Most autistic people I know have a mental list of things that would make work survivable, and a second list of things they'd never ask for because they sound ridiculous. The second list is usually the more useful one. It's where you find the requests that would actually change your week, filed under "they'd think I'm difficult" and left there for years.
I'm autistic. I've asked for some of these and lost sleep over asking. I've also spent a lot of my career on the other side of the table, watching people who needed something obvious never say a word about it. So here's the longer list, including the parts that feel too small or too strange to bring up.
Three years into my first corporate job, I found myself in a bathroom stall at 2 PM, fighting back tears after yet another meeting where my ideas were dismissed without consideration. I'd spent months trying to adapt to the company culture, modifying my communication style, tempering my enthusiasm, and generally trying to become someone I thought they wanted me to be.
The irony wasn't lost on me: in trying so hard to fit in, I'd made myself completely ineffective. My authentic self - the one who asked challenging questions, pushed for better solutions, and occasionally got excited about elegant code - had been systematically edited out of existence.
That's when I learned one of the most important lessons of my career: you have the right to be yourself, especially in professional settings where the pressure to conform can be overwhelming.