employment - Good and bad

Before my mental health got worse I had a job and I stated in the interview all my mental illnesses ocd , anxiety and ptsd pychosis. I also explained bout reasonable adjustments they could make for me They were fine with it they hired me I was coming home in tears each shift because I was being bullied for having a disability staff and management I went to the owner bout it sent her a email .

And her response I was not  expecting she basically said she had no time for staff with mental illnesses and how mental illness isn’t real just a horrible email so I didn’t return.

i started tribunal proceedings against them and it didn’t go as far as court they settled before I didn’t just do it for myself I did it for all disabled people it was really hard applying to take them to tribunal and stressful but I knew I had to stand up to these bullies and hopefully they won’t treat people like that again 

when I’m ready to go back to a job I will be letting them know bout my mental illnesses and that I have a nurse . 

To talk about my experience, I have bipolar, anxiety, autism and dyspraxia.

Because of this I'm unable to drive so I'll be unable to work in any job that requires a car. This wouldn't hold me back with my plans, because I don't want to work in the care industry, as a handyman, police, emergency services and because employers have never asked me to go to work before 7am. In some instances it's cheaper to buy a car and drive to work before 7am than to catch an uber or taxi every day for work.

But I can say what has hindered me in the hiring process. Part of my autism means that I have blunted affect so my face isn't very expressive. Also I cannot voluntarily change the expression on my face. In the service industry workers are expected to look amused (not bored) and smile at the customers to gain rapport. As I'm unable to do this I wouldn't get hired for such jobs.

When I had a work trial at a high street retailer, I was rejected after two weeks and they said I looked bored, didn't get rapport from the customers and they made up a lie that I didn't do all the work as I was given which is completely false, so they tried to spin a "cultural fit" reason into a "gross negligence" reason. They said I lacked enthusiasm. This proves that they wasn't 100% honest and knew more than they were letting on. Also they said I looked the most interested or happy is when we were labelling the products in the store with price tags at the end of the two weeks, but that was only because I hadn't done it before and it was the first time, so they said they struggled to see how I could stay enthusiastic to do the same job full time (5 days a week, 40 hours a week), and have the same enthusiasm for 5 or 10 years.

So finally they said they wouldn't consider me, so as I was already rejected, I thought I might as well say I'm autistic which is why I have blunted affect and inability to voluntarily change facial expression. They asked me why I didn't say that in the beginning, and I said it's because they might discriminate.

They then said that they don't discriminate because they hired someone with dyslexia who handles money at the till (I think they meant dyscalculia). This is from a company that knows that if they admit to discriminating, they can be sued for breaking the Equality Act 2010 and lose money, reputation, jobs and policies, which the company is so risk averse against being sued, that they have a policy against describing suspicious people and shoplifters as black, to avoid being sued for discrimination on the grounds of perpetuating a negative racial stereotype. The company doesn't give out of date food to the general public for free to poverty stricken people any more as it was an attack vector for being sued, so now it all goes to the Fareshare charity. The manager then flip flopped to go from "looking bored and not having rapport" to "the job isn't challenging enough for you. You need something intellectually stimulating" to move the angle from "what I failed to do" to "what the job description fails to have".

Under British law this would be classed as "indirect discrimination" and would be illegal. The manager and his two associates in the room would be aware of this given they showed us a corporate presentation and quiz on discrimination so that us staff don't discriminate against customers.

The manager then finished by saying "Retail is not for you. You should work in something else instead."

Automation, artificial intelligence and globalisation has made most of the jobs that existed 100 years ago no longer exist any more. So most jobs nowadays in the UK are either service industry or dealing with intellectual property. With automation lots of jobs have been replaced by machines and computers, like self serve checkouts and in factories. With artificial intelligence a scientist can run hundreds of servers with a click of a button to simulate how a drug will affect millions of people with varying DNA types, so work that would take years for people to do themselves can now take one month. With globalisation British factories cannot compete with foreign competitors where it's cheaper for products to be made abroad, and if a greedy CEO didn't outsource, they failed anyway because they were no longer competitive.