Work and resources

What is my job, and who will I work with?

Hi team! Wishing you a riotous warbling magpie of a day. I’ve been in deep processing of late, mostly around my work, identity and how to protect my peace. What does peace actually look like, and what is it that I’m hoping to achieve? (This paragraph to be read in Chris from Parks n Rec voice).

A pic of a white male celebrity in a suit, smiling and pointing at the camera - or possibly at you. The actor is Rob Lowe and the character is Chris Traeger from tv show Parks n Recreation

There’s to do lists, humans, creative projects in start, middle, end and stages of conceiving. It’s becoming clearer with every passing day that people and relationships are the most important thing.

I am resourced enough that doing free advocacy work every day is absolutely possible, and something I downright froth for. It’s so nice to be a safe person people think of when they need help! Most days my Instagram inbox has enquiries around one or all of the following:

• am I allowed to feel upset about [specific injustice]?

• how do I manage this person’s reaction to [disability and neurodivergent aspects of me as a person]?

• I would like to treat a disabled or neurodivergent or fat or queer person well, can you help me? Where and how can I start to do this work myself?

• I am definitely not the right person to do this job, am I? [they always are and need encouragement, and specific data about why they have the skills for a particular task]

• My friend’s kid has just told them that they’re trans, how can I help?

• Do you know a doctor/specialist/therapist for [a particular scenario]?

• Is my partner an asshole when they do this [asshole thing], or is it my fault? It’s definitely my fault, right? [No, it is not].

• Ugh, this ableist thing happened and I gotta vent about it.

Crucially, people ask first if I am able to field a question. They never dump it on me without consent.

I am always so happy to do this stuff. Sometimes I gotta say “I will get back to you” or “I can’t rn” but for the most part, I’m here for it. We have to help each other. We are all we have. I’m not resourced to be everyone’s main support but I can absolutely do these drop in virtual cuppa times. It’s accessible for me and keeps me connected in an otherwise quite isolated life.

This goes a bit wrong in other contexts. Work contexts. Or things where I’ll be doing significant amounts of work where I think it’s a good idea to help out a friend, but what they’ve asked for is WORK, framed in a “if you have a minute” context. Work is a different bucket, ya know? It has finite resources, I need to make sure I do a certain number of hours of work to keep the lights on, and when helping out a mate accidentally turns into robbing me of days and weeks due to distress, it’s pretty devastating. There’s no duty of care for me, for the fallout I experience, and that my family experience when I’m not functional for a stretch of time.

So I’m thinking about boundaries and how to identify a need for them - also acknowledging that my processing time is slow and sometimes I don’t realise until I’m in it. Then I’m unsure how to bow out, if it’s ok to even do that because I don’t want to let others down. I don’t want to let my community down. But the best way to serve others, it turns out, is to ensure my own wellbeing. To avoid the tipping point of the record scratch “oh hell no” moment.

Cultural safety is a huge thing that people in work contexts will ask me to do as a friendly friend, when we don’t have that kind of relationship. It’s often an afterthought - oh by the way, could you help me make my entire festival/workplace/team/event: accessible/trans affirming/neurodivergent affirming/etc etc etc. I get whiplash from having to transfer my brain into boundaried work mode. I need people to understand that asking me this because it’s part of my identity and lived experience, doesn’t make it easier. It makes it a thousand times harder.

Melanie Saward recently shared this reel on her Instagram. Frankly it made me want to drive to another state and stare people down who are bugging her. Get me some aviator sunnies from the servo and an earpiece, to be a buffer. Mel is an accomplished writer and educator who is constantly being bombarded by requests from randos to have her “beta read” their work, because it has a First Nations character in it. (ACAB, but stop shitting my friends, ya know?)

“What those people are asking for is not actually a beta read. What it is is cultural consultation. This is work that requires cultural knowledge, expertise, community positioning and lots of care. It’s not something you can outsource for a quick fix by throwing a bit of money at it. Because I am on here talking about things, doesn’t necessarily mean that I want to be your cultural consultant, nor does it mean I have the time or the knowledge to find one for you… Blak writers are not your shortcut to authenticity, we’re actually busy writing our own stories. You could start by reading them!”

The commodification of who people are is so gross. Mel writes stories she needed to read when she was a kid, and I relate heavily to that. Reframing literature to come from a lived experience lens creates more inclusive reading opportunities for all people - the more we choose to listen, to read and to open our minds, the better.

Not to flog a dead horse (timely as we hurtle into the murder and violence spree that is the Spring Racing Carnival) but living in my body is its own full time job. Maintenance of my baseline of health and wellbeing takes a fucktonne of money, energy and time. And that’s to feel pretty crappy. Feeling good, ever, means I gotta protect my peace.

So I’m implementing some changes. On my website, instead of an email address to contact my booking/management person, there will be a form. You may not proceed to final boss correspondence unless you are willing to reveal these magical items in your sack of treasures via tick a box or add specific info here:

• Are you: individual, corporate, NFP, government, health org, press, other?

• Would you like: speaking, writing, press interview, consulting, workshop, mentoring, other?

• Date/s - please give me adequate notice

• Is this request voluntary or paid? (with a link to this here Substack article I’m in the middle of writing, and ASA rates)

• Your contact details (must have options other than phone number).

I would love not to have to ask for this stuff, but people are CAGEY about providing it. So many emails are giving pyramid scheme rhetoric and dodging of fair questions where words like “opportunity” and “please come to our presentation about what we can offer you” and “lucrative foot traffic” and and and. Sometimes it takes five emails back and forth to get to the point, which takes time and pisses me off. Be upfront and don’t be a dick? It’s a really weird idea, I know, but yikes.

It’s all very tricky and I feel uneasy about having firmer boundaries. What if it costs me work or opportunites? Am I being ungrateful? Should I be begging for scraps and say thanks ever so much for your exploitation and refusing to acknowledge what my work is truly worth? That uneasiness is exactly why I need to do it. Time to level up.

I love what Kristy Forbes has on their contact page.

It costs me money to go places and do things. It’s petrol but it’s also time away from my kids, and I’ll usually need a support worker, and the energy munching fallout is massive. It would not be a pleasure to do it for free, even if I get to have exposure, which famously makes everything all better.

The adequate notice part is a crip thing. Not because disabled people need more notice than your average bear, but because it’s assumed we are doing nothing but languishing and bleeding the government dry. It is important that we show our gratitude for the care and resources we unfairly receive by jumping to do the bidding of every Tom, Dick and Fuckface who deems it time. And the time is NOW! Because we FORGOT! And we don’t want to be CANCELLED!

The thing that kills me, is that it’s always disabled people who offer me financial compensation for my labour. No thank you! I don’t want their money, I don’t want them to buy me a coffee, or deplete their own resources for my sake. What I want is equity in the ways that we live that reduce the relentless crip tax we all face every single day of our lives. The most under-resourced people are the most generous. I do not like that.

In You’ll Be a Wonderful Parent, I wrote about the ways people feel entitled to the private information of rainbow families. We would never dream of asking them about their reproductive organs, the methods they used to conceive, or who the “real” anything is. It’s a similar thing when you’re a lived experience advocate/activist/workshop and talking and writing guy. Those outside of those circles think that enquiring in an afterthought “ah go on, just do this work for me because it means I care about you people. Don’t you care about your community?” kind of way… are not the vibe. It’s a no from me. Absolutely not.

I was recently on a panel in my home town where I was representing non-binary, disabled, queer and neurodivergent people. Everyone else on the panel was representing their business which although was linked to who they are as people, was about providing a specific service. While providing that service, their clients are not privy to their personal, private, painful information. They are not retraumatised by being expected to cough up another juicy bit of goss about their own weird and totally different lives. It costs me so much more to do this work. People have no idea what they’re asking of me.

I don’t speak for medical crowds anymore, and learned recently that being on a panel with medical folks is also too triggering and harmful. It’s just not a good idea, ever. So many buildings use the word accessible and still have steps to get to the disabled bathroom, just like people will assure you they’re considerate of your experience. They’re not there to help me climb into the bath when my body is frozen from nightmare levels of pain wrought from tension. Words mean nothing without follow through.

Nobody is forcing me to do it, I’m asked and then I say yes, but the problem lies in the “oh by the way can you..” demands that either happen on the spot on a stage, or at the end of an email. If you wouldn’t ask a sparky you ran into at the shops to just pop in and rewire your entire house because that’s who they are, think about why you’d ask an activist or advocate to provide additional and signficant labour as an afterthought. You fucking wouldn’t!

Maybe you don’t want to do the work yourself because it’s too hard and you don’t know where to start and everyone gets so mad at you when you ask them for help. You’re not asking for help though - you’re asking them to work. Treat the interaction as such. If we don’t have a relationship where you come to my house and I don’t bother to make my boobs less low than usual, you don’t get to ask me these things. If you’re resourced and able bodied and neurotypical you don’t get to ask me these things. You’re welcome to request a meeting, to pay for my labour, and respect my expertise. I’m really fucking good at my job, when it’s acknowledged as such.

Jasper OUT.