Dismissed from work - could dyspraxia be affecting my performance?

[Gingerflamingo1991]

Hi all,

I'm new and what has brought me here is a situation I found myself in this week.

I was dismissed from my admin job with I started over a month ago. I am extremely gutted as I thought I was doing well and was getting on with everyone and I really loved the job. So it came as a real kick in the teeth. But what's bothering me is the reasons behind it.

I'd gotten clients names wrong on occasions when delivering messages and occasionally the odd digit of a telephone number. I will say that I had noticed others do it too, people who had been there years. Also, my job was mainly on the phone and I was told that I was not aloud to ask a client to spell their name, even if I didn't understand it. On top of this the office was extremely loud on many occasions and I really struggled to think straight let alone hear the phone. I feel it is very unjust and a ridiculous reason to fire someone from a job that they were otherwise good at. However, it is not the first time my performance has come under fire for missing details and I'm worried there's a pattern.

My job previous to this job role was as a Relief Manager for a charitable organisation. My job involved covering shops in the absence of the manager and previous to this I had also been an Assistant manager with this same company. It was after the first lockdown that I became relief manager and the area was taken over by a new relief manager who seemed to really have it in for me. He seemed to have his favourites and clearly I wasn't one of them. He picked me up on some pretty petty things and put down my performance alot. After the January lockdown last year we had an informal meeting where he told me he was going to put me on performance review as he'd had reported from managers of shops I'd covered. It was all small things like missing a dirty cup that needed washing, forgetting to take the bins out in one shop, etc. But nevertheless he said he'd put me on an 8 month review. I pointed out that other managers also missed things like this but he wasn't having it. I ended up getting signed off with anxiety and eventually leaving.

I know at home I have a tendency to be messy and sometimes miss little things. I didn't realise this could be connected to dyspraxia as I thought the only way it affected me was making me clumsy. Now I'm not so sure

[Shadwell]

my personal take on it is it could be a Dyspraxic and/or Dyslexic thing,

dyspraxic for not doing something like seeing, remembering to clean a cup that you have/haven't seen.

maybe a bit of both for the 2nd job, as in getting a caller to spell their name, it is your way of making sure you get the message right so that whoever knows who to contact, and while is unprofessional as in takes longer to take the message, being a new employee means no-one in your building knows anything about you, and any difficulties you may have.

like my friend is Dyslexic, and sent me a text message the one day, to a normal person his message wouldn't have meant anything at all apart from a lot of gibberish 1 word for location, 1 word for location in a building, and some other stuff, but because I knew him, and how he written things then I found him after decifering his message in like 3 minutes. whereas a new person would have wasted a lot of time trying to work out what he was trying to say, as well as time between text messages trying to get a clearer answer.

and that is why co-workers could make the same mistakes, and get away with it, is because they were working in the company longer, so everyone knew their problems, and how to decifer what was trying to be written down in messages, so is easier to overlook the problem.

so my advice would be to speak about this maybe if you feel their could be some dyslexia there as well at the next job interview, or after getting the job, getting a list of all useful contacts to help you discover who is calling from where, and the boss or manager to go lighter with you when messages get scrambled a little. as long as you get the main information like the callers name, company name, and anything deemed needing attention/important, you might find they go a little lighter on you. the problem is while you shouldn't have to disclose any disabilities, not doing so also gets you classed as lazy etc. which is grounds for dismissal, as they want people that can do the work effective, and efficiently.

[Tom fod]

Hi Gingerflamingo

I agree I believe importance should be placed on getting peoples names right both pronouncing and spelling them, not being allowed to ask customers for this information is to my mind utterly ridiculous and tantamount to bullying/victimisation by this 'manager'. Equally missing an unwashed cup or forgetting to put the bins out do not amount to gross misconduct.

We're not obliged to disclose Dyspraxia to an employer, though if they know and they're a decent employer, they should be less inclined to dismiss us and instead listen to requests for and put in place reasonable adjustments to help get the best from you, treat you fairly and comply with their duty of care as an employer.