Fired for Unintentional Intimidation

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I was fired recently from a job with no notice because 2 women in the company complained, one in the office, one was a colleague in another office. Further a female manufacturer's rep complained about me. I did my best to be the perfect gentleman, yet be candid about the really nasty sales situation our office was in due to the economy and the limited market we had. There was no warning, despite the fact that I told my co worker that I am an Aspie and may unintentionally do things that may make you feel uncomfortable (getting locked into stares without knowing it, unintentional space violations, etc). If it happens, I need to know right away so I can attempt to correct it. Apparently the appeal fell on deaf ears.

Any ideas? I did my best to observe the 2 foot rule, but there were some situations where close proximity was unavoidable. Again, I need some ideas going forward and am strongly considering filing a complaint with the EEOC over this.

work with other people is, more often than not, simply hell. i quite innocently complimented a patient [in the hospital where i worked a while ago] on her artistic nailpolish work. this patient then complained very bitterly to my supervisor about how i was "sexually harrassing" her. my supervisor then called me into her office and read me the riot act, and i promised her that i would not so much as say anything to anybody else even if they were on fire.

In individualist countries like ours, where self-aggrandisement is the order of the day, many women are unreasonably paranoid and we're in a minefield with things like being accused of harassment where it wasn't intended. I haven't had anything like this happen to me, but I'm extra careful about things like staring and personal space, almost to a fault. You can't be too careful.

Not asking you to give details about what the content of their complaints were, but sounds like complaining to the EEOC is the best move you have at this point (presuming your employer knew about your AS before this happened).

Many companies are paranoid about sexual harassment claims, and I know some places will terminate a person who is just accused of potentially harassing conduct so they don't risk being sued by the "victim."

Normally, a complaint against you would ans should be brought to your attention, but a lot of places aren't very professional on how they handle internal issues.

At one job, I tried being nice and friendly with some of my subordinate colleagues. I later found out that one of them thought I was hitting on her. (I definitely was not.)

At another job, after two years of being screwed about by management and my colleagues, I tried to express my frustration and annoyance through tone of voice and facial expressions. They perceived me to be very "angry", "hostile", and "aggressive". (Those were the words included in the negative evaluation I received, a couple of months before I quit.) Meanwhile, another guy who often made insulting comments towards me about things unrelated to work, such as my clothing, was promoted.

Over the years, e-mails I wrote were misinterpreted/ unintentionally perceived as "rude", "insulting", and/ or "offensive". (In retrospect, some of those e-mails were blunt and terse.)

These things occurred before I found out about autism/ Asperger's syndrome (by which point I was well in to adulthood). Since then, my "solution" to these problems is my current job, which requires very little interpersonal interaction. I try to keep my mouth shut on focus on my work. I am sure that many of my colleagues consider me to be quiet and unsociable, but what upsets management are the people who are screwing about and not doing their work. The catch is, jobs like mine are very low level jobs. Unfortunately, in more advanced jobs, if you are quiet and keep to yourself, you are labelled "not a team player".

There are books about AS and the workplace, which (presumably) provide other "solutions". Quite frankly, I am tired of interacting with the other humans.

(Edited for typos.)

Hello morpheus316,

I'm very sorry about your situation.

If you intend to pursue any complaints, you should speak with an attorney who handles employment and disability law, preferably one who's experienced in representing Aspies.

My understanding is that any request for reasonable accommodations, which would include how you want people to interpret your behavior and warn you about any problems, needs to be made to management, not (just) a co-worker. Once something happens, management needs to go on the information it has, which includes any requests for accommodations you've already made to them, but not those you were planning to make to them and/or just made to your co-workers.

I also understand that under the law of harassment, including but not limited to sexual harassment, lack of intent might be a mitigating factor at most, but is not a defense. Rightly or wrongly, harassment is a matter of how your conduct affects others, not on what you're thinking when you commit it - or even whether you knew it might affect others that way. Fairly or otherwise, your employer assumes you already know what is and is not reasonable conduct, and treats you accordingly.

Also note that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) only requires accommodations which don't subject the employer to "undue hardship" - whereas most other laws, including those governing harassment, do not make that exception. That could easily be construed as making disability laws subordinate to other laws. Not to mention that I imagine most employers would consider even an increased risk of a lawsuit as undue hardship.

It also bears noting that the ADA exempts businesses with fewer than 15 employees. That's employees as opposed to independent contractors. If your employer has fewer than 15 people who are not independent contractors, or if you're an independent contractor yourself, the ADA doesn't cover your situation.

(I assume your employer is a private business which is not a Federal contractor and does not otherwise receive Federal money. If Federal dollars are involved here, the Rehabilitation Act may apply.)

Last but not least, (1) all this applies to the United States, not to other countries and (2) IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer). Like I said above, talk to a lawyer with appropriate qualifications and experience.

Good luck, morpheus316!

PS: Zer0netgain, you're absolutely right about the lack of professionalism that many organizations bring to internal issues!