Behind the Inbox: An Autistic View

I’m an 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 (except the chocolate making… although I have decorated a few in the past).

A big part of my job lives in the inbox.

Most of our customer service happens by email. We did have a phone once upon a time, but after one too many spam calls, we waved goodbye. Honestly, it works better for me anyway. 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 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, product enquiries, 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 (one of my most obvious autistic traits), 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 take a lot of pride in my work. 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”. To me, 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, directness, and being misunderstood

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

I’m naturally quite direct and quite formal. I like clarity. I like precision. I like saying what I mean and meaning what I say. I’ve spoken this way for as long as I can remember (so long, in fact, that when I was bullied in primary school, a headteacher once suggested I should try to “fit in better” by speaking more like the other children).

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. They were worried they’d fallen for an online scam - the money had been taken, but no chocolates had appeared.

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.

When people speak in hints

We sometimes get messages like: “Wow, your chocolates look amazing! It’s my birthday soon and I wish I could have some.”

Now, if I wrote that, I’d mean exactly what it says: a compliment and a wish. No hidden agenda. But I’ve learned that other people sometimes communicate in hints - and those hints can mean all sorts of things. Are they just being lovely? Are they hoping for a discount? A freebie? A nudge to buy? A recommendation? It’s genuinely hard for me to tell.

Those are the moments I’m most grateful for teamwork, because I’ll often turn to Mona or Shaz and say, very plainly: “Help. What do they want?” Different perspectives help me understand people better, full stop.

This is also where the “double empathy” problem may help explain what’s happening. It’s the idea that misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic people aren’t necessarily a one-way problem, but can result from a two-way mismatch in communication styles and expectations. It’s not that one person is “right” and the other is “wrong”. We may simply be speaking slightly different languages, even when we’re both trying.

What helps (and what I’ve learned)

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

One is exactly what I’ve already mentioned: 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 early 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 smells and sounds and general “too muchness” to find the gentlest phrasing, I’ll use AI 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.

And 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.

Read about common autism traits and how they translate into strengths at work. Or explore how Harry Specters creates employment opportunities for autistic people like me.