Dyspraxic Adults

so until the beginning of my last month i had very bireflly had a Job in a theme park however i did 6 shifts(3 of which were cut short by them) and then got let go(by email)

i hadn't actuality had a proper conversation about the dyspraxia with mangers even though i put on the medical form we had to fill out before starting.

I was a catering asssiident(I started of by talking about about retail in my interview as i have a fair bit of retail and customer serive experience) where i was abaislly working in faood cafe on my own, athought the place the placed until my last shift was redisully quit and 5 shifts on there is like a day somewhere else in the partk(on my last shift i only enmded working 4 hours and was moved twice)

and would still these were the instances i could see where i went wrong.

Stuff not looking great when i warped in cleanflim.
taking along time to do the clean tasks at the end of the day(this is when a paricalrllty manger spent the most of time with me as he would come down help me(i didn't ask him to he may have just thought he needed to)

misunderstanding or misremembering what a manger told me. there was a specific situatuion which i think would have played a big part in thier decision. Matt Clarke basically more detail on that I was to make pa tilter clear part swanwhichs not something I was usually asked to do but there was no premade ones this time I hadn't relisted the tuna was tined and needed opening with a tin opener my manger had gone) and I did really try to open but I had tried to contact someone as hadn't been signed on(he seemed to forget to do that) and was going to say when someone turned up to do it but noone did. When saw the team leader who was covering my break making the tuna swanwhichs(I had made the ham and cheese ones). I said "I did try to contact someone about that earlier"(perhaps it would a good idea to also say I'm dyspraxic so I struggle with tin openers) and he said "yeah I was going to say this is a tin opener too" that one's broken" puting at something. When my mangenger said how good the swanwhichs looked I had said the tuna ones weren't me but perhaps he didn't hear and found later. I had completely misunderstood what he told me to do with them because I generally thought he said "and sell them as swanwhich" so thought I had no toasties. So it might have looked bad

i don't know if anyone is like but i can be find and really comfortable talking to customers and coulegges but get really awkward around mangers(of course everyone has off moments with anything and of course if you have worrys about part of the job what you;re usally good at can slip as well)

Hi Rayray

Firstly welcome to the Forum

Did you feel like you got enough support in learning the various job tasks from your employer? It sounds like you were often required to work alone? Was this what you had expected?

For me food service to the public would be way outside my comfort zone.

I had known that prior to starting. As I said my interview instarted off talking about the retail catering came up when I used an example of when I was working on food kirosk in a stadium although it was different and they dkd know to some extent as they knew I hadn't cooked the food they asked if was happy to be trained to I said yes(the unit that I was placed on only actually did pizzas tossties and hot dogs in terms of hot food) and I said yes . I will generally say yes to anything as I'm happy to do anything) when I asked the end of the interview which I would prefer out of catering or retail I said I would happy to do either but am more excited on retail. I think I just needed to make them more aware of the dyspraxia send how it affected me given a bit longer I msy have found ways around things myself. It was a zero hours contract sbd they just said they couldn't give me any hours for for the foreseeable fecture.

I hope you find something better and more rewarding soon. Thanks for sharing link to your blog. Will have to read in more detail from my computer screen rather than on my phone.

Years ago I did some unpaid work experience for an engineering company re saving some technical manuals in ascii format It was one of the most boring gigs I''ve ever done. I believe that since we're generally intelligent, we need to be stimulated as we don't do well at handle turning jobs like stuffing envelopes.

I didn't really find my feet working until I was in my mid 30s and had discovered and made peace with my dyspraxic self.

That's the thing I do like working in customer service. Im actually votultering in the minf charity shop and was told on first day there I was good with customers.

I think the problems come when we have to face the public at their worst/most rude/impatient with no flexibility or back up from management.

Facing the public wasn't issue I'm volunteering in the mind charity shop at the moment and people have saif I'm good there.

I think I might been better off at being put on retail

I find that if something goes wrong I too find it difficult not to spend hours time analysing how it could have gone better if only I'd said x done y etc, From my reading of the situation as you've told it, Could they perhaps have offered additional support, given that to a degree you might have been reticent to ask as sometimes we have past experiences of asking for help/admitting that we're struggling and being met with a very unsympathetic response. I suspect management typically don't know /are often not able to respond in a way that doesn't make us feel shame. We know we can cope but sometimes our dyspraxic goblin* gets loose and really shakes/savages our self-confidence and ability to look like we're coping.

Sometimes people can actually be more sympathetic than we give them credit for as sometimes it's v much ourselves who are our own harshest critics and we don't always recognise that.


I liken it to living an uneasy truce with my dyspraxic goblin alter-ego. Mostly I outwit his attempts to $%^k %^@t up for me with meticulous planning humour and good grace but sometimes he still manages to wreak chaos and make me look bad and I just want to strangle the little blighter

Yeah like I said I should have properly spoken to them about the dyspraxia and explained it. I don't know if my medical form was seen by anyone. Although I relised this after my last shift and had planed to pull a manager adide and talk to him about it on my next shift but unfortunately. (It seems though I haven't been completely taken of there system as I still get gernal emails sent out to all stuf it was zero hours contact and they said they can't give me hours for the foreseeable feacture) with the cleaning down operations a manger did come and help me(the same manger that sente the email and I did feel like he was supportive but I sepecst it wasn't actually his decision). I think it was a case of them not really knowing.

It's a tricky balance to convey what reasonable adjustments we need whilst avoiding people making stupid assumptions based on what they think they know.

I don't think ypu can ever assume that the right people have read any disability declaration or necessarily understood it
You would hope if they had they would ask what you needed and draw up a plan to implement that and hopefully say what fall backs there are.

In many ways other people often seem as chaotic in their seeming lack of planning as we are.

that's the thing i don;t want to be too annoyed at them because if they didn;t know they didn;t know. it was aprtlly my doing as well but not explaining it(athough i do think after 6 shifts was a bit harsh weather someone has something or not i would rathered they had proper discusiion we me) i do have sunflower sunflower lanyard know so that might open the conversation with them. athough im on the restart scheme at the moment and its caused problems with them i probllet shouldnt go into the details publiclly with that.

Ultimately the best thing I ever did regarding work and dyspraxia is to join my trade union -at times over 30 yars I was very active as a member at other times less so but when I got into difficulties with management it was advice and at times representation that saved my situation and possibly my life.

https://www.tuc.org.uk/join-a-union

This was a zeros hours contract. Technically they didn't say never again they said for the foreseeable future but I'm not hopeful

Thinking back to this if I was given a bit a longer i may have actually found ways round things myself.(I mean like come with proceses that made things a little bit easy and smoother running etc that worked in my way. I know people people do tend to) Probably another reason I should have actually explained it to a certain manager