please help me i think im going to be sacked

[pongosam]

hi im 16 and have just got my first job yeyy!! well the point is its in a coffee shop i havent told my manager about dyspraxia she is expecting too much of me and is always getting anoyed when i drop things and forget to put my food gloves on or forgetting to serve a customer and falling over ect ect ect its really getting me down worried and anxious its gotten to the point where i dont want to go in what should i do ???

[Jim]

You should seriously think about disclosing your dyspraxia to see if they will make reasonable adjustment for you.

In the meantime, you'll need to analyse your difficulties and see if there are ways you can improve your coping mechanisms.

[Captain_Ludd]

Hi Pongosam,

Yeah i agree with Jim, you really need to disclose your disability to your manager, maybe part of the reason she is getting so annoyed is because she doesn't understand why there's are problem and she wont until you tell her.
Once you've told her they may be able to make some accommodations which will take some of the stress out of it.

[ALADDIN]

I would agree with the previous answers.

I would very seriously disclose the dyspraxia. If you are sacked, having disclosed your dyspraxia, because of your errors, you can theoretically take your employer to court.

If you are sacked, without disclosing your dyspraxia, you have no leg stand on (you have no rights).

I think the law sucks and it is stupid, but I am not a lawyer.

I think you should, analyse your weaknesses, try to improve.

I would think about getting a new job, more suited to your dyspraxia, but having dyspraxia and a tough economy are major problems. Employers want results, especially in a small coffee shop, where you have to take a lot of responsibility. I do not think working in a coffee shop is suitable for you and a large number of dyspraxics, but you will have learned from the experience !!!

[AlleyCat]

Hi pongosam. I can really relate to this because my first job was as a waitress. Although I hadn't yet been diagnosed with dyspraxia, I knew deep down that it was unlikely to be the best job for me, but had reluctantly found myself a waitressing job after having listened to a load of crap from my parents about how I 'must be lazy because my sister had had a job as a waitress for X amount of time', whereas I had never worked. However, partly as a result of undiagnosed dyspraxia, I ended up being sacked! If you're going to stick this job out, it's probably a good idea to tell your boss that you have dyspraxia, then (as Aladdin says), you might have a case for legal action if you're fired because of it. I don't think that working in a restaurant/cafe/bar is particularly dyspraxia-friendly, but there are certain things that could be done to increase your chances of success. Proper training is important for anybody in this area of work, but it's vital for someone with dyspraxia. A large part of the reason why I didn't do well in my waitressing job was that the owner of the cafe delegated the responsibility for training me to a 14-year-old girl, with the result that I wasn't given adequate instruction on certain aspects of the job (for example, how to use the coffee machine). I can't remember exactly if it was her or the owner who gave me brief instructions on how to operate till, but the instruction there was also inadequate, with the result that I didn't know how to get the till to register when change had been handed to a customer- I knew how to work out the change in my head anyway, as I'm ok at mental arithmetic, but the fact that I didn't know how to ensure this was stored electronically would have made for a very interesting time when the owner came to check the takings! There was also no system of organisation in the cafe, which was a disaster for someone with dyspraxia, as we tend to get disorientated enough as it is. There should have been an agreed system of 'X is responsible for covering these tables, Y is responsible for covering those tables and Z can be responsible for preparing the drinks', but there was no system at all, so it was all a bit chaotic.

One day the owner gathered his staff together and said he'd had a 'terrible' complaint about a member of staff standing there allegedly 'staring at the pad' when a customer wanted to order- although he didn't say who it was, I knew he was probably referring to me. It wasn't that I didn't know I should be looking at the customer, but that I probably spent too long trying to write down the orders on the pad as my writing would have been quite slow, and I also hadn't devised a system of shorthand to make taking orders quicker. I thought that particular complaint was actually quite pathetic. Something which I thought would have been complained about, but wasn't, was when I accidentally splashed some hot water from a teapot onto an old lady's hand! The old lady was nice about it and told me it didn't matter, but I then felt so nervous about doing it the first time that I did it again!! Although that was caused by my dyspraxia, it was one incident I really did feel bad about and was surprised she didn't complain.

I only lasted a few weeks in that job before being fired. It wasn't the best job for me, but like I've said there were things which could have been done to make my life easier. The owner also went about firing me in a really poor way, as he decided to take the opportunity to blame me for all the failings of his business and lectured me about how it 'would get better'. I already knew from other members of staff that the business wasn't doing so well, so it was really unfair of him to try and pin all the blame on me, a part-time waitress who had only been there a few weeks. Largely due to his lack of management skills, his cafe did indeed go bust within a year or so of me having worked there.

[Jim]

I still think that it's important to take a little "ownership" of how to overcome difficulties.

An employer does have an obligation to make accommodations for staff but ultimately they can't wave a magic wand and make someone's troubles evaporate away.

This is why it's important know yourself. Then you can go someway towards helping yourself. Allycat describes a lack of system at their workplace and in doing so an awareness of how things could work better.

If you see similar Issues where you are there's no reason why you couldn't take those observations to the management and make suggestions. Even if they aren't heeded you can always incorporate a systematic approach to your own work. Devising ways and routines or little tools. For example if shorthand is something your'e struggling to develop whilst on the job, you could take a copy of the menu home and come up with a system under a less pressured environment.

Maybe giving each item a number, and a letter indicating size (s=small, l=large), you could carry a laminate of your own shorthand key around with you. Some people might find that amusing, but who cares? If it helps you then it doesn't matter what other people think and ultimately your manager is interested in results.

Also by coming up with ways to help yourself you're also showing off a skillset as well as work ethic and good attitude and If you struggle with various equipment there's no harm in asking for a little extra training.

Plus.. Even if ultimately this workplace simply isn't suited to you, but addressing your difficulties in a constructive way and working hard is much more likely to gain a good reference for your next job.

[AlleyCat]

That's good advice about the shorthand, Jim. It's since I've been diagnosed with dyspraxia that I've been able to understand why things went wrong for me in the past- this is why I strongly believe that a diagnosis of dyspraxia can be beneficial, even as an adult. As I mentioned earlier, I hadn't actually been diagnosed when I had that waitressing job, so just thought I should be able to do things and didn't know that there was actually a neurological condition named dyspraxia which meant that I would struggle with doing certain things that others could manage with relative ease. Hopefully pongosam will be able to use the advice we have given to help him in his current job.

[Jim]

Exactly. Having that knowledge and insight can be a very useful thing. It can help you discover a skill set that you do have and in some circumstances you can apply it to your work even if the job environment is ultimately unsuitable for you.

I've had a little bit of a break through in my work place lately. I work at a secure psychiatric hospital as a support worker and I tended to struggle a bit with some of the workload and lack of structure within the staffing team. Because more often than not things are haphazard and dammed well illogical. But I've also had areas where I'm stronger than other staff and kind of got shoe horned into various things. But it wasn't being managed effectively and I was struggling to make sense of the whole thing and didn't feel it was an effective contribution. I felt like a fraud pretending to cope when I really wasn't.

Recently there's been a bit of a management upheaval and my skill set has be been better recognised for what it is and I've been offered the opportunity to ultise it far better. As a result, suddenly I'm far better involved in the whole process and hence am better armed to understand what is needed and how to achieve it. For the first time in a very long time I feel that I'm able to draw upon my various skills and wide work experience and apply it constructively and effectively to my current workplace.

I'm more confident in using my initive to get things done and thanks to my "analytical" mind I am able to interept executive demands to see they fit within our current structure, I am able to anticipate problems and make changes to reduce the risk of those problems. In some ways I'm actually out performing my current job description, and have been described by my manager "as her right hand arm".

[LuluBoo]

I agree that you do need to disclose your dyspraxia otherwise it gets stressfull ect
if you do disclose it you can have procedures put in place to help you