By Rachel Melinek
The woman looks up at me. ‘We need a record that accounts for all your time.’
‘Absolutely all of it?’
‘Yes, you can’t work in social care unless we know what you’ve been doing.’
‘I have it on my CV; I’ve mainly been self-employed.’
‘We need a reference.’
‘I have one from volunteering.’
‘A work reference,’ says the woman, almost shouting.
‘I don’t have one.’
She gives me a look, it seems suspicious and exasperated all in one.
I leave.
It’s true I didn’t have a work reference. At that point, I’d only ever been self-employed. I had an issue with interviews. I’d been to a few psychologists to understand what was behind my anxiety so I could overcome it and pass an interview. Years after that incident I was diagnosed with ‘mild’ autism. A diagnoses after which there was no signposting to support services.
Also, the mild in the diagnosis made me feel like I just wasn’t trying hard enough; if I was ‘mildly’ autistic, then surely I should overcome my difficulties, and that meant passing a job interview.
It was years after the diagnosis that I found out mild didn’t mean my autism was mild. It was also then that I heard the analogy you can’t be ‘mildly’ pregnant you either are or are not pregnant.
Lack of signposting and lack of clarity over my diagnosis meant that I still struggled to find work.
Later on, down the line, I managed to get some permanent work through a mix of bypassing formal interviews and through networking. However most of the work I obtain I was underqualified for and I have spent years trying to escape the cycle of underemployment and the loss of wages that, that brings with it. Its hard to be independent with my employment situation but then with rising house prices its hard for my generation and those after it to be independent anyway.
Also, like my dealings with the first lady, I often get treated with suspicion because of my work history. If I had a Master’s, surely I would have done better for myself. I think that up until a few years ago people might have had the unspoken idea that maybe I’d been imprisoned, and that’s why I have been cagey about my work history. I’ve not been locked up. However, I’ve been imprisoned by society’s low expectations of me. Both the neurodiversity and people who’ve been physical incarceration are barred from the job market. Both groups have been led to their situations mostly through bad life experiences, lets change the way the job market assess a candidates value.
