I saw that post on Facebook today, published by my favourite sofa maker, Nabru. ‘The perfect sofa doesn’t exi-…’ and I wondered for a bit what it meant. I mean it was obvious they meant ‘doesn’t exist’ but why write it this way? Did they mean: the perfect sofa doesn’t exist but we’re 1-st? That would make sense, wouldn’t it? It makes perfect sense to me, it’s like a little riddle, but that’s not how people create hints, is it?

It is said that we, autistics, don’t understand hints, but no one ever explains what hints actually are and how they get created. My diagnostician was able to create hints for me that I would understand, but her hints were somehow different. They could for example be based on patterns naturally occuing in language.

In November 2016 I become convinced that Home Group asked my diagnostician to step in when I started a big row with them after I discovered that there was a memo sent out about me ‘in June’ that I knew nothing about.

I was off sick with stress at the time and I kept sending angry emails to various people in the organisation trying to tell them what has been happening to me. Recipients of those emails didn’t behave like people normally would in those circumstances and I quickly started having an idea that I was put on some kind of conflict de-escalation loop. I thought Home Group was finally taking the issue seriously and only, at some point, I felt like I felt out of the loop. The person who I chose to bring me back to the team, an experienced manager that I always respected, refused to interact with me.

I was sure, however, if anyone was able to create such a loop, it had to be my diagnostician, so I emailed her. I didn’t give any details, it felt silly to ask directly if, what I was thinking was true, so instead I just told her that me and people in Home Group had a massive fight. And that’s when she said ‘I don’t really know what happened’ and I thought people use that statement when they mean that they know something about an issue but they don’t really want to know any more details, they don’t want to get involved any more than they already are. And I thought, she is a language and speech therapist who specialises in how autistics communicate and her communication always seemed very specific, so if that’s how I understand it must have been what she meant. So that meant she was hinting me that yes, she was involved in creatingthat loop.

So it is possible to create hints for autistic people, although those hints are probably different from hints for neurotypicals. I’ve never seen this discussed anywhere, however I’ve never seen hints for neurotypicals being discussed either. It’s strange that people rely so heavily on a communication technique that never gets described, isn’t it?

Anyway, when Home Group responded to my employment tribunal claim, they never admitted to anything – they never mentioned about that conflict de-escalation loop, nor the memo about me or not even that I ever screamed at them. The only thing they actually admitted to and that was true was that I worked for them.

Oh well… I thought Mr Henderson will have a rest from me today, but now it doesn’t seem like this is going to happen. I still feel sorry for him though. I really do – I only want him to start behaving like a real leader would. Being a CEO means he should be a role model, not only when it suits him, but also when it is difficult. That’s what real leaders do, wouldn’t you agree Mr Scope?