…or at least my workplace. University of Melbourne, in the maths department. At the time of writing.
So for any outsiders looking in, I’m hard-of-hearing, can usually get by with my hearing aid. As I get older I’m noticing more neurodivergent traits express themselves more strongly, while also having less energy to mask. However I don’t have a formal diagnosis and for what it’s worth, it’s not super important for me to get one at the moment.
And if it’s not obvious, I’m pretty open about it. Like, my life experience has basically shown me that if I don’t disclose, everything just gets fundamentally worse for me and most importantly, peoples’ perception and knowledge on how to deal with me.
Why don’t people disclose?
It’s tiring doing it all the time especially when meeting/introducing myself to new people.
So I teach for a living, at least 4 new classes every semester, so this basically means when I introduce myself in the first class, there’s some variant of:
“Okay! So the most important thing about me is that I’m hard-of-hearing, quite deaf. Hearing aid in the left ear, deaf in the right ear. This basically means that:
- If my eyes are not on you, I probably won’t be able to hear you. Please get my visual attention first!
- If you have a strong accent, soft-spoken, or slur your words, then I’ll naturally be asking you to speak more clearly or repeat yourself, so a little patience is appreciated.”
For fellow staff members & colleagues I….I have no idea. I generally try to find a good moment to slip it into conversation. Or if their accent is especially strong, or I have to ask them to repeat something more than two times.
Power plays in the workplace
Goodness forbid you disclose to someone above you in the hierarchy who doesn’t understand or appreciate the significance of it. Nor have the forwards thinking to do the thoughtful things e.g. “Oh hey, this person below me is hard-of-hearing, when organising events I should think about what I can do to accommodate them.” But as it turns out, some 95-99% of people in my experience are not that forward thinking.
It also means that for shitty people above you they’ll use it as an opportunity against you, or may trigger some kind of unconscious bias that they have.
My understanding of workplace policy & privacy
My generic understanding is that individuals’ disabilities and such are private information so the onus is on the individual is to disclose and request assistance if they need it.
It’s also apparently not appropriate workplace practice to ask individuals about their disabilities.
So the problem is…
And if you haven’t already realised the problem, it means that it’s solely on the individual’s responsibility to disclose. But now the individual has to contend with the above power play and workplace politics. They have to figure out whether it’s safe enough to do so.
Frankly I think it’s bullshit, and is one of the reasons that I prefer to be open about my disabilities. Just not in a “this is my whole personality” thing because there’s obviously more to me than just that.
So it means that either I have to wait/find people who can take the hint, or people who know how to make everything accessible without me having to mention it.
Hell it even means a lot to me if someone was like “Hey can I ask/clarify things about your hearing loss/neurodivergence?”
I have one friend who keeps forgetting which of my ear is deaf, and she brings it up almost every time we meet. The fact that it still means so much to me that she remembers is probably a testament to how very few people in my life are even mindful of such things.
I can’t wait to work myself up to be leading something significant, and to be able to make everything accessible and welcoming to those below me.