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

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!

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! 🙂