I had a knee-jerk reaction to a situation. Could you please advise me on handling it maturely?
I can be fidgety and while I do well overall in classroom environments, I can have a hard time listening while sitting still (I start thinking of other things and/or get drowsy quickly) and have coped in the past by doodling. Instructors have responded to this in various ways. Some don’t seem to care at all, and some have interpreted it as me not paying attention. In grad school, a fellow student knit in class for similar reasons and I learned how and found that as long as the pattern was simple enough that I didn’t have to look at it often and it was easy to put down when I needed to write something down, I could sit up and look more attentive in class while actually paying attention with my brain as well as I do when I’m doodling (where I’m looking away from the instruction).
I’m doing some intense professional development for my work that occurs one week at a time for eight weeks stretched over a year. It is a privilege to be in the program and I really want the information, so after the first week when it was evident that (1) I was struggling to focus consistently while sitting still and (2) I was an active participant in the class who the instructor knew as a contributor, I brought in a simple knitting project and asked the instructor if it was okay if I knit in class. She said it was fine, and I trust her that she would have come to me directly if there was a problem. Everything seemed golden!
A few weeks later my great-grandboss (my boss’s boss’s boss) came with a group to observe the program while I had my knitting out. Apparently there have been disruptive knitters(!) at my company before I worked there, and the message was passed down to my boss that it was unacceptable. My boss was fairly nice about it, explained the situation and that it’s not my behavior but it’s frowned upon “so just stop it.”
I was pretty put out! I really do think the knitting increases my access to the point of the training. My boss didn’t frame it as a discussion and I don’t think explaining the situation to her would help me with the great-grandboss anyway. I don’t have any formal diagnoses but I’ve started therapy and I might have ADHD or PTSD that contribute to why I learn like this. Is this something that would even fit within ADA accommodations if I do end up with a diagnosis? Will people laugh at the crazy employee who says she needs to knit? I can go back to doodling, and we’re allowed to eat in this class which can help too, but all that paper and candy and drinking 3-4 liters of water a day just to keep my hands busy is so much worse to me than knitting. I feel pouty and resentful and I don’t want to let those dominate my work reactions. Could you please shine a light on what path you recommend I take?
There’s so much more awareness now than there used to be that some people — especially but not only people with ADHD — focus much better when their hands are occupied, so it’s disappointing that your boss’s boss’s boss doesn’t seem to know that (and that no one under her pushed back with that message when the edict was handed down).
That said, that awareness is relatively new (to the point that I didn’t mention it at all in this post on knitting at work from six years ago) and someone who hasn’t kept up on it could indeed think knitting in a class was a sign that you weren’t fully engaged. Plus, someone who has never knit could easily think it requires more of your focus than it really does, and could see it as rude or disrespectful to the trainer or other class members, like openly reading an unrelated book during the class would be.
I also think that awareness — while it’s grown — hasn’t changed the fact that knitting in work meetings would still read as out of place and disengaged in many, many offices. That’s not about whether it should, just that it would.
But you weren’t in a work meeting; you were in a class, and classes tend to have more relaxed norms.
It’s also frustrating that you talked to your instructor, received her blessing, and then were told to cut it out by someone who just briefly dropped in and had no context.
I’m not sure what was up with the “disruptive knitters” in the past, but it might have been about the knitting being distracting to others. It’s true that when you need to keep your hands occupied to stay focused, you’ve got to find methods that won’t distract people around you. So in the future, it might be worth asking people sitting around you if it distracts them, in addition to checking with the instructor.
As for what to do from here, you’ve got two options. One is to see if fidget toys, which are designed specifically for this purpose, work for you (just make sure they don’t make noise). The other is to go back and talk to your boss, explain that you knit in order to focus and that you had specifically checked with the instructor and received her okay at the start of the class, and ask if there’s room for pushback. If nothing else, you could broach it by explaining that you didn’t want to leave her with the impression that you weren’t engaged in the class — something she’d probably appreciate hearing — and then, if she seems receptive, decide if you want to ask about pushing back on the directive or not.
As for ADA accommodations: Yes! Doing something with your hands to aid in concentration is specifically listed by the Job Accommodation Network as a possible accommodation for ADHD, autism, and probably other disabilities as well. Your employer doesn’t necessarily need to agree to the specific accommodation you request — in other words, if you propose knitting, they’re allowed to ask if doodling or fidget toys or something else would work instead — but in general, this is an area recognized as a reasonable one for accommodations.
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