Image description: The words “The second time podcast” in black text on a purple background. There is also a sketch of a computer and mouse.
You can listen to this podcast in a number of places:
- Spotify
- Apple Podcasts
- RSS feed (to open in your preferred listening app)
- YouTube
This website is the only place which has the script for the episode.
I know some platforms and apps have automatic transcriptions but I cannot endorse AI and will not take responsibility for their accuracy.
Episode Script:
Welcome to the Second Time Podcast. I think this is week 24, though to be honest, I am losing track!
I worked out something that had been bothering me and wanted to share it this week. For a few weeks it has been an unspecified bother in the back of my mind. I knew something was bothering me but I didn’t know what it was. As always, talking to trusted and good people made it click.
Let me backtrack a little to put this in context.
I have two main jobs in the pipeline right now. One role is post-interview reference checking me (though taking multiple weeks to do that), and the other interview was recent but went very, very well. In a reasonable world, I should be able to expect an offer from at least one of them, but likely both.
However, notice that I said “I should be able to expect an offer”.
Because I have a different layer of (for lack of a better term) risk that follows me around. Where I’ve gotten screwed over time and time again is with either human resources departments or senior management. One or other will decide a housebound person is too “scary” and force my application to be rejected.
This isn’t a theoretical fear. It has happened before. More than once. It happened the first time I job hunted and it has happened this time around too.
And that is what has been bothering me. I can perform perfectly in an interview and still be viewed as “wrong” by a person barely involved in the process, and have my employment blocked. I cannot do anything about this.
It’s just one more factor that I have that weighs on me, that I cannot control.
As I said in an earlier episode, I have a lot of privilege in that I don’t really lack a lot of things that can be common barriers for people with a disability. I don’t lack experience, education, degrees, or references. My resume and cover letters are great. I interview well.
And yet I can tick every box and be rejected.
I hope this interference and rejection doesn’t happen, I really do hope. But it has happened, and it can happen again.
Speaking of hope, that’s where things get even more complicated for me right now.
I am down to the last of my redundancy payment, about to live off the small savings I had outside of that. As a reminder, I may not even be able to get Centrelink’s inadequate payments due to technicalities I’ve experienced in the past.
I need a job to come into fruition, and I need it fast. I’ve been saying that I just need one opportunity to turn into a contract. I just need one place who has interviewed me to send me something to sign!
What if the best happens and both roles come in as an offer at the same time, and I get to choose? That level of hope feels like something that I’m not permitted to experience. Am I allowed to choose a role that really suits me in terms of work, location, and pay, my elusive three out of three. Job hunting as a disabled person conditions me to desperation only, not hope. Hope is for those who don’t experience discrimination.
Links referenced in the episode:
Recorded and edited by myself, Vanessa Smith.
Intro and outro music by Ben Dawson.
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