I want to preface this by saying 1. I am autistic. I struggle with tone and facial expressions. I am often mistaken as being disinterested. 2. I have a much better job now that pays literally so much more with much better advancement opportunities. I also live in a at-will employment state, so the possibility of suing is basically out the window.
So, about a year ago, I was looking for a new job and applied to this local escape room in my town. I thought it'd be a fun job, and I'd be good at it. Without giving away too much personal identifiable information, I will say I have relevant experience in this field.
I applied, they got back to me, interviewed me, hired me, but then wanted to do a 'working audition.' Which, in the owner's words means “We want to see if you'll fit into our family.” (ugh)
By the way, during the interview process I mentioned I struggle with social cues, and the manager said “That's fine. As long as it doesn't affect your performance.” Ok, cool, they get it.
The working audition went smoothly enough, or so I thought. My first day could've gone better, I reset the room in record time (I have a knack for pattern recognition, so a lot of the puzzles made sense to me immediately), but I was kind of quiet because I was just nervous for my first day. Here's a red flag: my manager was complaining to my other manager how they had to 'let someone go' because they had become too physically disabled to do the job anymore. They had an air of suspicion, which, if I'm the one picking up on your snarky tone, your vibes have to be absolutely rancid.
Then, I come to work on the 2nd day. I show up 10 minutes early, as I do for any of my jobs, head inside and upstairs into our break area, and am greeted by one of my two managers. She sits me down and gets my 2nd manager on the phone, and basically tells me I'm fired and to give back the t-shirt (yes, the ONE 5$ t-shirt they gave me for this job) as soon as I can. Oh, and I have to sign up for their stupid online employee portal in order to receive my whole 50 dollar (first and) last check.
I asked what I did wrong, and she said something like this:
“Well, we just think you're a very strange person. You have an awfully flat affect and honestly we're kind of freaked out by you. You'd scare the customers. Sorry.”
Here's the thing: It's a partially horror-themed escape room. I figured they'd want someone mildly off-putting. I am not physically intimidating at all. In fact, at the time I looked like a very normal teenage girl. And thirdly, 'flat affect?' Is that not like, one of the qualifying traits of autism? Did they look up symptoms on WebMD? Good lord.
After that, they basically took the walkie talkie out of my hands, like I was some kind of wild animal, and had one of the male employees usher me out.
The real irony of this is that they were 'urgently hiring' on Indeed. Fuck you, local escape room, and your t-shirt, and your minimum wage rate.
TL;DR Manager fired me at an escape room for having autism spectrum disorder, didn't even have my last check ready upon my firing, AND treated me like I was a genuine threat – just because they were uncomfortable around me.