Sorry if this is not allowed here.
Throw away account. Based in UK. Long read.
I need work advice on what to do next or if i can challenge a dismissal from work only after working for my employer only for 2 months. Let me setup the premise of why I was let go.
I wont say who i work for but it is a tech firm that requires it's employees to travel around the UK and Europe to setup IT infrastructure.
I only worked for this company for 2 months and my first event (event A), in London, went perfectly fine.
The 2nd event (event B), in a western European country, went poorly for me due to me having the covid booster shot, my 3rd vaccine shot since I thought I would require being fully vaccinated with 2 vaccine shots and the booster shot. The first 2 shots I had were very mild to me and I only had a sore arm as a result but the 3rd booster shot really had more of a negative effect on me that it affected my work performance; the 3rd shot was a different product to that of my first 2 shots and was made by a different pharmaceutical company so I assume that was the reason why it was different from my 2 shots, I felt really tired all week after getting it.
I took my 3rd shot 1 day before (on a Friday) I was due to fly out (on a Saturday) to event B with my company for work. I collapsed twice in this day travelling on trains and planes to get to this event and informed 3 of my colleges when I arrived that this happened to me so they were aware of me getting my 3rd shot and me collapsing twice while travelling. The 3rd shot really affected my work performance as such it really drained my energy for the first half of the week starting on a Saturday and going on until the next Saturday. As such I was late on 2 days early in the week but later improved as the week progressed.
I also want to point out that I have Autism and/or Asperger syndrome but i didn’t disclose it to them when being hired but later informed them after event B. Autism effects different people in different ways but for me it effects my communication with other people and I work better with printed timetables and/or emails and text messages. My work doesn’t provide printed out times on each day, we are expected to come into work so I found it difficult to know when i was due in each day. Event B days had different times when we were expected to come in for each day so I found it also very confusing for each day when to come in. They only verbally communicated these times with me instead of providing printed out or emailed/text messaged these times which I explained to them after the event I found difficult to understand this information.
So these 2 points (covid booster shot affecting my health/energy and my autism not allowing to communicate and understand verbal instructions that well) resulted in me coming into work late on 2 different days while at event B.
Now they told me that I have failed my probation period and have given me a 1 week notice period to which I challenged them from dismissal. I had my meeting with HR to explain these points mention above as well as event A going perfectly fine with no issues because I didn’t have my covid booster shot then and all times for each day were emailed to us before the event.
They came back to me saying they still want to dismiss me after my challenge due to “inconsistencies” and also want to have a “protected conversation” with me about a settlement of 2 months pay and immediate dismissal.
Any advice on what should be my next steps and do I have a good case on unfair dismissal? I would prefer to keep this job but after some research into protected conversations in work, it sounds like they may not have a good case of fair dismissal and it may be them just digging their heels in and not budging to just get rid of me no matter what. My possible case for this could be for health reasons or for autism reasons but I am not sure and am seeking more advice on this. Thank you