Daughter having major issues suddenly at work

TiredMother

My daughter is autistic amongst other disabilities and is also on the learning disability register and has a processing disorder all of which causes her to require reasonable adjustments at work and for information and instructions to be clear and concise. She worked as a volunteer with them prior to being employed and they are fully aware of her needs.

Until recently she has had a very good record at work and is well liked by clients and has been consistently told she is an asset to the company. She was nominated for a council issued award. She's even been asked to be in charge on certain sessions so managers can take time off and was promised funding for new sessions. She has also very recently received a positive appraisal.

Until she made a mistake...
One evening her boss called on her evening off and asked her to come in the next morning (also her day off) she was out in a noisy environment and misheard the time (think ten to versus ten past). She was also asked to stay over at a colleagues house who lives with their parents to make pick up easier, they have stopped there before as they are close but to expect it especially when they live with their parents and unplanned really annoyed me as her carer.

There was no confirmation text or email confirming time and venue which I would have done especially seeing she wasn't home at the time of the call.

The outcome of this was her being late to the pick up point, once her manager rang to ask where she was she went immediately but in the rush her colleague forgot an item needed.

Once picked up the manager went beserk at her in the car, shouting and swearing at her, telling her that she could kiss goodbye to her job, the company and that everyone else's jobs would be affected by her making a mistake. This resulted in her being pushed into an autistic meltdown. She did ask the manager to stop but they didn't and daughter did shout back that manager was overwhelming the **** out of her and that she would get out of the car and leave while in meltdown. I acknowledge this wasn't great. The meeting went well and manager was nice as pie to her afterwards but clearly went back to work and openly ranted about daughter and how she was close to sacking her with anyone who would listen as her colleagues contacted her about this.

Since then her manager is awful with her. Because she answered back once to her she is furious and everything daughter says now is apparently giving her attitude.

This morning boss called on her day off again and was already mumbling that she had not picked her phone up quickly enough despite not being scheduled to work this morning and talked to as though she was stupid and in an escalatory manner. This was because daughter had taken a craft box that contained paper plates and felts to an outreach centre as asked but had assumed that as the resources were for the outreach centre and they were not on the list of things that needed to be brought back each time that they were to stay there.

Manager talked to her as though she was completely stupid and when daughter said she would just take extra stuff in bag and that it wasn't on the list started making really condescending remarks to her about needed lists , annoyance that daughter needed lists, screamed at her that she didn't like her attitude and slammed the phone down on her.i heard the full conversation and it was awful.

Manager has now sent her a we need to talk email.

Help!

Rosie_Scope

Hi @TiredMother, sorry to hear that your daughter is having trouble at work. Is the company your daughter works for big enough to have a HR department, or is her main contact her manager?

ACAS can be helpful with this kind of thing, so it might be worth getting in touch with them to see if they have any advice about the next steps:

Acas | Making working life better for everyone in Britain

I hope your daughter is coping okay, it must be a stressful situation for you both.