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The author is a UK-based comedian and founder of the new charity The Rosie Jones Foundation
When I first started working in 2011, I quickly took on a new employee tour. “This is the kitchen, these are Lou, this is Rosie,” he went to the pattern. “She’s invalid. And she works here.”
I’m looking for shameless attention, so I wrapped excuses for chatting extensively with newcomers in the office. However, we cannot escape the fact that this stop on the guided tour was the way the company said it.
Interestingly, they never mentioned the fact that they had to prepare an accessible toilet for me by tidying it up as they used it as a store room. Or the lift to the office on the 3rd floor was broken for 50% of the time I was working there. Or, I was the only physically disabled person working in a place where I employed over 100 people.
I’m 21 years old, I’ve graduated from university and am grateful to work. People with disabilities are nearly twice as many disabled people as unemployed, according to an October 2024 report from the Health Foundation, an independent UK healthcare charity.
I was not the most confident and direct person I am today. I was a disabled person who had no idea what competence really meant. Competency is discrimination against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical competence and that policies and regulations lead to unfair treatment. Even today, people know about sexism, racism, homophobia, but it doesn’t always mean that it will give birth and often stumble over what they say.
“Meritocracy? Is that anything?” I’ve been told over and over again. If we live in a world where we don’t know what meritocracy is, how can we move towards a place where everyone feels comfortable calling competentism?
I now recognize that it is an act of realizing that my old workplace uses accessible toilets as a warehouse. It’s more than surveillance. That’s a message for me, and future employee with disabilities: “People like you are not welcome here.”
But at the time I accepted it. I had to. That was how I survived in my world. I am a disabled person navigating a society established for people with no disabilities.
My story is not unique. I was invited to a job interview via the phone, hearing my slow, obscure speech, my intense cerebral palsy symptoms, my future employer laughed and hung up. Little do they know they missed out on working in a national treasure of the future. Their loss.
The lack of representatives for people with disabilities is unpleasant. That’s what you do when your business wants to hire non-white people. When someone wants to hire a strange person, they hire a strange person.
However, hiring disabled people is rarely easy. Time, money and consideration are required. Is your building accessible? Is your company open to flexible working hours or is disabled people ready to work from home? What is your policy regarding hiring people with health issues that may require you to take a break without notice?
Employing a disabled person can seem stiffer and more complicated at first. However, the time, money and considerations that employers invest will be returned in abundance. A welcoming and inclusive work environment is where everyone strives to be the best version of themselves. Everyone wins.
14 years after taking an office tour, I feel like I’m a different person. I’m older (slightly) clever, and often I find myself one of the loudest and most powerful voices in work situations. These factors make me more likely to invoke meritocracy, demand reasonable adjustments, and defend other diverse and impaired voices.
And I’m every day.
Today, in all the TV projects I’m involved in, I make sure that an access coordinator exists so that everyone’s needs are heard and introduced. We will ensure that there is a trainee scheme to encourage more people with disabilities to participate in television productions. It’s not like I’m the only person with a disability on the project. We all benefit from the full range of disabled voices that only strengthen our teams.
I remain an advocate for people with disabilities, but this level of access and support should not be limited to my projects. I hope this will show what is possible and become a model that will drive wider change. Amazing numbers – primarily us – businesses – we all need to advocate for voices with disabilities, in order to eliminate their diversity, equity and inclusive initiatives.
Disabled people are more than a fleeting stop on their Put-on-the-Back Office Tour. Please stop treating us like a second-rate citizen who should be fortunate to be able to hire us, listen to us, and do our job. We will stay here, and by God we will not go anywhere. So deal with that.
