When you are disabled, finding a job is more difficult because we live in a world surrounded by ableism, and it can be difficult to find an employer who can see past your disability. As a physically disabled person, I have also struggled to find a job because you can visually see my disability, and I can’t choose to hide my disability like someone with an invisible disability would be able. I searched for a job for ten years before I decided job searching was becoming too stressful and decided to call it quits. There was one time I was offered a position that seemed like it would be a great fit in the interview, but as soon as I started working there, I immediately knew it was not the job for me, and I didn’t stay for very long. My physical disability doesn’t not prevent me from working and I am able to work a job, but this particular job was not the right fit. It wasn’t the job I thought I applied for, and the work environment was very toxic, so I quit months before the training ended. Why did I quit my first on-the-job training position? In this post, I am sharing why my first job experience did not end up working out
My employer refused to make my work area accessible- Accessibility in the workplace is so important for disabled people because we can’t do our job effectively without accommodations. It can be difficult for disabled people to get accommodations because non-disabled people often view accessibility as something optional that they can do if they want to. Every time I went into work, I struggled with almost everything because nothing was accessible to me, and when I asked for accommodations, my employer refused. At the time, I was working with a government agency that found the job that would have paid for reasonable accommodations, but she still refused. I knew I couldn’t continue working this job because I had to access things that weren’t accessible to me and were very dangerous for me to try to access. I was asked to do jobs such as cleaning all the exam rooms that were not accessible to a physically disabled person, and I could barely get my wheelchair into the exam rooms. I don’t know why she didn’t hire a cleaning service and expected a physically disabled person to do it. If you are going to hire a disabled person, you have to be willing to make reasonable accommodations because inaccessibility can be a very dangerous work environment for disabled people and we can’t do our jobs as effectively without it.
My anxiety was through the roof- I applied for what I thought was a receptionist position, which I could have done, but it was more than that, and she was trying to train one person to do all the jobs in a doctor’s office because she was too cheap to hire more than one person. My employer was trying to teach me how to do jobs such as medical coding that most people would pay someone who has a college degree to do. My employer was constantly frustrated with me because she was asking me to do jobs that were beyond my capability. My anxiety was through the roof because it was my first time working a job, and I was being asked to do too much, and it was overwhelming. I had severe anxiety attacks that were visible, and my employer did not care; the only thing she cared about was how many new clients I was getting her. When my employer noticed I was stressed, instead of decreasing my workload, she would tell me that I needed to pull it together because it was hurting her business. It was that moment when I realized that job was very toxic and I needed to get out of it. I quit because that job was damaging my mental health, and I was having severe anxiety attacks even when I wasn’t working. My anxiety didn’t go away as soon as I quit, and it took me over a year to have confidence in myself again because that job destroyed my self-esteem. During the time that I worked there, I thought I was bad at everything because that is how my employer made me feel, and it took me a while to unlearn that and find my strengths. Quitting was the best thing I ever did, and I think if I had kept it, eventually it would have led to severe depression.
My employer viewed my disability as something that needed to be fixed- During the interview, my employer seemed like she was accepting of people with disabilities, but I could not have been more wrong. My employer was one of the most ableist people I have ever met and was constantly discriminating against my disability, and was not an employer I would ever want to work for or recommend to anyone. I was having a lot of bowel issues while working because that job was causing me very high levels of stress. My employer did not like that and advised I go to the doctor and get them fixed. As much as I would love to have bowels that worked properly, I can’t just go the doctor and be cured because I have an incurable disability, and you can’t have a surgery and be fixed like they do on TV. Disabled people being discriminated against in the workplace is very common, and a lot of the time employers get away with it because disabled people often can’t prove it. I knew as soon as my employer started having an issue with my disability that it was a toxic work environment and wasn’t going to work long-term.
Growing the business was more of a priority than my health- During the interview, I told my potential employer about all my bathroom needs, and she didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Once I started working, she had a major issue with it and told me that growing her business was more of a priority than my health. I am prone to bladder infections and will pee my pants if I don’t get to a bathroom in time because I don’t have the muscles to hold it for long periods of time like a non-disabled person. There is no job that could pay me enough to cause an avoidable health problem, and as soon as I realized she wanted me to put her business above my health, I knew it wasn’t going to work. I don’t know why she was so suprised that I had a lot of health issues because I told her that ahead of time and it’s like she thought I was lying to her.
When you are disabled, it can be hard to find a job that is willing to make reasonable accommodations because most jobs either don’t hire disabled people in the first place or don’t want to accommodate us. Disabled people can thrive in the workplace, and the belief that non-disabled people are better employees is simply not true. There are some types of jobs that I can’t do because of my physical disability, but there are a lot of jobs I can do just as effectively as a non-disabled person. Accessibility matters because inaccessibility is what makes it so that disabled people do their jobs more slowly. It is so much harder to find a job when you are disabled, but it’s so important that you try to find the right one because being too desperate can put you in toxic work environments. I wish more employers hired inclusively because it is more expensive to be disabled, and disabled people need money to pay their bills just like non-disabled people. What is your experience while working with a disability? If you liked this post, please leave a comment below and share it with your friends.
New posts are shared most Tuesdays and Thursdays. Subscribe to my blog’s email list to be notified when a new post is published. Emails are always kept confidential and shared with no one but most importantly I will never spam you!
My Rockin Disabled Life 