Unexpected Turn of Events at a Work Party

Imagine this: you're at this fancy work event, right? You're having some good times, tossing back a few drinks, and then, bam! You're so out of it you end up snoozing in the sauna. Embarrassing? Maybe. But does that mean you should get the boot from your high-flying job? Well, that's what happened to Shannon Burns, but here's the kicker—she fought back, claiming the whole debacle was actually about her being unfairly treated because of her ADHD.

Shannon Burns: A Talented Tech Professional

So, here’s the lowdown: Burns was raking in a cool £220,000 a year as the VP of engineering at this German tech firm Gitpod. She was no newbie to the tech scene either. Back in 2016, she was rocking it at Slack as their first developer relations community manager and kept climbing up from there. She’s been around, you know? At her prior gigs like Flatfile and Universe, they made sure she had what she needed, talking therapy, flexibility when she felt under the weather—all that good stuff.

Challenges at Gitpod

But at Gitpod, it seemed like a different story. Despite the place being pretty accommodating to folks with mental health conditions and neurodivergence—like what? A bunch of their leader squad had ADHD!—when it came to Burns, things didn’t go too smooth. She joined the team and was upfront with head honcho Eva Hyder about her ADHD and dyslexia. However, others involved in her hiring didn't remember her dropping any hints about needing specific adjustments. Guess the message got lost somewhere?

Rising Tensions and the Fateful Night

The work setup was supposed to be chill—remote, flexible hours because of different time zones, and all that. But it turns out, self-sufficiency was the name of the game there, especially after her 90-day newbie period wrapped up. Come February 2023, Burns was feeling the heat. Overwhelmed, anxious, she asked for an ADHD coach. Then in March, the big boss, Johannes Landgraf, starts doubting her chops, saying she’s not cutting it and he wouldn’t hire her again—ouch. And he didn’t even know about her ADHD when he said all that. Fast forward to April, at this team-building bash in Austria, things went sideways. Burns had a rough patch, got teary, and might’ve overdone it with the drinks. Oh, and she ends up locked out of her room, keyless, roomie not answering, and finds a makeshift bed in the sauna. You can't make this stuff up. Later, some senior guy sends her a not-so-peppy message about needing to be an example and all that jazz, yadda yadda, and talks about how she was too drunk and snoozed in the sauna—a really bad look, huh?

Consequences and Legal Battle

Landgraf wasn’t impressed either. Talked about her dropping the ball on professionalism and how it wasn’t jiving with what they need in an exec. By June, they’re having the "it’s not you, it’s us" talk and she’s out. But here’s where it gets interesting. Burns claims the dudes there were way more plastered than she was, but guess who was shown the door? Yep. She spills all this at the tribunal, where they chew on the whole thing and end up siding with her on the disability discrimination part because, yeah, ADHD can make you forgetful and disorganized—which, hello, losing your keys? Totally fits the bill. But they didn’t buy the sexism angle or think the firing was unfair since she hadn’t been there long enough. Now, they've yet to figure out how to make it up to her, compensation-wise. But man, what a saga, right? Makes you think twice about company parties or at least where you might end up sleeping!