I don’t write about my problems on social media very often because I’m afraid of it being traced back to me. However, on this platform I think there’s a reasonable distance between it, and my real identity that I feel comfortable doing this. Even though it’s still entirely possible to trace it back to who I am – a few degrees of separation are enough for me to open up. Hopefully, fellow steemians will respect my privacy.
Anyways, I’m currently in an odd state of life. I’m about to be a college graduate with a degree in economics. This means that I’m looking for a job. I’ve done well in school and have interests and skills which should be in high demand for employers. However, there is one thing that is limiting my job prospects – that is a disability.
I am a person who stutters.
Some of you may ask what a stutter is? Well, a stutter, is an involuntary repetition of sounds when speaking. However, that definition, which is from google, doesn’t quite fit in with some stutters. For some stutters, there is a degree of severity. Some stutterers have a block, which means they can’t get any air out, thus they can’t speak. While others have prolongations where they sit on one sound like ssssssssutter. In addition, some just repeat sounds or initial portions like st-st-st-stutter. I’m generally a prolongation stutterer.
If you’d like a severe example of a stutter look to this youtube video.
My stutter is what I’d consider moderate but to nonstutters it’s possibly severe in some cases.
But, yesterday I went for a job interview and was very nervous as it’s the first job interview I’ve had recently that I wanted. I was anxious, but I prepared for the interview and was ready to go when they started asking questions. Sadly, the techniques that I use for fluency started falling apart and I stuttered and stumbled my whole way through my interview. One of the final questions they asked me was “How much social interaction do you like at work?” This was obviously to gauge how I personally felt my stutter impacted my work and ability to communicate with others. While, it’s a fair question, I was sort of bothered by the possible intent but answered truthfully by saying something like “it doesn’t impact me a ton as long as the other person is patient. And I’ve had a challenging call center jobs before and preformed well.” Which all of that is true.
However, the two interviewers seemed put off by my stutter.… I doubt I’ll land that analyst job. But it doesn’t mean I won’t get other interviews. Either way, I’ll know in a about a week, if I got that job or not. But on my drive home I was not only frustrated at my performance but also thinking how this disability might impact me over the course of my career. It seemed rather obvious that it will be a weight around my neck.
Indeed, few people, including other stutterers want to listen to another person stutter. Fortunately, adult stutterers are rare – making up 1% of the population. Although that’s still 70 million people worldwide. While that’s a small group compared to the rest of the world. That’s not exactly a small number of people either.
Which this leads me to my plan of action.
I’m planning to work more on my techniques for fluency and controlled speaking. And I’m going to begin tracking my experience. This will begin with my initial job application. I’m planning to start tracking which jobs I mark “Yes I have a disability” on and which ones I don’t. I think this will be interesting to see if marking if you have a disability or not hampers your ability to get a job. However, it’s entirely possible I won’t even get enough data to make any real conclusions. But in the process of documenting this I hope to provide insight that will be helpful to myself and other job searchers in similar situations.
So, feel free to follow me to keep updated on this.
Who is klabboy?
I’m different than some steemians. I have never been be paid to create content (baring likes from fellow steemians), I have never paid for upvotes, and all my content is 100% created by me. Nothing fake, no agenda, just my thoughts, and your comments.
Further, I’m a stutterer, crypto-enthusiast, economics student, data nerd, and outdoors lover. I post mostly on economics, data, personal fun/stories, and crypto. If you have an interest in those things and the occasional random topic, feel free to like, follow, and reblog my content. Hope to hear from you in the comments! Have a wonderful day!