Lucky charms

I've mentioned in the past that I've been quiet about my disability, struggles and everything related to it. I thought about, why it was like that. Couldn't quite put the finger on it. Past week showed me what it is. I went to an event discussing employability of People with Disabilities (PwD) Since then, I AM EXHAUSTED. I'd like to just pack up and never speak about anything related to disability EVER again.

One of the panelist mentioned that planting the PwD employee into their team improved the personal qualities of everyone in the team. I felt like being a lucky charm of my team. Just by being .. everyone gets better.

Another one spoke how tiresome it is to employ someone and that she would welcome financial support from the state. Sure we create opportunities for disabled, but only if they are a charity. "We don't really want to do that" ...was my take away from such statement.

We are making the tiniest progress possible to integrate the people with disabilities into working process and life. This frustrates me so much. Don't get me wrong. I don't think everyone is employable and NOT everyone needs to be even employed across the board. But for those who want and can.. shouldn't we make the path to the work simple and straight forward?

I've listened to the cases of few employers who decided to go with it and hire people with disability. There were cases which inspired me and are wonderful role models... Then there were these comments which infuriated me.

1. The comment how employing someone with disability made the whole team better, more compassionate, empathetic etc. While this is all true and I've seen it myself. This change in the team doesn't happen because of person with disability joined the team as some kind of lucky charm. This change happens based on my experience, due to the fact, that if you have more serious disability that you can't hide or where you need to communicate your needs, you become more vulnerable, more authentic and you open the door for others TO DO THE SAME. Thus whole team becomes more vulnerable, authentic. In the ideal case, the team creates the safe space, where honest, kind conversation is happening. Again, this happens thanks to the need for vulnerability and authenticity. NOT due to disability. Or in other words. this change doesn't happen by randomly sprinkling people with disability into the workplace.
2. There was a repeating notion on how hard it is to employ person with disability. Various factors came to discussion like: The environment needed to be adjusted, because of previous barriers for wheelchair users. The onboarding style needed to be adjusted, because before welcoming someone to the workplace who is neurodivergent the employer needed to understand their needs etc. I asked what would help them to ease the struggle. The reply struck me. Financial aid from the government. For a second I saw red. ( Although I agree our government has a lot to improve in area of supporting anyone disadvantaged ..but that's for a separate book.) Why in 2023 aren't we building office spaces without barriers as default ? In case the person telling me this, meant the additional money to go to support the Person with disability's salary, then I object again, because why do you hire someone if you don't think they can't handle the job? You as the employer get the advantage already from the state in other ways to support the employment of person with disability. I left puzzled.

My brain is fried from thinking it over and over that it's still perceived as a favour to the person to hire someone with disability. I don't blame anyone who decides to keep their health status private exactly for this reason. Not everyone gets that luxury. I also got much better understanding why so many capable, smart people with disability become self employed and start their own business instead of being employed. Because they create their own environment and do their own work, instead of dealing with this ... Is it hard ? Yes, but they don't need to be fake charity case to anyone. Thanks to this, we as society put the responsibility of "to make it in life" on the individual and we are retrieving the options from them. Plus we can benefit from the services they create on their own. We all feel better during Christmas to buy from sheltered place or small business run by wheelchair user. Not always.. but most of the time. The sad thing is that this mindset is deeply rooted in people who are actively pretending to make the change. Therefore the change for the better conditions is so slow. Especially for us who would love to live in the future, where this article would be an interesting historical memento.

Experiencing this, I am thinking how hard it must have been for first women to be employed in "normal" jobs. For first black people to be in environments with most white people. I hope everyone saw the movie Hidden Figures, where Kevin Costner is smashing the toilette sign.

I am only infuriated that we are still at the start of employing the people with disability as usual. People with disability are people who are also women, who are also any race, LGBTQ, any religion, any country ... So when do we become ... normal ? I can't wait.