Pheww! It’s the weekend! And boy am I glad it’s here. It’s been quite a busy week this one, and one which as seen me slowly sink under work, to bubble back to the surface over the days and end the week lounging about in the shallows again.
Today was mainly taken up with my PDR (staff appraisal), starting at a bit before 11 o’clock and going through till half one. It was a good review, probably my best, with a great manager whom I’m going to miss when Helen goes on maternity leave next month. Still I’m doing good, and my extra print production work seems to be going well, and is now a part of of my objectives and training needs in an official form.
…and yes, we really must get away from talking about ECQC job roles and journal production. One last time, it is all Journal Production, just that one is print production and one is online production. We were in East 2-1 longer than the allotted two hours, but it was not long with for argument or fighting over oppinions – but for a good, productive discussion. We found that we agreed on many aspects of how I was doing (freakily the same words in many ways). However we did have to come up for something to replace the truly awful and unusable C-word.
Communcation Skills.
I’ve known for a while that this is not a strong point with me. As part of the job roles, HR are assigning a fair amount of time to the four remaining ECQC (of that once proud and growing race), and this has been one of my areas of concern. Helen had done her research for this PDR, and thought about this. Now the truth is that from her perspective of being my line manager and the person who has seen me work, and given me an issue of her journal to see through to print production, I don’t have a problem with this work-wise. In work-mode I’m fine, I can communicate my needs and and get the job, no problem. The problem is, and this is why Communication Skills is such an ugly word, is that for people who work with me but who haven’t actually seen the work that I do, my social communication skills might give the impression that I wouldn’t be that good. And here’s where Helen was particularly good at doing the research and broaching what good have been a difficult situation. Six months ago in my interim pdr, I had mentioned to her the deal a few years ago with dealing with some workplace bullying and my discovery that I might possibly be in some way Aspergic or have tendancies along the way of Asperger’s. Certainly, mathematics, science and ADD aside, I do have a lot of the symptoms.
Helen didn’t really know an awful lot about Asperger’s, and so did some research and found out some. And she agreed, that some of the list was screaming Thomas at her. And the big one was the whole inability to read body language and social situations correctly, and it struck her that actually this was probably at the crux of the situation – and not the business/work side communication that HR might be going down the route of. To this end she has flagged this tentatively and confidentially with HR and they think they have found someone who, with experience of Aspergers Syndrome, can offer some form of training course to me if I would like.
It makes sense to me, and I think I was pleased that I was being taken seriously for a change, after the singular, bullying failiure of manager #3, the ineffectiveness of #2, the works in a different country of #5, finally manager #5 was doing something!
So I agreed to this idea, which will henceforth be known as Project NellyTM, since it’s aim will be to finally banish the elephant in the room that no one mentions…
That sounds excellent.
What a brilliant manager, to take steps to look into this for you.
She obviously understands that you’re an asset to the company and any improvement in your work skills is an investment in their asset, as well as being great for you on a personal level.
There is a lot of excellent help out there for various different skills and abilities that people have (it doesn’t come down to just being “normal” or “not normal” any more, thankfully, they realise that we are all placed somewhere along a sliding scale), and I hope that you’ll be able to find the right person to help you cope with your particular challenges. Good luck! 🙂
She is a fantastic manager. And as I said, I’m gonna miss her. *sniff*
Helen has only been my line manager for about a year now, but I think in that time she probably has done the most for me in my career development – partly in response to my own proactiveness of seeing opportunities and seizing more. After my week of job shadowing in last April I dived into taking work from the Production Assistant’s ‘Box of Fun’ as a way of continuing that training.
Through all of this she has realised what I can do, and that I do have the skills and the abilities to do print production job as well as the online production job that I currently do (the long term plan is that these will merge into one but that depends of the arrival of the mythical Validation Tool…). She has also realised that a reason why I might not be getting anywhere with the internal interviews I’ve been going for is that people have pre-judged oppinions of what ‘work Thomas’ can do but based on what they know of ‘social Thomas’.
The thing that narks me a bit, is that apparently she has had (in her capacity as my line manager) some, not criticisms or complaints, but comments about me from other people. Why can’t people just be open and honest. If someone doesn’t like the way that I have said and done something, or lingered too long a pleasantry when I should have been returning to work, why can’t they just come out and say it to me.
Me? I’m very open. If I don’t like someone or the way that someone behaves I can’t not show it, even if showing it means just not really having much to do with them. I really hate the way that some people will be all friendly and sweetness and light and be like best pals with them to their face, but then be bitching about them behind their back.
Thanks for your support. I think by the sounds of it, Helen may have crystalised something in the minds of HR so that they have the right thing to latch onto. Plus, being a little cynical, it would probably be another ‘different’ training course that they can put on the list of Courses That We Have Sent Our Staff On In The Last Year are… *grins*
Thanks for you support!
That all sounds so very positive and Helen sounds like a wonderful woman – it’s a shame that she’s leaving.
Anyway, wonderful line managers aside, the fact is that, under the Disability Discrimination Act, your employer has to take note of any disabilities that employees or prospective employees might have, and make reasonable adjustments for them.
http://www.drc-gb.org/
http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=10
I can give you advice/point you in the right direction, if you need any support. If need be, I can direct you to the people in your area who might be able to advise you.
xxx