at my job for about a month now and had a near breakdown because I was having trouble with the tasks assigned to me. I am a cashier at a large department store and I often have trouble remembering to complete all my tasks and follow the "five step" system the we have for checking customers out. We are required to ask every customer if they want to purchase a credit card for our store. I usually skip this step as I have been verbally harassed a few times by customers and I really do not enjoy annoying them. I also forget to do little things like turning my light on and off when I open and close my till and signing out when I go off on breaks. Remembering to punch my time in and out on the timeclock is also a hell of a task for me and I often mess it up. I am an extremely absent minded person and no matter what I do to make it better, it just doesn't make a difference.

I got a talking to yesterday from the assistant manager saying that I was doing very poorly on the job. I ended up getting upset and telling her that I was having a hard time and that I have AS. She told me that I made a mistake in not mentioning it during my job interview and that I may have compromised my position with the company.

I decided to talk to a friend about what happened and she told me that I will probably get my ass fired because it is against the law to withhold any physical or mental disabilities from employers. The only thing is that I feel I am not disabled to the point where it is significant and empedes my ability to function normally so I felt that it was not important. I have been turned down job opportunities in the past because I have disclosed my aspergers status and have faced discrimination in the workplace because if it. I am scared to admit the fact that I do have aspergers and rarely tell people about it. My father told me not to tell anybody about it because he was worried with the economy and shortage of employers that it would empede my ability to find a job even further because employers would not want to hire a disabled person.

What do you guys think of the situation? Do you think I made a mistake off the bat by not telling my current employer about my AS? Do you think I just should have kept my mouth shut about it or what? I really need some advice here. Does anybody know if there is a law that states that you have to disclose a disability like AS to potential employers?

I see you live in Canada. Maybe some of our Canadian Aspies have an answer for you, meantime, I am so sorry it has boiled down to telling them in meltdown.

Merle

Yeah dude thats a hard one. Meltdowns suck! I just had one about a half hr ago so im chilling now and listening to music. I've never told my employer about my AS but my job on the other hand requires very little interaction with people. Ive never really had a job interacting with alot of people i bet it is tough. Don't worry about it. Can you think of a job that does not involve alot of interaction with people? I'm an engineer, so I'm stuck in an office all to myself. I doubt many people dont tell the bosses about there AS during the interview so its not your fault.

Have you tried making lists of all your tasks? Seriously, you could make a list of all the tasks. Maybe that will help. I make lists because I forget key things otherwise.

Where I work, a person in your situation would be put on an "improvement plan" (I have a very kind and generous supervisor) and for instance, making and using that kind of list could be a part of something like that. You know, to show that you have made a positive change.

Of course, if that kind of work is truly ill-suited to your personality, it would be better to leave during your probationary period (everywhere I worked has a 60-day one) than either to work there a long time and let it stress you out, or get fired later when it is much more of a problem. You could say, you tried working there and it mutually did not work out. Customer service is indeed stressful.

IS it against the law in Canada to not tell your employer about disabilities? That sounds a little odd to me, but I'm not Canadian. Could well be that asst. mgr. was bluffing. You need to know for sure.

Hi. I'm a Canadian aspie. I'm here to help, best I can.

You make me think of an aspie lady that worked at my local IGA. She was in the wrong job. You are too. If you get fired, its ok, alright? It means you can be done with that horribleness.



You may have compromised your position. However, the choice of telling about your disability is yours and yours alone. You cannot be forced to tell any one.



You and your dad are completely right. It is not against the law, and your friend supplied poor advice to you. Remember that you have the option of limited release of information. You can say that you do best when working alone, rather than "I have a disability". Putting things in a positive spin like that will allow the potential employer to assess you as potential employee/not suitable based on criteria used for regular folks, rather than judging you against your disability.



No law, no way.

I want you to march right down to the local employment Canada office. Take your dad if you have to. He is your best ally. They will have a resource library or something like it, but I want you to ask at the help desk there. They can give you two booklets, 'dealing with disability for employees' and 'dealing with disability for employers' (I think that was the titles). These are free. They will help you understand the laws, your obligations and those of the employer too.

I also want you to ask for a referral to a disability rehabilitation/employment agency. This is what I did. They will give you a card(or two) to a local business that can help you. This will be free too, ok? They may even have services right at the employment canada building, depending on how big your town is.

Things are going to get better tikidweller. You are going to come into contact with some nice people that can help find the right job for you, and they will intercede if you have trouble with your employers. They will help turn your disability into an asset.

So here is your summary.

1. go to Employment Canada to ask for assistance.
2. ask for those books.
3. ask for a referal to an employment agency for disabled Canadians.
4. go to the employment agency.
5. You dont have to think of yourself as disabled. I dont. Go anyway.
6. breath a sigh of relief. Help is underway.

You can private message me if you like. sinsboldly, our moderator, is a good friend of mine and she told me about this thread. You may ask her about my character if you are unsure about contacting anyone privately.

Americans that are reading: You also are protected by law from disclosing your disabilities. In fact, in the USA it is illegal for an employer to even ask. You have similar options to what is layed out here.