Behind the Inbox: An Autistic View

I’m the Operations Executive at Harry Specters, but around the team I’m affectionately known as the “Office Octopus” - because I have a hand in just about everything.

A big part of my job lives in the inbox. 

Most of our customer service happens by email, which is ideal for me. I’m autistic, and phone calls can feel like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle while someone keeps moving the pieces. There’s no pause button, you’ve got background noise, the connection isn’t always great, and sometimes - by the time I’ve processed what’s been said - the conversation has already moved on.

Email gives me something I really value: time. Time to understand what someone needs, time to check the details properly, and time to reply in a way that’s clear and helpful.

And I love being helpful.

Where Autism Helps In Customer Service

I deal with all sorts of queries - from corporate clients planning events, to delivery questions, and the (thankfully rare) complaint. No two emails are ever quite the same, but I approach them all with the same goal: to make sure the person on the other side feels heard, and that we sort things quickly and fairly.

That last bit matters to me more than I can probably explain. I have a strong sense of justice, and it shows up in customer service in a surprisingly practical way: I’m not interested in “winning” an email exchange. I’m interested in fixing the problem.

I also have a strong work ethic and take a lot of pride in what I do. If I can reply within one working day, I will - because I know how frustrating it feels when you’re waiting for a response and your brain starts doing that thing where it fills the silence with worst-case scenarios.

Another place my autism genuinely helps is attention to detail. When something has gone wrong, it rarely takes me long to spot what it is - even when it’s tiny. Sometimes it’s as simple as a zero typed as a capital O in an address. To most people, that looks almost identical. To a courier, it can be the difference between “out for delivery” and “returned to sender”. It’s the kind of detail my brain feels oddly pleased to notice, because it means I can solve the issue quickly.

So far, so positive.

The Tricky Part: Tone, And Being Misunderstood

But customer service has its tricky moments too, and a big one for me is tone.

I’m naturally quite direct. I like clarity. I like precision. I like saying what I mean and meaning what I say, and I’ve spoken this way for as long as I can remember.

Tone is already hard in writing. You can read the same sentence in ten different ways depending on how your day is going, what you’ve just dealt with, and what you think the other person is implying. Add my natural directness into the mix, and occasionally I’ll write something that, to me, feels clear and reassuring, but lands in a completely different way.

One Email I Learned From

A customer wrote to us during the Christmas period feeling upset because their order hadn’t arrived when they were expecting.

I completely understood why they felt stressed, and I wanted to reassure them properly: you will receive your order; and at Christmas, our lead times can be longer than usual because everything is handmade (and handmade chocolate as good as ours really does take time).

In my attempt to be helpful and transparent, I used a phrase I now avoid whenever I can: “as mentioned on our website”, pointing them to our dispatch notice.

In my head, that sentence meant: “You’re safe, this is normal, and we’re not hiding anything.”
In their head, it read more like: “You should have known better.”

Same words. Totally different message.

That’s the thing about written communication: what you intend isn’t always what’s received. And when you’re autistic, those gaps can feel even wider - not because you care less, but because you may be using language differently, or reading language differently.

This is also where “double empathy” comes into play - the idea that misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic people aren’t a one-way problem, but a two-way mismatch in communication styles and expectations. It’s not that one person is “right” and the other is “wrong”. It’s just that we’re speaking slightly different languages.

What I’ve Learned

Over time, I’ve found a few strategies that help.

The first is seeking input from others: if I’m unsure, I ask the team. Another is reminding myself that you never truly know what’s going on for someone. A parcel arriving a day earlier than expected might sound like a minor thing, but if a person’s already overwhelmed, it can feel catastrophic. People bring their whole lives to their inbox.

And sometimes, if I’m dealing with sensory overload and my brain is too stressed by general “too muchness” to find the gentlest phrasing, I’ll use paraphrasing or tone rewriting tools to help me soften a message without losing the clarity I rely on. Not to make it less honest - just to make it easier to receive.

A More Human Inbox

I’d love for customer service (as a concept) to feel a bit more human on both sides. Behind every email is a person: sometimes tired, sometimes rushed, sometimes anxious, sometimes doing their best to stay polite while their day falls apart in the background.

I’m definitely that person sometimes too.

If we can meet each other with a little more patience (and a little more willingness to assume good intent) we make space for better conversations, better outcomes, and kinder days.