Transcript
Esi:
Now come along to a networking event with a difference. The event is actually named, how to network a diverse perspective, deaf, blind, anxious, speech impaired or a wheel changer, navigating a networking environment can be extra tricky with a disability or mental health condition. Hear from incredible people who face barriers with networking and how they successfully strate around them. Build your own techniques and have fun. Learn to work a room. This unique event will be held at the WeWork space at the fully accessible King’s place London on Thursday night of May, at 6:30pm everyone is welcome. Networking is an art. It’s time to get creative. Find out more in the link attached to the bottom of this episode by searching how to network a diverse perspective or emailing inclusion at Sarahburrell.co.uk , Hello, everyone, and welcome again to another episode of part of me. This is episode 17, and there are so many episodes to listen to, so hop over to celebrating disability.co.uk. So we’re just going to get on with this month’s podcast. So today I’m joined by another interviewee, so I’m just going to let him introduce himself now. So hello. Interviewee.
Daniel:
Hello. Nice to meet you.
Esi:
Nice to meet you too. Thank you very much for joining us today. Can you tell us who you are and what you do?
Daniel:
This might be a bit long one, because I do things. My name is Daniel Gordon, Jeffy. I was born in August, 1979 in Oxford. And the story about we moved to Camberley, where we live, because there’s a special school. So I spend it at a special school, so my parents can make the kind of decision to move us. And we moved here, you know, from South specifically, so I could go to school. And I think that shows a lot of dedication that they’ve done that. What do I do? Well, my main kind of job is autism trainer for autism, Hampshire, some supply sort of thing. So I go on whenever they need me, and I do it’s a brilliant job. Is all I really do is kind of sit in a chair and talk all day. This is very well suited to my sort of ability. So I do that, and I’m a freelancer, so whenever anybody asks me to go and do things like autism, speaking, or training or anything like that, I’m there. But I just love it. I will go anywhere to do this sort of thing. And then, because my job isn’t sort of full time, it’s kind of like, like the wind, like a leaf in the wind, I kind of partake in some other activities as well. I volunteer at the Western Centre in Aldershot, where I’m a kind of marketing volunteer, somebody who, sort of, you know, puts up all the posters and makes all the marketing within the building is looked after, and all of that sort of thing. And terrific, wonderful people. And, you know, there’s some questions further along where I will invest that sort of thing. And just recently, because I’m one of those people, unless I’ve got a project, I’m absolutely, I’m absolutely, completely bored, unless I have some kind of project or something to do. So originally, I’ve just got involved last week, actually, in a thing called can fest, which is on weekend festival in Camberley, taking place between the 28th and the 30th of June, and it’s arts, crafts, culture and all that sort of thing. And my role within that, because I kind of went to a meeting with the lady thinking to get a gig, because I’m also a poet as well, so I kind of write and read poetry at events as well. Do a bit of that.
Esi:
Wow
Danial:
Photography, yeah. So my role within this kind of Camp festing, which is, um, again, marketing, you know, because I think you’ve got to get out the marketing. So I kind of taught this lady, and I kind of what I like about this lady and the West End centre, they’ve got something in common. You can edit this for the relevant bit, which is, um, it’s kind of like a work event kind of thing. So they’re at the centre. But actually they just, they trust the people enough, okay, kind of like each person so with can fest, each person has a different seven or eight different people, but they don’t do the same thing. Each person has a different, okay, has a kind of different role within, yeah, within the thing like mine’s marketing, somebody else would do, like social media.
Okay
Esi:
Okay, cool. So all of the, all of the, all of the people that are involved in the can fest, they also take on the kind of the event planning and the running of the event.
Daniel:
Brilliant, the West as well. You know, yeah, sort of thing, which is each person, it’s one by a lovely bloke called Barney, and I’m gonna send him the link to this. And it’s the same as he kind of, each person has their own job, then you trust them to get them off their job. Excellent. I have been involved with people who aren’t like that. Yeah, that’s from the kind of Angelo. And also, I’ve just bought, I brought a camera, funnily enough, off Natalie, okay, quite recently for about 45 quid, and I’ve just started that. So I’ve got lots of teams. So when I’m not doing my main job, you know, I have all of these outshoots, because I always like to kind of keep busy, really.
Esi:
Yeah brilliant. That sounds great. Wow. That’s so much stuff you might must be so busy. So is that like, a seven days a week job, really?
Daniel:
Well, all the things, well, yes, because, I mean, I have made sure I’m structured because sometimes it’s like, like, I had a run at the beginning of your resume. I’m working for like, a couple of weeks. It’s under one of five feet. The jackpot here, and then it’s so damning, you know, I meant to have a day at the beginning of this month and at the end of the month, but, you know, it’s whatever the people kind of come under the course. There’s a lot of the stuff I do is kind of internal training, yeah. So, you know, it might not. It might be that, you know, loads of people might sign up for course, and that’s great. And then sometimes it’s only one or two people will kind of sign up. So it’s not really worth me, because I work in Southampton. Okay, my job is. My job involved. We can’t just form it, which is to kind of just pass Southampton. So that’s I’m getting up at five on the bus. About this after six to train at seven you are arriving at work just before kind of about 8:50 sort of thing to be picked up, to be taken unfortunately, I don’t work close enough to the train station, so somebody had to kind of give me a lift.
Esi:
Wow, my gosh, yeah, I do know what you mean, though, by you know, sometimes they’re really busy and sometimes they’re looking for the next thing. So it’s a very good idea to have several things to fall back on for in those times where you aren’t so busy training, and then you pick up
Daniel:
Something else. This is saviour for me, really, for something I had things kind of planned which didn’t work out. I had lots of time for this year without kind of going into it too much, you know, and it didn’t work out. And I was sort of like wanting that project. And then this can first thing came along on a Friday, and I was, like, concentrated on that, and I will be obsessive about it, and the people in my life will go because I am like that. If I’m on a certain thing, you know, this is it. And it’s a time limited thing. It, you know, it’s, I’ve got, I’ve said, I count down, cock up on my computer, which is what I do with these time limited things. So I’ve got 15 weeks. I know what I’ve got to do. I know what my objectives are. I’m going to just kind of concentrate and do everything else, but kind of have my focus. Yeah, you know, because it’s interesting, because I’ve never really done anything in amberley or even sunny Wow. I know it’s crazy, because I might even I live in Camberley, and I’ve lived there for 31 years. Yeah, Hampshire has been my main port of call. Yeah, two places where I’ve really sort of been active and done everything, you know, I can’t really kind of point to anything I’ve done in Camberley. So to get the opportunity to kind of thing, people can be into culture and into art in this way. You know, for me, there’s in another thing better than to support your hometown.
Esi:
Absolutely. Brilliant, excellent. So tell me. Can you tell me about three challenges that you face in the workplace due to your disability, and explain a little bit about each of them? Well, I
Daniel:
Well, I can take on take you back to my previous job. I mean, some of it applies to this job, but a lot of it kind of applies to the previous job, really, I think the main challenges in my previous job was because I worked in the shop before, okay, and I akinda, and you can kind of edit this bill, I kind of akindre it to being in prison a little bit really, thinking about this, kind of, this question, I thought, Well, I think this one of the challenges being with people, being with people who I didn’t particularly they didn’t particularly understand me, and I didn’t understand them. But you’re forced to like being in the submarine. That’s probably a better narrative than the prison thing. You know, you’re in a place with these people who can’t get on with you, and you don’t get with them, and you know that causes friction. If they don’t understand you, it’s quite a lot of while they were good to understand, they say, with my disability, well, there’s a lot of kind of misunderstanding, but a lot of the people are working with were teenagers who didn’t understand it, didn’t really bother about it. Yeah, there’s a lot of trouble in that sort of, some of it, you know, I’m guilty of, you know, being somebody myself. But yeah, so number one, this misunderstanding for people about disability in general, especially kind of, um, the hidden disability, I think that’s like, a really kind of important point for this, you know, because, um, sometimes if people conceal, they think about it a bit, burns me. I’m just the right idiot sometimes. So people just can’t understand, or I do something, and they just can’t understand why I am doing certain
Esi:
So, you should clarify for our audience, you’re autistic things
Daniel:
I have Asperger syndrome , but actually I just go by Asperger’s. So I should have said that in the introduction
Esi:
No not at all
Daniel:
It’s one of those sort of hidden things, which is kind of constantly having to explain it. And, yeah, but I think, but nowadays, I mean, this is a lot better.
Esi:
It’s picking up a little bit. Do you find it’s picking up because of the media and things like.
Daniel:
Absolutely, definitely, yeah, there’s a lot of that. I think another one of these, number two on this list, would be on sensory things, because, I mean, this shopping is supermarket, is a nightmare. It’s an absolute blooming horrible experience just to shop in it. But imagine being sat there for nine hours a day or four hours on my Sunday and then you have again, the submarine thing, but being forced to kind of be in an environment that is not suited to your needs and not really sort of in any way sort of conducive to your mental health. And, you know, that’s, that’s a ruinous sort of, that’s a ruinous sort of a thing, really,
Esi:
Yeah, wow
Daniel:
This whole one, I have a kind of story from one Christmas where, um, there was Christmas music, the sound of many people, and building is so and the lights and all of the truth myths, caffeinated and stuff, and it all kind of just blend in my head, and I couldn’t take it. I just had a meltdown, or just another meltdown, right there. I ran to the toilet, you know, because there was so much going on, and then, yeah, went into the canteen and refused, point blank, to go back to work until at least one of these, until the building. He said, Yeah, nothing against building. Is I like buildings for this, for the record, for this podcast
Esi:
Everything happened at the same time
Daniel:
Like that,
Esi:
Sensory overload.
Daniel:
You know, there were a couple of new things. I bet that’s the kind of main one, which was at Christmas, when it came with stressed and, you know, I did that for a long time. A long, long time. You know, even now, even it’s been almost two years since I left, you know, you can still, you still, kind of, whenever I walk into a shop, a lot, my God, I really kind of admire the people who work in shops, especially the ones with disability. Because, you know, when you’re there, you’re there for that amount of time, you can’t really, kind of get out of it, really.
Esi:
So in the situation where you knew that Christmas situation, did somebody? Was there people there to support you?
Daniel:
Well, there was a lady who was going to come and talk and discuss this with me because I left some comments. Oh, it wasn’t that that kind of got people wondering about it when I commented on Facebook about Christmas. I’m not sure if it was the same. Yeah. I It’s only after that point that they bothered, maybe, from a PR point of view, yeah, nobody really cared that that had happened. Well, they did a bit. As soon as I commented on this Facebook thing, it was like, Well, I’m saying just trying to tell you what was, what is affecting me. And then a lady was meant to come and speak to me, and we were going to chat about this, but actually, she never showed up, quite disgusted by the fact that this promise of being admitted, this lady with the HR lady was going to come and discuss it with me, and then never showed up and never bothered them. Wow, things like that. I mean, I did have some good times, but unfortunately, these sorts of things, yeah, it ruins.
Esi:
It ruins everybody’s experience, isn’t it? Because it gives you a bad experience of the workplace, and depending on how confident you are, it would make you less likely to go back into that same scenario, and also that employer is missing out on the benefits that disabled person could bring to the work
Daniel:
Absolutely,
Esi:
Because I’m sure you know all the benefits that disabled people and people that purchase bring into the workplace, but when we don’t get the support we need, we can’t be there anymore. So everybody loses out in the long run.
Daniel:
I’m trying to think of a third one, we can only think the third one, which would be, just be the monotony of the whole goddamn thing. Do the same thing, week in, week out. I was quite creative even then, not as much as I know, but it’s one of the things when you’ve got a kind of a certain way of thinking in your head, and you’re just kind of doing the same thing, being week in, week out, weekend for 52 weeks at the end. Yeah, I guess a couple of weeks on the day is this? it’s just about kind of getting up
Esi:
And trying again,
Daniel:
Trying again, you know, and just throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks, you know, for me, that’s, I think the main thing is that, you know, I just, I’ve kept going. I’ve learned from my mistakes. Essentially, you know, I’m not the same person I was even a year maybe, because, you know, I’ve looked at the things I’ve done. I’ve done plenty of things on I’ve looked at that, I’ve analysed and say, Well, how can I be a bit different? How can I maybe be a bit nicer to that person, or, you know, manage that situation in a slightly better way than I
Esi:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I think that’s a really good that’s really good advice in itself, isn’t it, that actually you get back up and you just try again, but learn from the things you were last time. Absolutely.
Daniel:
It’s just about kind of getting up and trying again, trying again, you know, and just throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks, you know, for me, that’s, I think the main thing is that, you know, I just, I’ve kept going. I’ve learned from my mistakes. Essentially, you know, I’m not the same person I was even a year maybe, because, you know, I’ve looked at the things I’ve done. I’ve done plenty of things on I’ve looked at that, I’ve analysed and say, Well, how can I be a bit different? How can I maybe be a bit nicer to that person, or, you know, manage that situation in a slightly better way than I
Esi:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I think that’s a really good that’s really good advice in itself, isn’t it, that actually you get back up and you just try again, but learn from the things you were last time. Absolutely
Daniel:
It’s about finding the right fit for you, finding people who like you, appreciate you. You can go places and they won’t appreciate you. And again, I’ll talk about the West End centre again, blooming, fantastic, wonderful, wonderful people who have given me kind of a lot of support over them, I’ve been doing that about, I don’t know, two and a half, kind of three years, and I’ve been nothing but gracious. And I’ve never had, never had a problem, never had any sort of problem. And again, another place I volunteered, which is my city’s autism trust, yeah, you know, I’ve never had a problem that the only thing was some external stuff, but that’s another story. But the West, you know, they’ve been brilliant, and I’ve always, I kind of tend to gravitate like on campus as well. You know, I met a lady and I had an instant rapport, because I could see what she was trying to do. She was a bit frustrated, because not everybody was kind of talking to her for a couple of minutes. I could see where she was going. It’s that sort of thing, you know, I’ve got to, I’ve learned to kind of push out all the negativity. Unfortunately, I’m still involved with some of it, and I’m gonna that’s a hard pitch for me, because there are other people involved, but certainly I’ve learned from my mistakes. I’ve got off on the bike. I hang on with people who are adverse to my way of thinking.
Esi:
I think that’s the thing, isn’t it? You, you don’t bother with the people that aren’t willing to support I think that’s really good advice again, for everyone we surround ourselves by people who have our best interest at heart, whether that’s in a business capacity or a personal capacity, and we don’t bother with people who are not interested in helping us out.
Daniel:
Yeah, you’re right
Esi:
Thank you very much. So if you could offer any advice to disabled employees, what would it be?
Daniel:
Utilise the skills of your workers? Okay, absolutely. Because there’s so many brilliant people out there with disabilities, hundreds of 1000s of them, who aren’t getting opportunities because the workplace is not set up for them. It’s the same as this kind of school system. Really, the workplace is a certain way. And if they rigid and rigid, and we will be like this. We will be like this. You know, if you get these people in and change it, you could do you could improve your business by now 50% Yeah, say sounds or whatever, whatever kind of walk of life that you bring these people into, yeah, again, it’s a sort of setting them off, just let them go off with intermittent but letting them do the job rather than micro managing. Yeah, there’s a thing with just micro I hate micro managing. Things you just kind of like, like the Westy and confess itself. Well, here’s your role do it. Yeah, they’re lovely there because, you know, it’s sort of like that. I would say I have an idea, and it’d be like, Yeah, my favourite expression is, yeah, go for it. Yeah. I love it when people say that, and I’m like, because then I have the opportunity to go, you know, and then employees need to do this. There’s not enough. Sadly, there is not enough of this sort of things.
Esi:
So just to clarify, we’re talking about employers. People, employ people, not employers. So just to clarify for our listeners, that question was based around employers and employees, but I completely agree with you. I think you know, if people just allowed people to work under their own steam, as long as they’re working to the end result that they want, it helps everyone.
Daniel:
With kind of reasonable adjustments made from other employees. Maybe training, yeah, because I always want work, so I’m always involved with training. But you know, kind of, um, training other employees to accept that person’s disability. Because quite often, from what I know, people are putting the workplace without any training, yeah? And I was always trying to get the workplace while I work with to do some kind of autism training or something around it, because I’m like all these people, especially then they don’t understand them. If they could be made to understand? If I could have a day, this could be one day, or even half a day, to make these people understand, not in a violent or in a shocking just me sat there trying to explain it, maybe we’d get along better. Maybe I would get I’ve got along better with these people
Esi:
Who that’s very true, because sometimes, some people just haven’t come across disability, and it’s hard for people sometimes, and you know, maybe slightly controversial, but you know, it’s understandable that if you haven’t, if you haven’t experienced something before, it’s hard to know how to deal in a situation, how to manage in A situation. So a little bit of training and a little bit of awareness and inclusion training, which obviously two different things, really help people to kind of understand how to interact with people, and understand that actually you might have Asperger’s, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t do things. You might just need things slightly differently, but you know what those things are,
Daniel:
Yeah, but um, as well. I think it’s a bit different now, because younger people are growing up with these people with disabilities. So they have known nothing else. I can retire from all of this.
Esi:
Don’t say thatI love training.
Daniel:
Because, you know, it’s all being loud, the answers, it’s they’ve known nothing more, nothing else. So there’s a kid. We’ve also done somewhat. They’ve gone up with that. Although they’re coming into the newspaper, coming in and meeting that pattern, they’re a bit older, they’ve gone up with that pattern and television and the media, as much as it is sometimes crooked, you know, they played a massive, massive loneliness, you know, if I think like I’m the curious owner the dog in the night time, you know, Sherlock and some documentaries about autism. And then, you know, for Autism Awareness Week, kind of coming up in the kind of middle of April, which I think is, I, well, I think it’s a tokenistic attempt, you know, it’s something, it’s better than nothing,
Esi:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it’s all about developing that awareness, isn’t it? And the more people develop the awareness, the more, the less they’ll be need for these token events, as you say, Yeah, brilliant. Okay, so employees, so people that work within the organisation. What advice would you give to employees who either work within an organisation or maybe run their own business or something, disabled people themselves.
Daniel:
I think this kind of keep niggling at your empire to kind of give you those things that you want, if, yeah, certain things changed, or if you want to kind of run an awareness thing, niggle at your employer. They will. It’s the kind of thing if you niggle at someone long enough, okay, it’s kind of like a tapeworm. And I call it the kind of tapeworm in some of the Earth, right? The more you go, the longer they go, the more the take when we kind of roll into the earth, I think just keep going, yeah, be strong, especially if you’re kind of running your own sort of business, be strong. You know, you’ll face a lot of challenges in the workplace. As a person with disability, and that’s not just me saying that I witness this. Be strong. You know, neglect your employer. You know, try to find other people who in a similar situation with you, and have strength in numbers, yeah. And then say, if you need something or you want to make reasonable adjustments in your workplace, gather these people in a sort of unionised, what do you mean, but not a union sort of group of people, yeah. You know, the more people you have, the more you want.
EsI:
Yeah, no, brilliant, excellent, excellent. Okay, so we’re going to change a little bit and talk about you as a consumer. Okay, so when you’re thinking about buying a product or a service or something, so what would you say was your biggest challenge as a consumer buying a product or service
Daniel:
Well, normally, nowadays, I sort of don’t want to go into shop something like that. Some I think my main thing is going into shops and things like that, because of the sensory issues. I wouldn’t I normally buy most of my things online. Now, okay, I mean, I go into shop, but I just, I just sales assistants and things like that. Normally, the only place I really go is Argos. I don’t do small talk, anything like that. So I will go into Argos
Esi:
Yeah, because you can go to the catalogues and all the catalogues and then just grab it soon as the communication that you find the hardest thing is the communication.?
Daniel
I can communicate, but I just don’t want to. It’s been worn out by various things in my life that have made me kind of want to communicate with, picky about who I communicate with. Now, I would say my advice would kind of be, if you can buy online. I know that’s a bit of a cop out, but you know, rather than buying yourself and kind of getting anxiety and all that thing about going into the shop, if you can possibly get the product on Amazon, do it and, you know, it’s a lot cheaper sometimes for the post it back
EsI:
in Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that’s really good advice. I mean, obviously you’re talking about it from a sensory and a disability point of view, but also as a physically disabled person, I find shopping online a lot easier, because the barriers for me are to do with entering, moving around the shop, moving around people, when there’s lots of people in my way, reaching the counter, and those kind of things. And because online shopping is so accessible, and I mean accessible in terms of disability, but I also mean easily accessible because it’s just always there
Daniel:
Yes, you can do it in your pyjamas in the middle of the night, you don’t have to go into a shop.
Esi:
Yeah, shopping online, for me, is an easy option, but I also know other people who would love to who like to the feel of going into a shop, like feeling the clothes that they’re buying and stuff, and these barriers for them are as they are for us, very, very irritating, because it is a right for us to be able to go and do what we want to do, and we have to find other ways around it.
Daniel:
I mean, there are some items which I also see and I think, Oh, I like that, but I wouldn’t order it because I want to, again, you made the point about kind of, I want to, kind of feel the textures, yeah, or I want to look at, like a candle or something like that. You know, I was quite lucky with the camera I got from my photography. I didn’t have to go into a shop. I bought it from Natalie.
Esi:
Oh, brilliant.
Daniel:
What happened was we were talking online, and she was thinking about selling Esi, and she wanted to sell another one, and I kind of got her to sell me this.
EsI:
And that’s really powerful, because then you’ve got user experience as well. So you can talk to somebody else and get a review from somebody who’s used it and is doing the same thing as you. And so that you know that already you’re buying a product that is going to work really well for you.
Daniel:
Moving to kind of supermarkets, which is the same sort of thing, but in a different you’re for that you are, I am forced to go in. Forced to go into shops. I am forced to go into the local Tesco, which is quite a big shot. But I think the good thing about that is everything is in the I know where everything is, yeah, so I can, like, I’ve got it down to about, oh, 15 minutes.
Esi:
Wow. That’s quite impressive.
Daniel:
Well, you know what is even most of the things I want to write at the end of the store so I can, like, got it down, kind of get on, off the bus, picking up a basket. I have this, um, I have kind of noise cancelling headphones, okay, sometimes, yeah, or podcast or earphones, or listen to the answers or something, while I’m in the shop, I tunnel down I will get what I want, or, if not, what I want, which is kind of sometimes irritating, a kind of cost equivalent to the product I want, and I will sort of self scan, but then again, you know, I can cut out all of those,
EsI:
Yeah, so then you still didn’t have to engage and interact
Daniel:
About 15 minutes now, yeah,
Esi:
Wow. So it sounds like you found quite a few ways to compensate for the barriers that you face.
Daniel:
Because I think the first kind of couple of times after when I kind of lost my job, it turned out for the best. And I’ll get on to that in a bit, you know, sort of like, I’m kind of a bit like Flash package. I didn’t even go, want to go into a supermarket for a while, but it still triggers me now, but I’m not. I’m good at kind of forgetting about it and not worrying about it, because I don’t work there, and, you know, for the first couple of times, I thought a customer call my name and all that, so it was just silly stuff. But when you’ve been doing something like that for as long as I did, and then you’re not, which was relieved, but at the same time, it’s kind of like going back into a pool, after you have had an accident in the pool sort of thing, yeah, or in the car in the car, but yeah, I kind of gone it down for about 15 minutes. I don’t think I could get it down any further than that without running, and I don’t Yeah for the bus today, but I just kind of take a gentle so again, because I know everything is it’s perfect, though, loads of the perfect places for me, because I know where it is, about 15 minutes, brilliant, maybe a bit less on the quiter today. Well, it’s about half an hour at Christmas, but I tend to do like a pre Christmas shop a couple of weeks before, so I don’t have to mess around. around Christmas
EsI:
Absolutely no, I completely agree. Okay, so is there anything else you would like people to know?
Daniel:
I Just think we can do quite a long I can do a kind of whole bit here, which is, um, the job I have at the moment, is the job I wanted for? Yes, even when I was in the supermarket, I was always striving to have this job and get this job, and I stuck at it. And I just sort of my persistence never wavered. There was a bit in the middle when I thought, when I get this job. So I lost my supermarket job for lots of tenuous reasons, which I won’t go into. And I sort of for I kind of after that, I kind of, I was in fear about walks job I would get with. I would get the job I wanted to get, but I wanted it for so long. I covered this for so long, so many years. I sort of wanted to, kind of get this, any kind of job. Is an awesome trainer, any sort of position like that. And then I met a bloke called Jamie autism Hampshire to do like a support group, run a group in Aldershot group, and then kind of slowly, through that process of meeting him, slowly over the months from about kind of June, we kind of interacted, and somehow it’s like an needle in a haystack, somehow this sort of position sort of came up, and I applied, but I kind of thought, well, I thought of knew I could probably get the job. I made sure when I got the application form and I had trouble filling in, I’m not really kind of a disciplined sort of a person. You should never let me work from home, because it doesn’t work. So I kind of got this formula just to lock myself a little building I went to and I locked myself in this building until it was done. You know, people helped me, but I realised, you know, even I kind of thought I could possibly get this job. I wanted to make sure I didn’t want to, yeah, slipping out my hand, yeah, that would have been, you know, having spent ages for any kind of jump up scenario where, you know, quite lucky they were kind of supportive. I think some people would be quite dismissible, yeah. Oh, they want to do that? You could just get an easy job with a shop for that. I could have gone down that route. I could have just got a job for money. It’s not about money. It’s never about money. With me, you know, if I do something and this, and it’s minimal. So this kind of job club, and then kind of time went on, and that didn’t really help. And then so that kind of petered out. But at the same time, this other chain me, this guy from the group, and then so I kind of the obviously came up. I filled in the phone. I remember the day so well that I got the phone call. It’s the best phone call I’ve ever received in my life. So I was walking home down the street to get the bus, and suddenly I got this message from waters and Hampshire. And I knew this was the call. I knew this was the call. This was gonna be the moment that I had the job. I didn’t have the job. So i ran back to the building that I’ve been in in the morning. I’m gonna phone this lady. Unfortunately, there was an event going on in the main food so it’s gonna take it in the in the corner back, and then she’s, I’m waiting. Oh god, I’m not sure if they’re gonna say yes. And then she said we’d like to offer you the position.
Esi:
Oh, wow,
Daniel:
I’ve never been so dumbstruck people over there. Normally, I’m quite talking to her about things like this. But I felt, I don’t know. I felt a thing I’d never sort of had before, because I reached for this, yeah, which seemed impossible. It seemed like I wouldn’t ever get there, and somehow I I’ve done it, you know, off my back. You know, other people have helped me, but essentially,
Esi:
That’s incredible
Daniel:
Off my own back. So my kind of words, with my sort of, um, just keep at it.
Esi:
Okay
Daniel:
You’re getting, you know, I may not seem like you will, but actually you will. And it’s about connections. Because my whole life, every thinking about this. Because, you know, whenever I do things like this, or I talk or anything, kind of makes everything is kind of interconnected. One of them, all of the so I met this person for another person, and I met that. I met Jamie autism, Hampton, for my lady at the seats. I meant mustard seeds from a lady a well being centre, and isn’t that sort of thing. So on my entire life, even like the West End centre, was due to the fact that was in place at the west the well being centre, and we’ve got to do plays, and I kind of pique my interest that sort of so, you know, hardest connections, if you’ve got a connection there, probably will know somebody else, it’ll be useful to you.
Esi:
Yeah, yeah.
Daniel:
Keep going. You know, to all the people listening to this who are fed up, to all of the people listening to this, if don’t think they can do it. Let me tell you, all of you sat in your houses, your cars, on the bus, you know, wherever you’re sitting and you’re having doubts, keep going. You can do it. I faith in every one of you that if you persist, it may take a while. It may take you a while to do it, but if you keep going, you can, you can kind of climb the mountain top.
Esi:
I think that’s really, really good advice. Thank you so much. Daniel. So if anyone wants to see some of the information that you have, they can go to the link to your website, which I’m going to put at the end of this, yeah, exactly, but at the bottom of this here, and then they can go and see and I really recommend that see some of Daniel’s really lovely photography and his poetry and everything. But thank you very much for today, Daniel.
Daniel:
Thank you very much. I think we should do an anecdote. I think it will be about how we’ve actually managed to hook up this time
EsI:
Do you want to tell everyone what happened?
Daniel:
So my memory from the first time I got sick, I keep encountering from because it goes on for a bit the first time I got sick and I had a cold, so I had to cancel and the second time was, I’ll show this to my phone now, and she would get an idea of what sort of phone I have,
Esi:
They won’t be able to see, because it’s a podcast
Daniel:
You can see and kind of giggle
eSI:
that, okay,
Daniel:
I’m now showing my phone,
Esi:
Which is a Nokia phone,
Daniel:
So she’s not she would send me messages on here, she sent me messages on without because, obviously because i should of said something so thats my fault. But she kind of sent me, kind of messages on Twitter and email. But by then, I was only in the library, so I went home, you know, so I went home, and then you called me. But timing, I couldn’t
EsI:
Absolutely because my taxi was late. I was late, so by the time I turned up, Daniel had left and gone home. So when I’m sending messages to you you won’t get because of your Nokia phone, and then on the third you’re showing me up that really embarrassed. I’m just saying this because this doesn’t happen all the time. And the 3rd time what happens? Well,
Daniel:
Quite lucky. I put my I wouldn’t normally put my phone on until a bit later, but I kind of, I knew as us longer, came up on the thing on the phone.
Esi:
Oh, no, what she does now?
Daniel:
But I thought initially, even before I went to Nima, I thought 11 O’clock as well. So, you know, so she called me, and I kind of dashed here. I ran the bus and I mentored because, you know, I just like to emphasise for your viewers, what a lovely person you are. You’re absolutely, you know, you’re, you know, even though we’ve had to misunderstand about working with people and working out the problem so and eventually, now we are here a couple of weeks after we’ve started, and I’ve had to say, I’ve had a brilliant time doing this.
EsI:
Thank you very much for tuning in again, everybody. If you have any questions for me, please feel free to send me an email and if you have any questions for Daniel, I will be more than happy to pass them along to him, too. Okay, so until next month, have a great month.