u/NorthAtlanticTerror

Hi everyone. Hoping to get some ER or HRBP eyes on this so I know what to expect.

I have disclosed Dyspraxia (DCD, with a lot of overlap with autism). Earlier this year we put some reasonable adjustments in place after some working issues and a dispute with a colleague raised questions about my collaboration skills but they were strictly for operational workflow, not social communication.

A colleague recently raised a grievance about something I said at an after-work pub meetup. I awkwardly asked if she'd ever had to deal with bribes or informal work in Bulgaria. I used to live there too and had been involved in both these things to an extent and was clumsily trying to bond over a shared geographical experience, but I overestimated our familiarity and crossed a professional boundary making her uncomfortable and offended.

During the ER fact-finding I held my hands up immediately and offered to apologise. It always feels terrible when I make a social blunder and upset someone like this so my main concern was to put things right with the colleague rather than fight the investigation. After the meeting I followed up in writing to ER that my DCD specifically impairs my ability to intuitively read social and conversational boundaries (very true and not a lie). There are two other witnesses to the incident who I'm pretty sure will confirm I didn't act with malice.

ER is finalizing the report now. Our policy says minor issues are handled informally but can escalate to formal disciplinary. Given I explicitly tied the behaviour to a disability symptom in writing, could this still lead to a formal disciplinary? I do have history which is probably why this was escalated to formal action immediately and dealt with by ER rather than my manager or HRBP.

Could HR legally use my previous workflow adjustments to claim this entirely separate behavioural incident is a "repeat offence" to justify an escalation?

In short, the first one was deserved but the second absolutely was not and appears to have been enforced on my manager by a superior. There was a very vague and sketchy "not a pip" off-policy process late last year which I believe was enforced by the same director. My peer feedback for 2025 was all extremely positive and I'm generally working above my assigned level, although I've obviously given up any hopes of promotion.

So far I haven't been placed on any kind of performance management process post review and the manager has been positive about my work this year but I'm working under the assumption that I'll be kicked out at the first opportunity. This is the UK so they need a valid business reason to fire me like redundancy, gross misconduct, documented underperformance etc.