Now that I’ve started paying attention I’ve realised there are hundreds of little papercuts slicing in at me from a hundred directions in my workplace (zero choice in software, short-notice (and often pointless) policy changes, 300 newsletters a year I have to read, module timetabling nightmares, construction noise, random beeping sounds everywhere, nightmare venues, a zillion pointless interruptions just the minute I get into the flow), and I’m really not sure where to get started. The few times I’ve brought something up informally, reactions have been either confused or defensive. I did push for a formal flexible work plan and managed to get a compressed teaching timetable, but the whole process took two years, a half dozen meetings, three separate forms, a huge input of energy, and left me feeling like I was supposed to be deferent and grateful for that systems had been temporarily shifted to run a different way on my behalf. I had colleagues who helped me with this process who were totally amazing about it all, but the process was still pretty deflating, and the end result really wasn’t what I’d asked for, rather it got shifted to a model that other people thought I needed.

What this has left me wodnering about if a useful shift in our approach to accommodation within our organisations is not to emphasise privacy and procedure, but to be relational, discursive and perhaps find ways to draw in a mentor or more experienced self-advocate with lived experience of disability as part of the actual process (e.g. sitting in meetings with you, commenting occasioally, posing questions etc.). My main problem is that as soon as things start to get difficult, I begin to doubt myself and wonder if I’m just special pleading (and there are systems and cultures which press us into this kind of thinking). Having someone with similar experience of the world to sense check a process might be quite useful. And for other people with less tenure and experience than me, I can imagine it might be even more vital.