I was recently told by someone that I seemed to do 3 days’ worth of work in a day. I have had similar comments about my work speed throughout my life, and I remember almost always finishing exams with a huge amount of time left. I do not say this to brag, because I do not understand it or do it deliberately. I simply work at my speed, and I struggle to understand how others can take so much longer on some tasks than I do, though I completely respect that they do. I do not feel fast at all; I just go at what seems natural to me.
But these comments at work have increased significantly since one thing changed: I now work at home full-time. I can only work at this pace, or at all really, in certain conditions. The most important criterion is that my sensory needs are met. I struggle with noise, particularly hearing many voices at once, so most offices that I have worked in have been far from ideal. When I worked in a shared office, I was most productive early in the morning when there were few other people around. I would often get more done in the hour or two before it got noisy than I would in the rest of the day.
Sensory comfort likely impacts the productivity of most people, but when you are autistic with specific sensory issues, it can quickly become overwhelming when they are not met, and impossible to concentrate on anything else, with a subsequent huge impact on productivity. For me, being asked to work in a big, noisy office is like being asked to do a long walk with a large, sharp stone in each shoe that I cannot remove. All I can think of is the noise as my brain tries to follow every conversation that it can hear.
For me, space to work away from multiple voices is not just a preference but a virtual necessity. But when I have the right conditions, I can power through work at what others consider a ridiculous speed. All of which makes it mystifying why so many autistic people have to fight so hard for our sensory needs to be met at work. We are not seeking special treatment, just the environment we need to perform at our best. It seems deeply ironic that so many employers seem unwilling to take often simple steps that will hugely boost productivity!
If a consultant told the same employers to buy an expensive time-management system or IT tool to see a significant increase in productivity, many would likely happily hand over the cash. But listening to their autistic staff when they say what will help them seems like a very different proposition, even though it may well yield spectacular results.
It is good to see that more employers are recognising the strengths of autistic people and actively seeking us out as employees. It would be great if many others could see that even if they do not deliberately try to employ autistic people, those who already work for them could be a goldmine with a few small changes that would help their productivity rocket.