Angus
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
‘The way that they get rid of people is not by firing them. They just make things so bad that you’re forced to quit … They just make the workplace environment so toxic that most people would give up.’
Angus, late 30s, has been working in information technology for almost 20 years and is now in a senior role. ‘I’ve been able to get to that position, but not without a whole lot of side effects … things like depression, anxiety.’
Four years ago, following an autism diagnosis, Angus began to understand ‘some of the problems [he’d] been having at work’.
‘Once I got the diagnosis, I thought to myself, well, maybe I’ve been going about this the wrong way. Maybe instead of trying to change myself to adapt to the environment, I should be using this diagnosis to try and help adapt my environment to me.’
Angus told the Royal Commission he asked his employer, a retail company, to ‘make a few small adjustments’ in the workplace. He requested regular one-on-one meetings with his manager, more time to complete specific tasks and disability training so staff could understand his disability. But the HR manager refused and ‘scoffed’ at him.
Angus felt the company might take him seriously if he provided more ‘evidence’ of his disability and found someone to advocate for him.
Angus applied for the NDIS but found it difficult to navigate services. Despite ‘all these services out there’ he said, it’s ‘hard to figure out what you need’. He had to go through ‘dozens of intake processes’ for various therapies and advocates and ‘explain things over and over and over again’.
Angus felt so overwhelmed and distressed he sent out an email saying he was going to ‘jump off a building’. Police arrived and took him to hospital for the night. He had to increase the dosage of his anxiety and depression medications.
Eventually Angus found a disability employment service who assigned him a case worker. After meeting with his employer’s HR manager, the caseworker told Angus, ‘I don’t think they believe you.’ Angus provided updated occupational therapy (OT) reports but the company remained ‘highly resistant’ to providing reasonable adjustments. Instead they commissioned a report from a specialist autism consultancy. The consultant recommended ‘almost the same thing as [the] OT’.
‘If they’d just done those things, I wouldn’t have had to go through any of this.’
Despite the report, the company refused to provide reasonable adjustments.
‘I think there’s a system in place to actively stop people such as myself from getting our rights, similar to what was happening with underpaying staff. It’s an informal system, it’s not going to be written down anywhere, but it’s a kind of informal construct within the company.’
The company began to warn Angus about his performance and instructed his line manager to performance manage him. ‘My line manager has his hands tied and he’s told me that.’ Angus believes the company is trying to force him to leave rather than engage with him regarding his disability.
Angus refuses to quit and has contacted his union which is providing legal support. He said he’s prepared to go to court to ‘drag them kicking and screaming into these reasonable adjustments’.
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.