April 2^nd was International Autism Awareness Day, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about my experience as an autistic person in the workplace. From the environment to the interactions to the expectations, workplaces just aren’t autism friendly. And the older I get, the worse I seem to get at tolerating it.

It isn’t just that the offices themselves are not designed for us, nor is it that every person we meet is judgmental of our quirks or behaviors. The issues run much deeper than that, to the core of how our society is designed. Here’s just a short list of some of the things I struggle with.

Office Environments are not autism-friendly.

The lights, the smells, the temperatures, the sounds, the interruptions. Imagine going through 8 hours of your day, 5 days a week, on high alert, ready to be attacked at any moment. Well, if you’re autistic, you don’t need to imagine it, but for everyone else, that’s what it feels like to be autistic in an office setting.

Air movement in offices is terrible, there’s always either someone who’s too hot or too cold messing with the thermostat, there’s sounds and smells of every conceivable variety coming at you from all directions. And, the worst offender of all: fluorescent lights. If I could outlaw them, I would.

And it isn’t just the autistic corner of the disability community that feels personally attacked by office environments. There are tons of ways in which the “one-size-fits-all” office isn’t accessible. That’s one of the reasons that the shift to remote work during the pandemic was such a huge win for the disabled community. The shift to remote-first work also massively expanded the accessibility of jobs for disabled folks. But now that we’re in the “return to normal” era, the big thing is the “required on-site day,” when all workers need to be in the office at the same time—you know, for “team building.”

To be perfectly frank, these are usually the days I want to walk out on my job. They’re so overwhelming and people are much less disability-friendly than they would like to believe they are. So what is, for them, a great opportunity to catch up with each other is, for me, an 8 hour endurance test.

I, thankfully, don’t work full-time in an office anymore. I get to spend 3 days a week in my home office, which allows me to control all of those environmental factors that are so grating. But the other 2 days of the week when I’m in the office? I go home exhausted and do nothing once I get home. I’m lucky if I can even manage to cook for myself those days. My usual evening workout never happens and as far as any other hobbies or projects go? They’re on hold those two days. All I can manage on those days is existing.

We can be over-literal, even in areas we typically don’t struggle.

I’ve been surprised, since first discovering I was autistic, how little we talk about the actual cognitive impairments that come along with being autistic. Like the loss of language faculties when stressed. For me this is probably compounded by PTSD, but autism affects all of the socializing functions of the brain, and one of the more common traits you’ll see in autistic people is that when faced with stress, we lose our grasp on speech. From stuttering to vocabulary loss to full-on nonverbal episodes, the possibilities run the gambit.

But for me, it usually looks like a huge increase in stuttering and a massive decrease in my grasp of vocabulary. And it can be set off by all sorts of types of stress. Maybe I didn’t sleep very well the night before, or maybe the person I’m talking to is a bit aggressive, or maybe I just don’t know them that well. Anything that has me stressed is likely to lead to me forgetting words–sometimes mid-sentence.

And as I grasp for that word I knew a split second ago, I often find myself fumbling and pulling out a word that technically means the same (or a similar) thing but that in casual use means something totally different. This is because in that moment of panic my brain isn’t capable of viewing the words on the multiple levels of meaning needed to comprehend connotative versus denotative meanings. My brain is just trying to get me through this sentence.

The unfortunate side effect of this is that I can insult people without meaning to. Or say something inappropriate without realizing it.

Obviously, I can’t speak for all autistics, but my guess is that something similar can account for why some autistics can be very sarcastic themselves but then completely miss sarcasm in a conversation with people they don’t know very well. (This is also me.)

We process things “slower” because our brains are bogged down like a computer with 300 tabs open.

Have you ever found yourself on either one or the other side of a conversation like this?

“Hey, do you want to get pizza for dinner tonight?”

“What?”

“I said do—”

“Yes.”

It has long been a stereotype of autism that we process information “slower” than our neurotypical counterparts, but it has only been recently that I’ve seen people talking about why that is. And the answer is less that we process slower and more that our brains are working at full capacity (or over-capacity) pretty much all the time.

One study found that autistic brains may process up to 42% more information than a neurotypical brain at rest. Couple that with our tendency to be much more sensitive to stimuli, and it’s no surprise that we spend most of our time overwhelmed, is it?

So, because we have so many “tabs open” in our brains, it can cause our response time to be delayed, resulting in moments like the example above. And, like all things autism related, the more stressed we are, the more exaggerated this becomes.

When I’m with an unfamiliar group of people, especially in situations like new jobs, I’m so stressed about proving myself and meeting social expectations, that every single verbal interaction looks like the above. Usually it leads to me feeling inadequate in my job and, in worst case scenarios, it has led to impatient coworkers trying to speak for me (or over me).

And, of course, these sorts of processing delays are more than just the stereotypical split-second delays in conversations. When I’m feeling particularly overwhelmed (especially if I’m going through a period of depression and/or burnout), it can be days or even weeks after a conversation that I suddenly realize what something actually meant. Which is part of why autistics spend so much time going over and over every social interaction, trying to figure out if we misstepped.

We aren’t disagreeing just to be difficult.

I’ll admit this one has affected me more as a child than an adult, but there were children willing to complain about this in front of me, so I’m guessing there have been at least a few adults who thought it. But the truth is, no, I’m not being contrary on purpose. I don’t like to fight. I’m not just trying to be cool and different. And I’m definitely not looking for attention.

In fact, my life would be a whole hell of a lot easier if I wasn’t always the person who had to disagree or the person who had different needs than everyone else in the group.

My brothers used to complain that I didn’t like doing fun things, so if I got a vote on what we did, we wouldn’t get to do anything fun. And while it sucks that what they were able to experience as kids was limited by what I was able to handle, do you know what sucked more?

Being forced to do things that hurt me physically and mentally while everyone told me I was actually having fun.

And I still get this as an adult. Everyone wants to have a social hour because it’s “fun” to get to know each other. But those social hours are hosted in places that are too loud, too crowded, too dark, and the conversations just make me feel even more alienated. Or everyone wants to talk about the fun experiences that everyone had as kids, but I didn’t have those experiences. Or I did, but what they remember as being fun was torturous for me.

Nothing makes you feel more apart from the team, like watching everyone bond over something you can’t relate to. Or, worse, watching everyone bond over how annoyed they are that you have to make things difficult.

Which brings me to the next item on the list . . .

Even people who claim to be accepting tend to hold onto hurtful stereotypes.

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who would openly admit that they’re annoyed by or have no patience for autistic people, especially when they meet you for the first time as a coworker. And when I talk about my experiences, they’re all very shocked and aghast. They would never!

Except they do. On a pretty regular basis. Because the same people who are horrified at the experiences you’ve had in the past, will say and do things that

Like the people who tell you, you don’t look autistic, then go on to describe how they think autistic people look and act, falling back on hurtful stereotypes and ableist language.

Or people who fight every step of the way toward making processes or traditions more accessible, because “no one ever used to be so needy.”

Or people who complain openly in a group of people about the weird guy over in logistics who never shuts up about trains.

Or the people who still use the ‘R’ word or any of the other myriad slurs that still get casually thrown around these days.

People always show you who they really are in the end, despite what they might say in a conversation about autism or your prior experiences. And, unfortunately, I’ve found that who they really are is usually a let down, and I end up feeling like less a part of the team than I was before.

And speaking of teams . . .

People always want to control how you work.

Maybe this isn’t something inherent to office life, but it certainly feels that way to me.

See, although I am autistic and have ADHD, I managed to figure out my own way of doing things pretty early in life. And that way of doing things has worked out really well for me. I excelled at school and college, got my masters during the pandemic while working full-time, and, in the majority of the jobs I’ve left, they end up replacing me with multiple people.

In short, I know how I work best and I’m efficient.

And when I work from home, no one can see the weird, round about ways I go about accomplishing things or interrupt me when I’m in the flow of a task. But in the office? Especially in in-person meetings? There always seems to be at least one person who thinks they know best.

From “no checking email or working on other things during the meeting” rules or even flat-out banning laptops from meetings or procedures that force you to do something step-by-step exactly the same as everyone else. These people always seem to think they know better than me how to get my brain to work despite all of the evidence that I do perfectly fine on my own.

My brain needs a certain amount of room to wander in any situation. Yes, even meetings. Because my thoughts ping around in so many different directions at once if I try to focus on just one thing at a time, I end up focusing on nothing at all. But I give myself a little leeway and the ability to bounce from one thing to another (in a controlled way); I usually retain more than my neurotypical colleagues with the added bonus of having already started brainstorming solutions during the meeting.

As I reflect on these challenges faced by autistic individuals in the workplace, it becomes abundantly clear that the journey toward true inclusivity is far from over. Each day brings its own set of hurdles, from navigating sensory overload to combatting harmful stereotypes and misconceptions. And if we’re not careful to protect our own well-being, we risk burnout and worse.

It’s imperative that we continue to amplify our voices and advocate for meaningful change. From fostering environments that prioritize understanding and flexibility to challenging entrenched attitudes and biases.

And for my neurotypical audience and colleagues, what can you do to help make things easier?

Support your neurodivergent coworkers and listen to them when they tell you what they need. There are already enough people blindly pushing forward with solutions they heard about once in a DEI webinar hosted by a guy who once had a coworker who was disabled. One-size-fits-all solutions don’t work.

But empathy and compassion do. So trust us when we say that we know best what will work for our situation. We only want the chance to succeed.