 Welcome to Brain Club. There are a couple of people who I don't know, which is very exciting. So, oh no, yes, now I see everybody. Okay, now got everyone one place, but I'll introduce myself anyway for those watching on recording. I'm Mel Hauser. I use she they pronouns and I'm executive director here at all brains belong Vermont. And this is brain club and this is, you know, I love brain club every week but I particularly love during inclusive employment week and we do this once a month here brain club, because this is part of health. So, as we continue our reimagining life reimagined theme this month. What does reimagine employment look like. First by way of introduction. All forms of participation are okay. Since I know for a few of you it's your first brain club tonight so you can have your video on or off just like all of our other programs and even if you have your video on we do not expect anything of you you can eat and you can sit down and move and all the things, and you can communicate however you're most comfortable. And in addition to affirming all aspects of identity we have our community agreement. This is a safe and healthy space for all people of all ages. This is for education purposes only this is not a medical or therapeutic support group and individual traumatic experiences are best processed for the trained therapist so we stick to education here at brain club. And just be be aware of those around you especially especially some some folks have small children join in the background sometimes and so just be aware of topics and language, and all that. Okay. Access closed captioning is enabled you just have to turn it on if you want it. So depending on your version of zoom, either the live transcript CC button, or the more dot dot dot to choose show subtitles, or hide some titles if you'd like to turn it off. Okay, so the bad news is I have covered the good news is that with seven full days left in the reimagining what's possible campaign. We are so so so close look how close that is to the top of that one there. I remember when I was down here so it's very very exciting so thank you for helping us spread the word. Alright, so we talk we've used this graphic a lot at various topics of brain club, but I'm going to use it again. So the social model of disability refers to the amount of disability that someone experiences is relative to the barriers in the environment. Much like if we think if I'm a wheelchair user and I approach a building that has a ramp, I'm going to have less disability than if I approach a building that does not have a ramp. When it comes to invisible disability at the same thing, except sometimes people don't talk about that. And so when we think about employment. There are so many barriers in the environment to employment. And this this statistic, I like to quote because it's just so awful and just you're shocking that 80% of neurodivergent adults are unemployed. And those jobs, first off maybe under employed and second of all, even if they are like fully employed are often far from thriving. And because employment is is is linked by directionally with health. In fact, having employment at any level doesn't need to be full time employment in part time employment, people with disabilities have half the amount of mental distress by having any employment at all. Better quality of life, higher self reported health status and and you think about the financial and the psychological impact of employment. You know it's just it's it's huge and we think about all the barriers between people and and their access needs that impact daily life, how could this not play out in the workforce. And you know when we first set out to launch all brains belong last year. We realize that to do anything for the neurodivergent community we have to do everything and employment is a core part of life reimagined. And so, when, when about a year ago my phone is making noises, and now it's off so it stops making noises because that is a barrier to my engagement. A year ago we started our neuro inclusive employment bright spotting program this is a program open to anyone in Vermont can nominate a local employer who they work for who has a neuro inclusive workplace who is creating a workplace environment for people with all types of brains to thrive. And what we've learned so far in studying the local bright spots and this this this is exactly what the literature says about neuro inclusive workplace is also. These are some of the main themes of what neuro inclusive workplaces are all about related to the physical environment, communication style, culture, flexibility, autonomy individualization of workflow and routines. So we talk, you know, if you go back and actually Lizzie whatever if if you can pop in the chat the link to the playlist of all of the past neuro inclusive employment brain clubs that are on a YouTube playlist. You can go back we have a monthly neuro inclusive employment brain club dating back to may. We've talked about a lot of these different items but the one we're going to talk about today is around communication and culture. Because when we think about, you know, all of the defaults in society, there are often a lot of default communication in the in many workplaces. There are the brain rules of what is professionalism, you know that that that as though professionalism looks a certain like one way, which is of course bogus. And I'm going to flip through some of these things will will will will will cover some of these, these these elements. Again, I'm sure in subsequent rounds of this. But just as there are items in the physical environment that interfere with people meeting their access needs. There are communication related access needs. There are executive functioning related access needs related to the way that work assignments are allocated. We supervision works the way that people interface with technology. So all of these things play a huge role. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. When we think about executive functioning these are these higher order, you know, you know, the this this these really, really complicated tasks that the brain has to do related to, you know, being the quarterback or the conductor of the orchestra, the initiating shifting, prioritizing self monitoring, all of these things. And when people don't have their access needs met. They are most likely not going to have a regulated, ultimately, you know, have all the access have access to all of your brain functions let alone you know access to your work. So, normalizing discussions around this, what do you need to do your best work. And to normalize having a vocabulary, a shared vocabulary around access and where it's like not a big deal that people with all types of brains can just talk about access because access needs are something that everyone with all types of brains has everyone has access needs it's anything that anyone needs to fully and meaningfully participate. When we think about, you know, this term safe space I put it in quotes because it's a term that gets overly used and misused so often, but like an actually safe place and actually safe space that is, you know, I think there's a requirement of a shared goal that I want to get my own access, but it's actually important to me to not violate other people's access needs. That's what I think is a requirement for an actually safe neuro inclusive workspace or any space. So, ground rules, normalizing what's expected normalizing diversity in terms of all kinds including of access needs. And if we have all different people with all different types of brains with all different types of access needs. We can expect that we are going to have conflicting access needs access needs of multi we talk about the spring club a lot in various contexts but you know, if you've got multiple people in a space who have different needs sometimes those needs are going to conflict and some are going to be mutually exclusive to one another. And so we have to have a framework for navigating that. So what we're going to do. And actually, I think, thank you, Sarah for for for taking some screenshots of a recent Instagram post that that we did a few weeks ago about conflicting access needs in the workplace. So you know first up again identify your own access needs. And then there's access needs and to really normalize learning about your colleagues and certainly if you, you know if you're at the, the, the helm of the ship to normalize exploring the people you're supervising as access needs and building it into into culture into meetings and and into everything. So whenever there's a breakdown. Often this relates to conflicting access needs, and this can be between supervisor and supervise between co workers peer co workers can be team wide. So, so I think conflicting access needs is part of the key to the universe and what we're going to do today is that all brains belong and I think I can just less alright yeah so it's a you need a framework to talk about this and that's what we're going to show you today so I'm going to stop your screen for a second. So, um, our team at all brains belong, we were having a meeting. And we thought, you know, we're recording in case something interesting happens. Interesting stuff happens all the time but you never know what's going to happen. And so, um, we recorded a meeting that we had with, we were meeting with with Danielle Kent who is an executive functioning coach on our board of directors, and we were talking about these things, and we edited down for some some examples of how do we talk about access needs like not one we're teaching other people but like how do we do this in real life, like in our day to day work. And it's going to be a short clip about 10 minutes. And then we'll talk. Go for it Lizzie. Oh you need to I think you need to unmute I think we learned about your computer. So it's somehow it doesn't play sound, I think. Sorry. Yeah, no worries. We all have different versions of zooms just like we have different versions of brains. One of the, one of the things about neuro inclusive employment is that having a strategy for balancing individualization and conflicting access needs. So like first step is like awareness of your own access needs. And then second step is having like a framework that can hold everyone's way of doing the thing differently. And I think a balance of, you know, like things that you do that only you do you organize in a certain way and you don't impose it on other people. I think I think I think as a team each member of the team does that really well that's like a real strength of all of the individuals on the team. And I think that we at least bring a lens to saying like we expect conflicting access needs here like just transparently like yeah, it sucks when someone like you know I need big buckets and you need small buckets. And it sucks when the small buckets I'm giving you are overstimulating you know it's like me but like it's me naming the thing because it's not like anybody's access needs are wrong or better than an other way. Anyway, so I think that the framework for systems that kind of can hold everything. One of the things that we have noted is that for communication. Some people communicate best email so like long, long emails with a bunch of different topics. Some people communicate best and when I say communicate we're also talking about like receptive versus expressive. Like, I might communicate expressively best by email, but I don't want to like I can't handle the amount of emails that I get receptively right so it's, it's not it doesn't we've noticed that it's not the same. When you ask people, how do you best communicate and they say email, we're it's actually more, you got to go a step deeper, how do you communicate best expressively receptively, but then, how do you communicate best in each part of the tree for what kind of thing. Okay. So like naming that you're working on. Okay, I want to be able to share but I'm my thinking already is where are the problems in this like what are the problems then. Yeah, that's where this really matters is where the where the breakdowns and where the problems with what isn't happening that's a problem. What I would do is, I want to kind of capture the breakdowns give everyone a chance to share their breakdowns, and then we can solve them. And doesn't necessarily need to be breakdowns are just like, you know, opportunities for her. Like, or maybe maybe framed as if that's not like calling to mind anything. Maybe like, what's trading my battery. Yeah, can I can I jump in. Yes, please. This is Amy. So, you know, I was thinking as you were talking that I am not really sure I know what my access needs are yet. The question that I have never been asked in my entire 52 years. So, you know, I've been thinking about it since I've been here but it's not something I've really focused on. I don't think I have a deep understanding of what it means. But as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, you, you asked me not long ago what does done look like. And think for me what I what I need and this is something you and I could talk about. Like I need deadlines. I need to know like there, there is a deadline, otherwise for me in my brain it's like a process that I am like working on, you know throughout the week. And what's so readily apparent is that if a team member has an access need for clear, I have no idea why that just happened, but let's keep watching. And my core anti value is to not be perceived as a micromanager. That's conflicting access needs but it's not insurmountable. It just involves transparency I think. So for me to say, I really don't want to micromanage you. I want to do the thing, and I'm going to try to meet your access need for more specificity about a project. But that doesn't mean that I want to control you and violate your autonomy, because I think that's a core anti value of mine. Right. So instead of thinking about it as a deadline for me, you are welcome to think about it as just a general guide guideline for when you would like the project to be done. You know, do you need it next month, or do you need it next week, or you know, or you can even say this is a priority this is low high medium low priority. Yeah, I like that a lot. I think, you know, we've had these conversations so openly and honestly about like how we can meet each other's access needs that it's really helpful so that, you know, I tend to be email heavy and I didn't even realize that I was, you know, and so Mel being able to say like, Okay, now, every time you have a draft is something you want me to look at, put it in a hyperlink in the Sarah Mel doc, you know. And so getting into the habit of doing that. So I was laughing with her this morning because I literally like drafted something and put it in an email and then just like cut and pasted it out of the email and put it in Sarah Mel doc. Because I'm trying to be more aware of like meeting other people's needs on the team. So I think these conversations are really helpful. And that's a great example Sarah because my position this whole time the past six months has been Sarah's access needs are to send individual emails about individual topics. I am going to accommodate Sarah's access needs. And then as Lizzie stepped into her role she expanded her role this month. Helping to support and offload some of my administrative duties. So we're talking about, why is it that email is such a burden to me. It's like, well I get 100 emails. And so it was not until then that I realized that having 10 individual emails to start my morning from Sarah was actually a barrier to getting my other emails because I always start with my teams. So then I was like, Oh, I ran out of spoons. I'm running out of spoons every day. Okay, let's try something it may not be the right strategy but we'll try this experiment. And we'll check in to see if because you know at some point it may be the case that it's too exhausting for Sarah drinks Sarah's battery more to write an email copy pasted into a document. And I ended with also because for myself and I think for many people visual clutter is a battery drain. Sometimes dumping things in the asynchronous document. People don't get to it because the documents got too much stuff in it. So Lizzie's all about color. So we've been trying color and Sarah's document. She changes any set up her document and the way that she likes it which is less tables more flow but with like highlighting color contrast. But then I was like well, I'm having a hard time dumping tasks into the email document because it's on page three or my dumping area so that any top of the idea of moving my dumping area up in the document. So it's like these little fine tuned things. It's like finessing the synchronous communication during the synchronous communication. And I also I want to say like Mel when you send me things I purposefully don't respond and say thank you. Just know that I appreciate what you're doing but I just don't want to have an email that says thank you because I feel like I don't need it so much. I get a lot of emails and say thank you. I try trying not to do that. Yeah. Yes. I'm going to stop doing that. Sorry. Yes. Thank you. So I mean that's really that's really interesting. Alright so email burden. I feel like I'm being rude by not thanking you but I know it's it's rude or to send you a thank you probably. It's also not rude to send me a thank you and I appreciate I think we can just like name the thing that Okay. That's that everyone on this team is a polite communicator. Yes. Yes. And so like we can just name that obligatory thank yous by email are in fact a brain rule. It's just a societal common brain rule and like we're closing the loop of. We frozen. It's okay if we're frozen we can. I can override. There we go. Stop share. Alright, perfect. Whoops. Interesting so that doesn't let me on share Lizzy's that's interesting. Okay. I'm going to go right back. Oh, how well we're learning a lot about zoom I guess we got to share we got to keep me and share screen. There we go. Thank you Leah you totally don't have to you but yes, absolutely. I think what I'm going to do, even though I would really like to see everyone. I think, I think. Almost I start playing from somewhere else on my screen. Hang on a second. Adventures in zoom and one more part. I have to stop. Ah, there we go. Good enough. Okay. They were good without us. It's all fine. Anyway, so I'm, I'm curious. In terms of people who are currently working with groups of people or who have worked with groups of people in the past. How is how conflicting access needs played out in your lives I wonder. I'm reading in the chat. I love getting thank yous partly because of the thank you but mostly because I have a high need for clarity. And when I receive a thank you or any kind of reply I know the person received my email. So it's so so and I think that's exactly what Danielle was the person that video who said that closes the loop of communication. Right. So, so yes. I always send thanks to the person who writes to me so they know that I received their email. Yes. And, and, and it's interesting because much like sometimes people have a difference between the way they're expressive, the way they communicate versus receptive the way they receive communication, they may not be the same way. Like, I might, I might be able to more easily communicate some types of things in spoken communication but other types of things I'd want to read them. Or I'd want to write them. But I think the closed loop thing. I think the same person could have like, like, like a duality about their thoughts about the closed loop like I would definitely say that I give my husband a hard time when he doesn't respond to my emails or text messages because he got my message, and you know all that, but yet, um, in an in an in a day where there's a ton of, you know, 100 incoming emails. It's it's like an internal conflicting access needs sometimes for some people like wanting the clarity wanting the closed loop, but visual clutter and having that be the competition. And then he says I always find the biggest one seems to be around communication I need things to be written down because of auditory processing difficulties, but most people seem to prefer verbal conversations and meetings and when I send them long emails they feel overwhelmed and give me feedback that they would prefer to just have a conversation. For example, because I would love to hear people say, I have an access need issue or I have an access barrier here where I'm having a hard time reading a long email. But that's not what people say they make the person feel badly for writing a long email. That's what goes on out there and that's this. Both people have an awareness that this is about access needs. I think we will have far fewer problems in this world. I worked for a long time with my husband and we did contracting small remodels and I was, I always needed a plan for the day and I needed a task list I like crossing off the list and he loves being in the flow. Like he can if he has to like make a plan for the day it's like he's done like he cannot function. And so it was like so hard for us because I would make a plan we'd make a plan and then he would go we'd go to work and I'm like okay this is what we're doing and I know exactly what we're going to do and I've laid out my day. And we, I think he'd be on the same page and we get to work and he would completely do like not do the plan. And then like do everything but do the plan and so later on we realized I can have a plan and he can have his flow. And sometimes he needed a plan. So he come to me and be like can we plan the day and sometimes I needed to be in the flow and so it took a long time but eventually we started realizing the strength like I could manage the project and he could be in this flow and then some days I get overwhelmed with how much we'd have to do and I would just join him and be in the flow and but it was really hard for a long time to like, he also would like need a nap. And so, like there was just certain things and it would be so hard for me. But the more I could accept what he needed we actually got way more done. So, so right so it sounds like there's, when both of you got to a place of just recognizing you both have different access needs, and that it just is and it's not that you have to change to there's access needs you can just be then that worked out much better. I think so often people are in situations where one person knows their access needs and one person doesn't. And or they think that their access need is like or or you know when there's an imbalance of power. The there's someone might try to turn their access needs into rules or policies as opposed to just naming the thing that this is one person's needs. I love writing long emails the time space and ability to edit. Yes, I agree with I that resonates with me to knowing that that at most people will respond with a two sentence response. Yeah. In past jobs Carolyn says I've always jumped around to accommodate other people's work styles and assume that I could be flexible and versatile, but most of the time, when I would ask for minor administrative and day to day processes to be the same way most others would keep doing it the way they preferred because it was an inconvenience and that I was seen as controlling when I made suggestions. Yeah. And ultimately I would be correct that it is less difficult to accommodate everyone else rather than advocate for process that would save me hours and executive functioning energy. Right. It's some, and that's so many people's experience that that that that not advocating for themselves is the safest, or the least exhausting pathway. And that leads that that also has a cost has a cost to health. And it may still be the best choice at the time, because of how unsafe or and or uncomfortable the environment is Sierra. I've been continually surprised and part of it is because I work at a very neuro inclusive place thankfully but I've been continually surprised at like, now that I have more practice communicating my access needs. How much easier it is sometimes then the not communicating them and everybody thinking I'm just doing a bad job. And realizing that my brain often needs buffering time and verbalizing. I'm going to take a minute to buffer or I have a pin that says I need a moment to think about that. And like verbalizing that makes it so people don't assume I'm just not answering the question or ignoring them and saying that can be a scary thing but it has got to make things a lot easier than I thought it would. Yeah, I think you know the buffer time processing time transition time whatever you want to call it. I think there's so much pressure to just like keep doing the thing and do it. There's so many people who suffer without that. Yeah. I've created for myself kind of a little dichotomy of like conflicting access needs where I in my head think of it as this is an access need I have that conflicts with someone else's access need. And this is an access need that conflicts with the way that my workplace is set up. I'm in food service and so one of my access needs is that sometimes when I get overstimulated. I need to not be hearing so many sounds so I want to put in my earbuds and block out some of the sound or listen to something that I control, and I can't do that because it's unsafe for my workplace, but if I need to. I can get back from a task and someone else can't step into it for sensory reasons because that happens a lot at my workplace where it's like, I need to be done with this thing, I am overwhelmed, and someone else can't take that over for me. I think of that as like a, okay there's another way to navigate this because the people are the variables and when it's like the actual infrastructure of the workplace. I have to find some way to accommodate myself within this. So you've so like you zoom out and you've created a framework to make the world make sense, even, you know, with all of the variables there within. So you've like created consistency in an inconsistent space that's very cool. Catching up in the chat Emily says, eventually accommodating everyone else led to burnout. Yep. That's one of those under employed autistic people. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's what that that's what I was getting at when, when I talked about the toll that that accommodating everyone bending over backwards for everyone really does take is at a significant cost to many, many people. Has anyone ever been in environments that that that had helpful strategies for for navigating conflicting access needs. I can say I never realized it was an access need but in grad school to switch to online classes during COVID made it so I could actually knit during class and not be distracting the other people because that was always the reason I was told I couldn't. And I think that I see a lot of a lot of people who find that as a really helpful access need that given the option for online learning or given the option for those kind of multimodal communication ways can make the room for some more access needs being able to be mad. That reminds me. So I think we all have brain rules, and I am no exception to that. And one of my deepest embarrassments in my career as a medical educator is I used to teach a medical student class, and there was a guest speaker and one of the students was knitting in this small room with a guest speaker, and their classmates gave them a really hard time afterwards they thought it was disrespectful brain rules but disrespectful and not like and lack of transparency everyone's just immersed in a world of brain rules. And I gave feedback that was about perspective taking in this setting. And in, and I look back on that and I'm embarrassed. I was perpetuating the brain rule of that there's a right way to pay attention, or a way to show respect to other people or something. And I think, I think, I think the impact of of culture, even toxic aspects of culture are contagious. And I think, you know, this is like 10 years ago, in retrospect had I had the language around access and around transparency, it would have been really no big deal for someone to say I have the kind of brain that pays attention best when I'm doing something and not a big deal. It's just, it's just, it's a script. And I mean, but then there's also the, you know, I, I, I, not that anyone always anyone an explanation, but for further access needs. And it might have made someone's experience more comfortable to not have all of this, you know, push back from their from their peers. I think so many misunderstandings judgments. It's like the intersection of access needs not being met with brain rules equals most most conflicts. I was just going to say, and I think being proactive, like, you know, is such a big piece. And that's what we were talking about in our, in our all brains belong staff meaning is, you know, continually revisiting this stuff and noting where things can be changed. And so, when you do that proactively I feel like that alleviates a lot of opportunity for misunderstandings and people not getting their access needs and that because sometimes I think sometimes I think you can be unaware that you're even infringing on someone's access needs if they haven't shared with their needs are, and they might not know what their needs are until they realize they're not being met, but when they can share them. That gives you the gift of being able to say how can I tweak something to make this work better for you. So when you have an environment for your work where you can openly proactively talk about this stuff on a consistent basis, and not just like at a once a year annual review of your job performance. I think it just sets up a different dynamic. And you know, you know, the annual job review thing is that I've never had that be meaningful. It's, it always feels like a really superficial box checking thing in a context where access needs we're not being met to begin with. And, and, and that's why we do it differently here. So that's another brain club. But, but I think that's many people's experience. So to say one thing I appreciated about the video was that it seemed like, like you're not making up new rules about each other, like, like if Sarah has this, you know, needs her access need is to send a lot of emails and emails, you know, need is to not get as many that it's like, like, you could still be a continuous conversation, like you're not all of a sudden saying like telling stories about each other. And so it's, it can be a shared experience and then you can say like, it's there saying like that wasn't even a need of mine, you know, and so to have that out in the open that gives the freedom of flexibility for people to be able to and to explore. That would just be so, you know, so amazing to be a part of a team that have that ability to evolve and change their own needs as time goes on. And that, because you're, it seems like you're continuously revisiting these things so I really appreciated that that ability to be open and flexible with each other and then to be able then you're more apt to learn from each other than to like tell a story and then start creating resentment, you know, so I appreciate that so much. Thank you for sharing that observation. You know, I think that that that is how it feels. And I think, like, built into that is the view that no one's experience of an interaction is the correct experience. I think that that's that ground rule is really important. It's really about like, had. What is it about the way you do your work that works for your brain, and part of sometimes problem solving negotiating a conflicting access need is around coming up with like a third way. That both people are getting most of what they need as opposed to one person saying my way is the way because of whatever. Emily, I just realized incidentally that I have an access need to raise my hand and hold on I did not realize that before but like, I cannot just jump into a conversation I need to be told it's my turn to talk so like, and I've always known that about myself and never thought of it as an access need. Um, but I was thinking about so up until COVID shut it down. I ran a very small school. And one of the things that we did there to accommodate access needs was that we had physical spaces that were designated for different things. So we had a quiet room where the rules the agreed upon and posted on the wall rules of the room was, you're in here you're quiet that means like no talking to each other, you know, you can listen to music on your headphones but you're going to this space is going to be quiet. And that was the rule of the room and so then if you're in there and you wanted to talk to your friend, you just like got up and left the room, right because there was never any like anybody forcing in there and then we had another room, which with hindsight wasn't the last name although the teenagers came up with it not me that we called the crazy room. I now see that's probably an ableist name but like that the idea and the crazy room was that if you needed to get all your energy out that this was a room that it had mats all over it and it had soft balls that you could throw and so people would go in and they'd fling balls at each other and, and you know bounce around on the mats and I think we had a little trampoline in there from time to time and so if you were in class and you were just had an access need to move and be noisy and that was disrupting the other people in class you could just go and take a break. In the crazy room or if it was just too much for you you could take a break in the quiet room and you could freely move between those environments and just providing that meant that most people were able to self regulate most of the time because they didn't have the autonomy to choose the space that they needed in that moment and I just like, I actually would love to have that like in a workplace as well like that that was a school environment but like a lot of jobs could accommodate that to not all of them but a lot could. Yep. Yeah, I think that just brings up a point that I've been thinking about that. When you communicate that a system at the job you're working at or wherever isn't working for you it doesn't mean that nobody can use that system anymore doesn't mean that the system has to be completely broken down just means that you need a different system. And I think we do that like Mel and I write very different style notes, and we don't need one system for everybody we can do different systems for everybody and it also doesn't have to fall on you to create a new system, your employer should help with that but I think that's an important thing it's not the kind of one for all different styles of notes mean you write good notes and I write terrible notes. Not at all. No different styles it works differently for different people. Right and so that's where the, you know, the flexibility that relates to like the, you know, like the hardwired systems. I find very appealing. It didn't work for me because then I can't be infinitely flexible, and given that novelty is an access need for me. Anytime I have ever like purchased like a project management software or you know some something that's like laid out that I don't get to customize. Okay, and then I'm sick of it, which is, which is why and every everyone's going to, you know, it's the more the rate of the number of people on a team. The, the, the more flexibility that that the system needs to have otherwise you're going to have the greater chance of at least some members of that team not having their needs met. If your system is too rigid, then you can't even fix it like so so I have worked in so many places where when people even if they didn't necessarily have language for the access needs, even to say like you know this computer software it's such a bummer it's so hard it's so this is treating my battery. Oh wow too bad that is the that is the hand we've been dealt that's the hand you bought like shows those systems reading in the chat. Carolyn says an institute of mine and discouraging worry about ableism in a scenario with two equally qualified candidates. Why would an employer choose the person who needs or asks for their access needs. If I didn't make the employer would have to make changes even if minor. I feel like I would have to offer superior value to offset my access needs. People probably feel like they have to omit discussion of their access needs during the interview process and I think somebody, somebody shared that even earlier today and certainly so many people share that, you know, just, just all the time. It's, it's, it's so awful. You know that internalized narrative that says that if I have needs that means I'm selfish. If I have needs there's something wrong with me I'm too much I can't take up space I don't have value unless I have you know the idea of some sort of superior value added like just just just I think so much of that comes from the brain rules of capitalism, like that your value is in some way related to what you produce and what you accomplish and in all of that like you have value just because you're you, and and I completely understand why so many people have shared that they hesitate to bring up access needs. And so as we've discussed before I think messaging of needs that needs equals neediness right is something that many of us grew up with unfortunately right and that it's that that there's there's a negative value judgment associated with being needy. So having needs were not a human condition. It's just that some humans mask and cover up their needs, and some people turn their needs into like laws and policies. I'm curious and so many people have shared the specific story of not not feeling comfortable talking about their access needs when they're considering a new position or interviewing for a new position. What do you tell at a first pass at an interview and a first encounter, can you tell whether the climate is such that this is going to be a place you're going to have your needs met. Is it possible that if the energy of a space is saying, don't talk about your access needs don't talk about your human needs, that maybe that's a red flag about the, the, the culture of the space. I'm just wondering. And of course it's a privilege to be able to be selective about the job you take. That is, that is of course a huge, a huge privilege. I'm reading in the chat. I would hesitate to bring it up however what's so frustrating is that neurotypicals of access needs to companies that advertise their social events fancy cafeterias and company gyms are coming people's access needs just not mine. Yeah. I want to say that, you know, I think, I think in many ways. It's less about, you know, neurotypical versus neurodivergent, I think, I think extra version intro version whatever you want to, it's, it's, it's, it's, there's a lot of judgment of introverts, people who need who derive their energy from. internal spaces, as opposed to energy from the outside world. A lot of times there is judgment of people who who need to take a break from other people. There are so many people in the ABV village, who, you know, by, by not eating, not eating lunch in the cafeteria, you know, since it's like a great way to get COVID, or let alone you know the auditory processing aspects of hearing people chew and the smells of foods like there's all the things about there's so kinds of reasons why people might just choose to eat on their own, including to recharge and recover from interacting with other people since from all these hours leading up to today. There's judgment of that. I've seen the chat how cool would it be if an employer accommodated access needs for a new hire and then other current employees then felt empowered to voice their access needs and get accommodation. So, you know, that's, so let's talk about this for a second. I think, in a truly a neuro inclusive space. This is not about getting accommodations made by, you know, first people who disclose a disability, this is about normalizing access need to everyone so that people are not in a place of having to assert their legal right in order to get their access needs met. It should be much easier than that. Hey, go for it. Hi. So I actually recently went to the interview process. And the place that had that ended up hiring me was one of the best one of the best reasons that I liked them was they were. They were very inclusive of my being trans and they, it wasn't that they instantly knew everything about it, it's that they instantly wanted to know more about it, and we're curious about it and that instant that made me more comfortable with them being the same about other things as well, like minor, like minor diversions. That story has made my day. And I'm so, I'm so glad you have that experience and that gives me that gives me so much hope. And, you know, I, I think that's a great example of that you could tell something that there's there's things that your employer showed you about about the paradigm they're operating in. And I think, I, I, I, I think the, the curiosity, the openness, the willingness to engage and learn about other people. I mean, the stuff's free. It's free to operate in that paradigm. Catching up in the chat Sierra says it's a big difference between assuming someone's access needs and actually asking for their access needs right. Yeah. And as I'm so glad I know about access needs now I feel like I have so many more choices and can choose not to go certain places or do certain things instead of judging myself for feeling anxious about that thing like I used to. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's interesting in, in, in our first round of the neuro inclusive employment bright spotting program. Almost everyone of our first cohort of five, when we approached them to say hey, you, you've been rep you've been nominated by one of your employees as a neuro inclusive, almost all of them were like neuro inclusive employment, what's that. So we weren't setting out to do something specific. Like, Claire, the owner of bear upon books a month pillier, for example said, when I told her for reward. She said, like, you mean like that we just know all the people have different brains that do things differently. Yes, that. Like, why doesn't everyone do that. I don't know. They don't. So, so it's it's just, it's just a paradigm. It's not. Sometimes that's, that's all it is. So with that, thank you all so much for yet another wonderful conversation and what are Sarah and Lizzie what are we reimagining next week. Question. We're going to be right now. Let me get back to you on that. I feel the need to tell you all what we're going to reimagine next week. Oh, next week. Do for a living. Oh, that's, that's right. Bye everybody.