I am autistic. Which means that at work, at home, and generally, I need my space to work, and as less noise and disruption as possible. I am working in a small company, and I was in a room with one other person, let’s call her Tilly (all names have been changed). Tilly is a wonderful, warm and caring person, and absolutely loves dogs and babies. She is also quiet and respectful. Tilly is also a quiet person and has been supportive of me ever since I joined the company a few years back.
Because we got a lot of work in the company, and I was always short of time to do things, my employer, hired a part time person, let’s call her Kay. Now Kay, is the sort of person who is noisy without even needing to talk. She also likes to talk. Which means a complete nightmare for me as an autistic person who is sensitive to sound and smell. I arrived at a point of not wanting to go to work the 3 days that Kay was coming to help, and to pine for her not to be able to come to work for whatever reason (I do not want to see her hurt, but maybe find another job or something).
Kay is also not the brightest, or should I say she is definitely lacking in the brain department. Yes, she is an idiot and does not care about the job at all. And I will explain with the following true stories.
Kay has only one job to do in the company: do the filing for the e-mails and documents. She has to put the e-mails in time order (latest on top), certain documents in plastic pockets with proper labels on. Both me and Tilly have explained to her and showed her, which documents need to go in pockets, and anything she needs to know about the files and the filing.
So, let’s just say we have a file called Wordswood where anything that has to do with Wordswood, Grayton and Eylser go. (Names have also been changed for obvious reasons). This is a file that was used frequently, lots of work on that and so, there was filing on a daily/weekly basis. For 4 months, almost every day she would ask: “Where does the Grayton e-mails go? Where do the Eylser e-mails go?” I do understand that the first 2-3 times you do not know them, maybe it takes a couple of weeks to learn that, but 4 months? On a file that is used on a daily basis?
I did not at the time check the filing as much as Tilly did, because she had to read the file and create invoices based on items on the file. Tilly was always showing something to Kay that she did wrong. I did not pay much attention as I had a lot of other work to do.
Anyways, one day Kay is going to meet up with friends after work. She is dressed up, and nightmare of nightmares, she has a bunch of those bracelets that jingle all the time with the slightest movement. Is she for real? Girl, just put them in your bag, and wear them after work! No sense driving everyone crazy! Trying to work with that noise, was a nightmare! Let alone all the other noises she makes, like muttering and puttering and mmm and stuff…
Also, part of the work is to create some plans and maps. However, Kay does neither want to know that part, nor is she capable of understanding the slightest thing that might need even a little bit of effort. And yes I am frustrated with her and her stupidity. And you will see why later on.
Me and Tilly started talking about Kay when she was not at work, and comparing notes. And Tilly was frustrated with Kay as much as I was. She was also so annoyed with the jingling bracelets. But more importantly, she was really worried about all the filing mistakes that Kay was doing. And Kay has one job: filing. As Tilly put it about Kay: Kay can only do copy typing where she does not need to think at all. Anyways, Tilly had a couple more things she was worried about at work, so she talked to one of our employers (small company, no proper HR department). And this is strike 1 for Kay.
Unfortunately, Tilly left the company for personal reasons, and I wish her all the best. That left me to deal with Kay. Now, Kay does not talk as much, because I am not as talkative (autistic here), and need as much quiet as possible to work. Kay wears another bracelet at work, and for some reason when she does anything on the desk, it just bangs on the desk. She was typing and tak tak tak tak tak all the time the bracelet on the desk. It was unnerving. I did not say anything at that point as I thought it may not be appropriate.
Since Tilly left, I also took the reading the file and itemizing for invoicing purposes. I had a file which needed to be invoiced, let’s call it Market Town. I spent one hour fixing the file, because most things were not properly filed. I took out about a quarter of the file, and had to put it back together, print some plans and stuff that were missing. For example there were e-mails for the 6th of July, after 7th of August, and other similar mistakes. This will not do, as the file’s narrative is not clear if the documents are not properly filed in time order. Which Kay knows. I did not say anything at the time, I needed to prioritise the invoicing part.
So, Kay is taken ill with the flu and was not coming in the office for a week. Which was a blessing for me as I would not have to deal with her noise. Which meant I had to do some filing. And there is the problem. Every fucking file I opened, there were filing mistakes. Kay has one job: filing. How can you put the documents which have written Norwich on them to the file called Heartwood? And it was not one e-mail which can happen to everyone. It was a bunch of e-mails all bundled together in the Heartwood file. And they should be in the Norwich file. Documents which should be in plastic pockets (and it has been explained to her multiple times), stapled with e-mails. E-mails in the wrong order. Every fucking file I had to fix. How stupid do you have to be to fail in one job which is so easy?
And so before that week was over, I went to my employer and talked to him about Kay and her doing a piss poor job. Also told him about the bracelet, and he said I should talk to her next time about it. Anyways, the outcome was that they would talk to Kay about her mistakes.
And, so we come to this week, when Kay comes back. She is called into the office and my employers talk to her. Fine. As I said, I would have fired her, but hey, it is not my company. Has it worked? I doubt because as I said she does not care at all.
So, she comes back and she is coughing every couple of minutes and sneezing and wheezing. WTF? How can I work with someone coughing, wheezing etc ALL THE FUCKING TIME? And what if she passes her virus to anyone in the office? When I asked her why didn’t she stay a couple more days, her answer was that she cannot afford to. Well, girl, and I absolutely have a very difficult time with you wheezing and coughing the whole fucking time. I would have stayed home and would not gone back until my cough had subsided quite a lot.
And she also had the banging bracelet. I told her that it was really annoying, and could she not wear it at work? Her answer was that she has not taken it off since forever. Well, that sound is annoying and I cannot easily work. She put a cloth around her wrist and noise over. Not her coughing and wheezing though. And I was thinking: does she wear the bracelet when she is in the shower or in the bath? How does she showers with the bracelets? Don’t they get stuck in her hair while shampooing her hair?
So, Kay has some questions about the filing. Question 1: which file does this e-mail go to?
And so I take the e-mail, check the back page (double sided printing which we always do, and have done since I have been in the office longer than Kay), and voila the name of the file is on the back page printed. She did not check the e-mail at all, only the subject title.
Question 2: And where should this e-mail be filed under?
So I take this second e-mail, and in the subject line there is a post code (half of our files have to do with works in particular places so we need to file them according to places). I check the post code, let’s say I see it is Colchester, give it back to her. I say to her that she could just checked the post code via google maps and she looked at me totally lost…
After Kay left, my employer came to see me. (My employers are a married couple, the husband deals with HR usually, and my work is with the wife, so she came to see me). She said that she and her husband talked to Kay, and we will see how it goes. She also told me she would like to give more stuff to Kay to do. Cue my surprise… More stuff? She can’t even do the fucking filing right! Anyways, I did relate to my employer the day’s events with the e-mails. Told her I do not think that Kay is capable of doing more. At the end of the day it is her company, so if she wants someone like Kay, well I cannot do much.
The good news though, is that Kay got moved to another room! YES! I am finally without a noisy and stupid co-worker in the same room. That does not mean that Kay does not stress me out. Every fucking file I have opened to work on/with has at least one of the following mistakes:
- E-mails and documents in the wrong file
- E-mails in wrong date
- Documents which should be in a plastic pocket and labeled, just put wherever in the file
- Duplicate e-mails
I have been stressed for some time with Kay. Not just because of her being noisy, but because I cannot do my job when she is failing miserably in hers. And she stresses me out a lot.
This has been cathartic. All names have been changed for obvious reasons. However, all the incidents are real.
Tanitha's Cosmic Musings 
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