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Alan Kurtz: Okay. My name is Alan Kurtz. On behalf of the Autism National Committee, or AutCom, I'd like to welcome you to our Webinar

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Alan Kurtz: "Is Work Working for Us: Autist's Own Experience in Seeking, Finding, and Continuing work"

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Alan Kurtz: We have a great group of panelists today.

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Alan Kurtz: with a wide range of experiences in the world of work.

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Alan Kurtz: If anyone has any questions or comments,

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Alan Kurtz: please put them

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Alan Kurtz: in questions and answers.

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Alan Kurtz: We might not see it if you put it in chat.

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Alan Kurtz: Without further ado, I would like to introduce the Moderator for today's webinar.

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Alan Kurtz: I think that's the right term, Max. Moderator. I would like to introduce the moderator for today's Webinar, Maxfield Sparrow.

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Alan Kurtz: Maxfield Sparrow is an autistic writer,

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Alan Kurtz: scholar, activist, peer, facilitator, and direct support professional assisting fellow

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Alan Kurtz: autistic clients with activities of daily living. Additionally, he, Sparrow, teaches astrologically inspired contemplative writing

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Alan Kurtz: through their business Mercury Muse. Max holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Political Science and Applied Economics from Idaho State University.

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Alan Kurtz: And studied for 2 years in the Creative writing MFA program

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Alan Kurtz: at Naropa--I think that pronouncing that right--University, Jack Kerouac

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Alan Kurtz: School.

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Alan Kurtz: That sounds really interesting. I have to talk to you about this sometime. They are the editor of the anthology Spectrums: Autistic Transgender People in Their Own Words from Jessica Kingsley, publishers. Sparrow lives in Silicon Valley with Mr. Kitty, also known as Fermat The Wonder Cat!

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Alan Kurtz: Take it away, Max.

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Maxfield: Thank you, Allen. And yeah, Fermat's on my lap right now. Hello, everybody, and welcome to our webinar "Is Work Working for Us."

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Maxfield: We have an exciting panel of 5 autistic people today who are going to tell you about their lived experiences with work.

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Maxfield: We hope that today's webinar will increase your understanding about this very important topic.

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Maxfield: If you have attended past webinars with us, you might notice a slight difference. In previous webinars. We had all panel members take turns answering the same questions. That was easy with other topics. But the world of work can be so different from person to person.

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Maxfield: So we have individual questions for each panelist. We've gathered such a diverse group of people, each with their own journey into and through the world of work.

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Maxfield: and that diversity requires different questions to create a space where their individual thoughts and experiences can truly shine.

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Maxfield: During this present presentation you may find questions rising in your mind, and as Alan mentioned, there's a Q&A Space for you to type those questions so they don't get lost in the general chat.

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Maxfield: After the presentation, we will address as many of your questions as we are able to in the time we have left.

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Maxfield: With that, let's get started. Our first panelist is John Marble.

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Maxfield: John Marble is the co-author of neurodiversity for--

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John Marble: I'm very sorry if if you could, it's--

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John Marble: I'm not a morning person, and it's 8 am here, so maybe if you could start with somebody else.

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John Marble: Oh, absolutely sorry!

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Maxfield: Absolutely no problem. We will come back around to you. So in that case our first panelist is Sujit Kurup

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Maxfield: Sujit Kurup is a friendly and active person who loves the outdoors. He communicates through typing, and advocates for others who do not have a voice and means to communicate.

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Maxfield: He advocates for them by spreading awareness through presentations at various colleges, schools, and agencies, providing services to disabled population.

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Maxfield: He has a degree in business administration from Suny College, New York. He is currently volunteering as treasurer of AutCom.

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Maxfield: Sujit writes poetry, does abstract paintings, and is learning music.

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Maxfield: My first question for you, Sujit,

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Maxfield: is:

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Maxfield: How can autistic people use their talents and abilities to start their business and advocate for supportive

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Maxfield: government regulations on every level?

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Sujit Kurup: Hello, everyone!

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Sujit Kurup: I am Sujit Kurup, volunteering as treasurer at AutCom.

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Sujit Kurup: My situation is unique because of the minimally speaking status and how I communicate.

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Sujit Kurup: I have some reliable speech, but I mostly communicate by typing on a device like an ipad text on the phone.

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Sujit Kurup: While in high school I always had a trained facilitator with me supporting me, one on one, and the team at school were trained to support me with my communication.

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Sujit Kurup: There was a sensory diet in place, and I was given sensory breaks throughout the day.

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Sujit Kurup: I had very support team, very dedicated administrators who sought innovative ideas to include me in our activities, and this boosted my confidence in my abilities.

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Sujit Kurup: My college experience was very challenging.

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Sujit Kurup: I was basically a pioneer. The staff at the college were venturing into a new educational era with me paving the way.

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Sujit Kurup: Most professors had not educated such a unique individual.

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Sujit Kurup: Gratefully, I was accepted by all my professors and peers.

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Sujit Kurup: The biggest challenges were my testing assessments, but I navigated through it all with supports and encouragements of my team.

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Sujit Kurup: While in college, I was enrolled in the access VR, and then YS program that provide counseling and guidance to access employment for the career of choice with qualifications.

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Sujit Kurup: On completion of my degree, I received their emails with job openings in accounting and office support.

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Sujit Kurup: These were all 9 to 5 jobs where I could not be productive with my sensory and motor planning challenges.

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Sujit Kurup: On inquiring whether they would support my idea of being an entrepreneur or be self-employed with my own business, they were not forthcoming, as mine was a novel idea.

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Sujit Kurup: I was always drawn to art, and my art teacher introduced me to painting in 2009 when I was in middle school.

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Sujit Kurup: Now it has become my passion and another medium to express my thoughts. It provides me with a level playing field.

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Sujit Kurup: I have been showcasing my art at various exhibitions/art shows facilitated by my art teacher and on my own.

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Sujit Kurup: When I hit the idea of entrepreneur. Hello, everyone!

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Sujit Kurup: I am Sujit Kurup volunteering as treasurer at AutCom.

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Sujit Kurup: My situation is unique because of the minimally speaking status and how I communicate.

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Sujit Kurup: I have some reliable speech, but I mostly communicate by typing on a device like an ipad text on the phone. While in high school, I always had a trained facilitator for me, supporting me one on one, and the team at school were trained to support me with my communication.

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Sujit Kurup: There was a sensory diet in place, and I was given sensory breaks. Throughout the day

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Sujit Kurup: I had varied support team, very dedicated administrators who sought innovative ideas to include me in all activities, and this boosted my confidence in my abilities.

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Sujit Kurup: My college experience was very challenging.

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Sujit Kurup: I was basically a pioneer.

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Sujit Kurup: The staff at the college were venturing into a new educational era with me paving the way.

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Sujit Kurup: Most professors had not educated such a unique individual.

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Sujit Kurup: Gratefully, I was accepted by all my professors and peers.

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Sujit Kurup: The biggest challenges were my testing assessments, but I navigated through it all with supports and encouragements of my team.

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Sujit Kurup: While in college I was enrolled in the access VR and then YS program that provide counseling and guidance to access employment for the career of choice with qualifications.

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Sujit Kurup: On completion of my degree, I received their emails with job openings in accounting and office support.

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Sujit Kurup: These were all 9 to 5 jobs where I could not be productive with my sensory and motor planning challenges.

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Sujit Kurup: On inquiring whether they would support my idea of being an entrepreneur, or be self-employed with my own business, they were not forthcoming, as mine was a novel idea.

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Sujit Kurup: I was always drawn to art, and my art teacher introduced me to painting in 2009, when I was in middle school.

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Sujit Kurup: Now it has become my passion, and another medium to express my thoughts. It provides me with a level playing field.

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Sujit Kurup: I have been showcasing my art at various exhibitions/art shows facilitated by my art teacher and on my own.

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Sujit Kurup: When I had the idea of entrepreneurship, the field of art is what I had in mind.

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Sujit Kurup: I have always been an advocate, spreading awareness on my method of communication which would provide means to communicate to many minimally speaking, individuals like me.

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Sujit Kurup: I continue to present at many schools, college classes, and agencies with my message, supporting individuals with disabilities.

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Sujit Kurup: For over a decade, I am volunteering as a trainer at inclusion and communication initiatives, Syracuse University, doing their workshops and conferences, helping train facilitators.

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Sujit Kurup: Families and professionals from all parts of the country and world come to be trained as facilitators.

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Sujit Kurup: I am greatly thrilled to help open doors of communication for many others like me, transforming their lives forever.

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Sujit Kurup: For over a year now, I have been volunteering as a treasurer in AutCom, Autism National Committee.

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Sujit Kurup: I enjoy doing my work at my own pace and time, and the team at AutCom has been very encouraging.

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Sujit Kurup: My degree in business administration has helped me in my job, and I am happy to be given the opportunity to apply what I learned.

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Sujit Kurup: I appreciate the fact that AutCom has been in the forefront employing individuals with disabilities, which other employers should emulate.

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Sujit Kurup: We all need to establish a strong support system that would help enhance our unique talents and abilities to become productive members of the society and be independent.

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Sujit Kurup: Social media platforms can be used to help advocate and build awareness on the unique needs of people with disabilities that will help in providing a level playing field.

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Sujit Kurup: involving local legislators who would like to advocate for the causes of people with disabilities is very important for the formulation of favourable state regulations addressing the need for their gainful employment, creating a win-win situation.

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Maxfield: Thank you.

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Maxfield: Thank you so much. That was that was very informative and wonderful.

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Maxfield: Our next panelist is Raesin Caine.

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Maxfield: Raesin Caine is pleased to have joined Autism National Committee as a board member in 2024.

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Maxfield: She has over 20 years of experience serving in scientific and analytical roles, and is currently employed as an overdose surveillance epidemiologist.

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Maxfield: Raesin's favorite things include the New York Times games package, knitting, microscopy, and learning. She lives in Massachusetts, with her wife, several plants, and miles of yarn.

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Maxfield: Raesin, our first question for you is:

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Maxfield: As you entered the world of work, were there any supports you didn't get, but wished you'd had? What about unhelpful supports (in air quotes) that you wish you didn't have.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): Thank you. I I wanna say, first of all, it's wonderful to be here and I appreciate that. I saw some friends in the in the chat. So thank you guys for coming.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): As for supports, I didn't have any. I was I. I'm a late diagnosis person. I'm in my forties. I'm 48, and I was diagnosed when I was 41, and I started working when I was 14, small jobs and then

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Raesin Caine (she/her): continued on, and so I didn't have any support.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): What I really could have used was

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Raesin Caine (she/her): adequate career counseling because it took me a really long time to figure out that

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Raesin Caine (she/her): interest does not always translate to a great experience at work.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I'm somebody who likes a lot of different things. I can find a ton of things interesting. And I learned, kind of the hard and expensive way, that some stuff that I'm fascinated by is excruciating as a job experience for me.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I've worked in mental health. I've worked, you know, as a scientist.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): a few different types of scientists and scientists and

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I have 4 different degrees. And it's not so much that I wanted all 4 of those degrees. It's just that I tried, you know, this job and realized once I was working at it 'Oh, this is not a good fit',

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Raesin Caine (she/her): and you know, rinse and repeat.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): So I could have benefited from

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Raesin Caine (she/her): for one, and in some ways an earlier diagnosis, just to figure out how to how to help help myself.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): and also just to figure out what kind of work environment and work responsibilities would have been the best fit for who I who I am.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I also learned that,

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Raesin Caine (she/her): you know, supervision styles really mattered, so support can look like the kind of supervision that that I like.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): And so for me, what that looks like is having a supervisor that

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Raesin Caine (she/her): understands the job and pays attention to the workload that we have, and and can adequately assess demand on an employee.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): Cause I've had situations where

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Raesin Caine (she/her): my supervisor knows the job and does the job, and I've also had situations where the supervisor does not know the job doesn't understand the job. Doesn't understand what at what I'm being, what's being asked of me and doesn't

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Raesin Caine (she/her): can't recognize overload just through assignments and stuff like that.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): and you know, I've also realized that support can look like, you know, having a a reachable supervisor that listens and cares.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): So those are the kinds of things that I could have used. And I also, this is kind of not exactly, maybe, that what you were asking about with supports. But I feel like this is this is what what fits me. Just feedback that I can receive, because I

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I know that a lot of supervisors kind of like the the feedback sandwich where the bun is like something constructive. And then the middle is like, this is what's wrong or what you're doing wrong, and then, you know, they you close it with some constructive criticism, and I'm a person who just wants dump the bun and just tell me what you need me to do, directly. Just tell me what you need me to do.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): And another thing that I find that I have always appreciated in work is when when supervisors, or whoever, really thinks before they ask.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I I'm not somebody who does well with external processing where they're, you know, they're speaking in 15 paragraphs of 'Let's let me try to figure out what I'm asking', and I'm supposed to parse out what

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Raesin Caine (she/her): they want me to do, you know. If it can be like a 3 sentence email, I would like this by this. And this is what I kind of want. That is great I. Those are the kinds of things that I that work well for me.

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Maxfield: Excellent. Thank you.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): You're welcome.

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Maxfield: And

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Maxfield: we will go

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Maxfield: back to John now that

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Maxfield: John has woken up a little bit, and a as a as a fellow Californian, I feel you. It's really early right now.

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Maxfield: John Marble is the co-author of Neurodiversity for Dummies by Wiley Publishing and the founder of Pivot Neurodiversity, an organization empowering companies to modernize recruitment, hiring, and culture to better support neurodivergent employees. Additionally, he also teaches neurodivergent adults who are transitioning into the workplace. A former White House aides specializing in employment policy,

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Maxfield: John credits his autism, ADHD, and discalcula with gifting him the curiosity and unique perspectives he's repeatedly utilized throughout his career.

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Maxfield: John, when you wanted to start your own business, did you have the support that you needed to explore alternatives to traditional employment?

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John Marble: No, but prior to that, thank you for that bit of cognitive flexibility for me as I as I woke up, I do much better working at night. However,

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John Marble: part of self advocacy is also realizing what you need, and communicating that to other people which I should have done earlier. So which is a wonderful lesson that I try to teach my students as well. So my apologies for that, and thank you very much. Honestly, I'm still looking for that. It's

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John Marble: kind of a a patchwork of trying to learn from other people who are self employed and autistic. I asked people like Haley Moss, who you might be familiar with in Florida, who's a lawyer.

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John Marble: He seems to just be a whiz at this. Nobody teaches us a lot of things. Nobody teaches us how we think as autistic people, and nobody really

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John Marble: shows us the models out there.

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John Marble: I desperately wish that there was more of that out there. I wish I had a solution to that. And if other people have a solution about how we can educate each other on self businesses, I'd be more than happy to listen.

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Maxfield: Thank you.

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Maxfield: Margaux Wosk is our next panelist, Margaux Wosk is an

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Maxfield: I hope. Am I pronouncing it? I should have asked you before. But okay, good. I I was for a moment I was like, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. I'm glad I'm glad I am.

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Maxfield: Margaux Wosk is an autistic advocate, activist, content creator, and small business owner under the pseudonym retrofiliac.

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Maxfield: They are an Autism Canada ambassador and the lower mainland West Regional Director for BC People First.

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Maxfield: Margaux, I have the same question that I asked John: When you wanted to start your own business, did you have the support you needed to explore alternatives to traditional employment?

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I did not. This was something that I created for myself. I have had businesses on and off since I was 12 years old. At the age of 12 I was buying and reselling vintage on ebay before any of these other apps, like Depop and Posh mart existed.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): from there. I translated into creating very bright and vibrant digital, or, sorry visual art, which has actually recently been featured in Sugar Art for Autism. A bunch of my pieces were created by like

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): cake artists where they took my art and translated it for this project. It's absolutely beautiful.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I've showed my art in different galleries. I've had my art made on cards and all kinds of stuff, and then from there it translated into what I'm currently doing. So I've had the name retrofiliac from vintage clothing to retro inspired art to what I'm doing, currently which is communication aids that are primarily enamel pins for all kinds of different disabilities

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): and access needs and stuff like that.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): The support was non-existent. Nobody wanted to help me. There wasn't a single grant, there still continues to not be a single grant. I have been fighting very hard, and I have gone to different provincial budget meetings to beg basically for a grant.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): The one program that exists called Community Futures EDP

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): to help disabled and neurodivergent people run their own businesses recently got their funding cut. So we are up against, you know,

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): able-bodied, allistic, very profitable businesses that are worth, you know, around 38 billion dollars annually, who are getting, you know, 25 million dollars-ish of funding or a cut to hire disabled people when that is their legal obligation. And we should not be funding that when they can fund it themselves, so they are essentially pivoting funding away from disabled and neurodivergent entrepreneurs.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): And it is incredibly disheartening. I'm hoping to become the director for BC People First, so that that can be our mandate during my term. So it is something that I have been just

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): really up against, but because I see the lack of support that I have received, my hope is to change it for others, and I ran a multi week free cohort with an organization here called Curiko, CURIKO. Where I was leading different people through the conception

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): to all the way through marketing to having their creative product for sale and that was a free thing for all of our participants.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): And so I'm hoping that because I've developed this kind of very loosely based, loose curriculum, very basic that that could eventually get translated into a local organization, utilizing it for structuring their small business program for autistic youth. So it's been a lot of trial and error, and a lot of

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): doors closed in my face. But I'm hoping that through my work I can change the landscape of what self employment looks like.

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Maxfield: Excellent. That is very important work you're doing. Thank you on behalf of everybody that you're helping.

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Maxfield: And the same to you, John, your your business is doing very important work helping people.

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Maxfield: our next panelist.

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John Marble: Then oh, sorry!

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Maxfield: Go ahead!

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John Marble: Really quick. I got in involved a little bit when there was the Autism Network Conference which

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John Marble: I have my own opinions on businesses that run Autism at Work programs. I think the last one that they were going to have right before Covid. I I was making a big push that we need to have this track for autistic business owners.

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John Marble: So it's just

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John Marble: I ramble. But that was a long way, me saying I really appreciate what Margaux just said.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): Thank you. And with what you just said, I do run in a group on Facebook called made by autistics, marketplace and community. So we have 9.5 or 9,500 members ish right now. And we are hoping that we continue that, especially with it being autism acceptance month that people are putting their money into the hands of autistic creators this month. But every month. And so, yeah, it's an online marketplace and all.

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John Marble: I'm a member. I didn't know that was you. It feels like

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): That was me.

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John Marble: meeting a celebrity.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): Oh.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): well, thank you. Yeah. It's a you know. I think sometimes at the grass roots level, we have to do the best we can to help serve our our community and the communities that support us.

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Maxfield: Absolutely.

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Maxfield: absolutely. Thank you so much, both of you, for that.

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Maxfield: for that that I I don't know the word I was gonna say for that side conversation. But it's not. That's that's at the heart of everything we're talking about today.

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Maxfield: And I appreciate that so much.

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Maxfield: Our next panelist is James Burke.

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Maxfield: Jamie Burke is 37 years old, and a graduate from Syracuse University with--

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Maxfield: wait a minute. Are you 37? I think last time that I introduced you I said 37, and you're 27

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Maxfield: sorry for the unprofessional

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Maxfield: but

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Maxfield: I wanna make sure I get it right this time.

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James G. Burke: I'm 37, Max.

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Maxfield: Okay, you you look so young. Congratulations.

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Maxfield: Jamie Burke is 37 years old, and is a graduate from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Arts and Science. Jamie has used supported typing since age 5, and has progressed from supported typing to independent typing and typing with 2 hands.

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Maxfield: At age 12 he became able to use his voice to read his typing, and continues to develop useful and reliable speech. He is a frequent presenter on behalf of the Syracuse University School of Education, and also at conferences throughout the United States. Jamie has been invited to England, Wales, and Germany to speak about inclusion and the process of typed communication and the life changing impact it can have for those who have difficulty speaking.

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Maxfield: Jamie continues to advocate for typed communication as a gateway to speech, literacy, and connection, and continues to work with the ICI, the Initiative for Communication and Inclusion at Syracuse University as an assistant communication trainer.

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Maxfield: He is an active advocate, and has shared his journey at conferences and classrooms throughout the United States. He attributes much of his life, success to years of sensory, innovative therapies, and, most importantly, to full access of regular education classrooms. That is just wonderful to have you with us today, Jamie, you

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Maxfield: such a terrific scholar.

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Maxfield: and I have for you

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Maxfield: the question: As you entered the world of work,

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James G. Burke: Thanks.

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Maxfield: were there any supports you didn't get, but wished you'd had? What about unhelpful (air quote) supports that you wish you didn't have?

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Maxfield: I can't hear you, Jamie, are you muted?

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James G. Burke: It should

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James G. Burke: that should be number

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James G. Burke: should be number

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Maxfield: Oh, did I ask you the wrong question?

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James G. Burke: Number one.

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Maxfield: Yes.

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Maxfield: that!

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Maxfield: Oh.

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James G. Burke: Transitioning from school to adult life and work, do you think you had support necessary to explore careers that matched your interests?

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James G. Burke: Yes, thank you. My thought is that I was very stressed and focus about my university grades and doing well.

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James G. Burke: so that the ideas of talking about and thinking about working was yet more stress for me.

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James G. Burke: What was fundamentally different was the best reality. When I was traveling with the ICI,

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James G. Burke: Initiative for Communication and Inclusion, Center on disability and inclusion,

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James G. Burke: Syracuse University,

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James G. Burke: for Conference presentations about the experience of inclusion and education, and using an alternate method of communication to open life and have the ability to be a change for a full life experience.

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James G. Burke: I was very well prepared to talk about this

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James G. Burke: as it was, and is, my own life experience.

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James G. Burke: It was wonderful to travel to a great number of states and to experience travel to Germany, England, and Wales. I also did this separately, and did presentations supported in travel by family.

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James G. Burke: Of course this has been very reduced because of covid and changing financial eras.

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Maxfield: Thank you.

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Maxfield: Thank you, Jamie.

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Maxfield: You all see me shuffling papers, it's because I'm I'm confused, but we're--everything's together. I've noticed a lot of people are asking: will there be a replay of this? And yes, there will. This I I don't have a timeline for it, but it will go up, I believe, on Youtube

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Maxfield: for people to watch

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Maxfield: all in the future.

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Maxfield: To to limit my confusion, I'm gonna come back to John because I, if that's okay, cause that that's fine.

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John Marble: I don't feel.

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Maxfield: Easy.

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John Marble: Yeah.

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Maxfield: John,

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Maxfield: as an autistic person working with people to help them find employment, do you find that being autistic makes it different for you versus non autistic colleagues doing similar work?

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John Marble: It does. I I've thought for a while about how to best answer this question. So

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John Marble: if you don't judge, don't me. Maybe I'll tell a story

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John Marble: from a previous job to to lead into this, and hopefully, by the end.

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John Marble: I'm just confusing you. More sorry, but.

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Maxfield: You're fine. You're fine.

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John Marble: So. And you know, a previous job. Years ago, when I was working for the White House when President Obama was in the White house, it was the first time that it had disclosed that I was autistic.

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John Marble: and I remember having

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John Marble: lunch with Dave Noble, who is in White House personnel at the time who kind of oversaw all the potential appointees, and we're in the White House mess. And at the end of it I said, "Dave, I have to tell you something that only my parents know, and my doctor and my best friend. But I have autism, and I need to ask my manager for accommodation and I don't know how to do that."

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John Marble: And then the way I tell the stories is that it felt like 2 hours of silence is probably like a quarter second.

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John Marble: But I thought I was gonna lose my job. I thought I was gonna lose my security clearance

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John Marble: and his reaction as a neurotypical manager changed my life.

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John Marble: He said, "that's fantastic." And I just looked at him and he said, "John, you seem confused." I'm like, "yeah," he's like, "have you ever thought that your autism has helped you in your career?"

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John Marble: I said "no, I've overcome it. I've papered over it. I've kind of really good at hiding it from people, you know. But now I just it's something's happening." And he said, "No, no, no," he's like,

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John Marble: "I've known you for a long time," and we knew each other well enough that he could say this next thing, he said, "You're definitely an odd guy." He said that with love he's like, "But think about it. I've known you a long time. You look at things differently and you work differently than other people."

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John Marble: he said. "My job is to find Americans to come together to tackle some really big problems, and I can't have everybody who's the same."

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John Marble: So he said, "I will help you get your accommodation."

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John Marble: To this day, we can't remember what that was. That's how much we build up these requests in our head as disabled people.

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John Marble: he said "I will help you get your accommodation, but I need you to figure yourself out and be comfortable with that, and then bring back to work."

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John Marble: And it was a good year before I was able to get to that place of acceptance. And once I did, that changed everything because I started to realize, oh, yeah, I see things differently than my colleagues.

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John Marble: And maybe it's not the case that everybody else sees this the same way. but they've just decided there's a better strategy. Maybe I have input as well. So that was the start of a very long journey to get me to the question that you asked about. You know, teaching autistic students. I teach autistic adults who are transitioning to work and if that's different.

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John Marble: it is.

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John Marble: however, I'm fortunate that I found myself in the place that my other 2 teachers were not autistic, but were very much in this deep neurodiversity frame.

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John Marble: I teach with my colleague Ranga Jayaraman, who is in his sixties and the father of an autistic son.

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John Marble: and I teach with my colleague Khushboo Chabria, who's I don't know how old she is, but she's a Adhd woman who, she doesn't know how to tell the story, but I tell her it's such a good one to share.

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John Marble: She actually started out as an aba therapist, and made the journey into neuro inclusion, which I think is just such a powerful thing.

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John Marble: and the 3 of us are just so steeped in the fact that neurodiversity is normal and that disability is normal

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John Marble: that we are able to have different perspectives on things as we help our students, but not in a way that says, like, oh, neurotypical, better than autistic people. So it's kind of the that's a long winded model, a long winded way of saying that to me that's kind of the model that I really hope

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John Marble: for autistic people. And when I've seen

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John Marble: companies kind of best support their autistic and otherwise neurodivergent employees.

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John Marble: It's been when employees have started efforts themselves, like and neurodiversity employee resource groups, and maybe they partner with parents and friends, and they tend to drive the policy from there.

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John Marble: So that is

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John Marble: kind of my hope, for where we, where we go in the future.

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Maxfield: Excellent. Thank you.

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Maxfield: That's a great answer.

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Maxfield: Back to Sujit.

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Maxfield: Sujit, we are hearing a lot about artificial intelligence lately. Undoubtedly, AI and assistive technologies are going to have a profound effect on the workplace for everyone.

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Maxfield: How do you think technological advances might affect employment and career opportunities for autistic individuals.

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Sujit Kurup: Artificial intelligence I could be a game changer, providing accessible and inclusive means to access information and connect with others.

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Sujit Kurup: High powered gadgets and programs can promote greater independence and happiness in the lives of people with disabilities.

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Sujit Kurup: CHAT GPT a Language model that may be utilized for communication and information retrieval could be used by people with communication disabilities and getting their messages across in an effective and efficient way.

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Sujit Kurup: in getting their messages across more efficiently and effectively, helping with learning, maintaining information problem solving, thinking quickly, organizing, etc. Which are very challenging for them.

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Sujit Kurup: It could remove communication barriers and provide level playing field, helping them to more employment opportunities.

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Maxfield: Thank you.

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Maxfield: back to Raesin.

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Maxfield: Are you working now?

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Maxfield: And if so, what does that work look like for you?

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Maxfield: What supports were available to help you get the kind of work that you do?

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I am working now. I work part time as a as an epidemiologist which I really love.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): My day to day looks like

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Raesin Caine (she/her): looking at medical records and police reports, and figuring out the circumstances behind people's overdose.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): fatal overdoses to to learn more about

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Raesin Caine (she/her): what their lives looked like.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I write a lot of code using a software called

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Raesin Caine (she/her): it's called SAS. So it's statist for statistical analysis. And I really love that, and I also, on a rare occasion, work on on, on infographics, to

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Raesin Caine (she/her): relay the what we what we learn to the public.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I'll there's another question where I'll where I'll talk a little bit about

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Raesin Caine (she/her): like getting in the door. But I I didn't have

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Raesin Caine (she/her): wouldn't say that I had supports to get in the door. I I started there with with an internship, an unpaid internship. Never thought I'd be an unpaid intern at like 40. However, I was how old I was when I started. And that led to like a temp job on the team that I'm on. And then, later on, after I finished my MPH, and my master and public health in 2022, I became a an epidemiologist.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): and that this is the job of all the jobs that I've had that feels like

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Raesin Caine (she/her): truly the best fit for me.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): it.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): It's a really supportive environment, like, you know, I work with a lot of kind of similarly minded nerds.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): like data nerds are a special type of nerd

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Raesin Caine (she/her): and

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I just really like everybody on the team.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): and I think that's that's probably everything I have to say

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Raesin Caine (she/her): about that.

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Maxfield: I'm I'm vibing with the data nerd. I used SAS in my social.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): Oh, you did! That's awesome

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Maxfield: Studies. Yeah. And and man, that sounds like a great job, because also so much meaning. What you're doing is so important and can save lives, and that would.

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Maxfield: That's.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I hope so

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Maxfield: Having having meaningful work is so valuable.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): For me that's very, very important. I can. I can't do

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I can't use skills for something that does not

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Raesin Caine (she/her): So for something I don't really care about. I had a I had a graphic artist friend who used to design junk mail, and I felt so bad for him, cause he knew that everything that he was making would just

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Raesin Caine (she/her): go in the trash, and he was so talented. And.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): you know, having a personal

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Raesin Caine (she/her): or caring about what you're doing is really important

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Raesin Caine (she/her): for for me, at least.

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Maxfield: Absolutely, absolutely.

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Maxfield: Margaux.

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Maxfield: And I'm shuffling some more papers. And yes, here we go. Did you have the support? I mean, you addressed this some in the first question, but this is expanding on it. Did you have the support that you needed to get your business started? And what helped and what did not? Is there anything you learned that might be useful to other autistic entrepreneurs, or would be entrepreneurs?

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): Yeah, so I'll expand a little bit on what I was saying before. I didn't really have any help.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): The only help that I did get was a British Columbia Arts Council grant, however, that grant wasn't specifically for

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): what I got it for. So

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): my first pin was the neurodiversity pride infinity, my interpretation of it where I separated all the colors, and it looks almost more like an infinite game board which played really nicely in opposition to a puzzle piece. So an infinite game board, with infinite possibilities versus feeling like broken or missing something. You know a puzzle is to be solved,

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): But mine was more infinite and ongoing and and full of possibilities. So, generally speaking, when you're applying for like an Arts Council Grant, you're applying for something that you are not going to profit off of, but because I was able to donate, I think, a portion of the proceeds to an organization plus give some of the pins out,

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I guess they saw the merit in the work that I was doing, and they funded that. And so from there that initial funding. I did receive a few more Arts Council grants. But again there was no grant pertaining to exactly the type of work that I'm doing, and there still continues to not be.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): So I would say, you know, think outside the box in terms of funding, even if a grant may not seem completely applicable for the work you're doing, Try anyways, you never know

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): And you know from there, having the few grants that I did receive I've had. I have over, I think, 250 products right now. And I have my items in

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): lots of different stores and doing wholesale orders practically weekly at this point, and I have over, you know, 11,000 sales on Etsy. So I've been kind of able to like, grow and expand. But really the amount of help that's out there is is really

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): not much. And I would say that

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): again, like, Think outside the box when it comes to your funding.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): Think of ways that you can get it out there, and if you have even a small amount of money, there are, you know, small tangible things that you can create that you may be able to have a decent profit margin on that you can then reinvest in your business.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): but yeah, I would just say like, if it things seem really tough,

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): try to not give up. Sometimes it's all about, instead of thinking that there's one way of doing things, to find an alternate way around that, you know. Like, instead of going down the path, that seems obvious, you might have to go down more of a winding path to get to your goal.

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Maxfield: Excellent. I've experienced that myself launching my own business. It took me 3 years from getting the domain and saying, Now I'm ready to launch my business

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Maxfield: to actually launching it because of

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Maxfield: what you're describing, the the roadblocks that I had to find ways around. That's excellent advice.

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Maxfield: Jamie.

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Maxfield: The same question that I asked Raesin,

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Maxfield: are you working now? And if so, what does that work look like for you?

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Maxfield: And what supports were available to help you get that kind of work?

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James G. Burke: I would say I continue to do some conference presenting,

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James G. Burke: but is mostly accomplished through Zoom.

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James G. Burke: I am an assistant communication trainer for the ICI, and this has so much value for me. My friend called Sujit Kurup, offer our skills and everyday life experiences as assistant trainers.

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James G. Burke: I have worked in research projects for

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James G. Burke: Mexico analyst analysis projects.

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James G. Burke: And then the Message Passing research project.

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James G. Burke: I have contributed to wonderful authors' published writings. Authors Zach Rossetti, Carol Tashie, Alicia Broderick, Chris Anderson, Chris Cleaver Christopher Cleaver,

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James G. Burke: Doug Biklen, Chris Cleaver.

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James G. Burke: Doug Biklen, and Ralph Savarese have given me the opportunities that have been a work of joy.

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James G. Burke: I have a great self determination plan for my service agency here in Syracuse that has supported me since high school, and being able to make my own choices in my life for financial, for its financial supports for activities and for hiring community support staff.

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James G. Burke: I currently have a solid community communication support person who has been working with me for almost 10 years.

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James G. Burke: so support, as a respectful cohort is paramount for me.

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James G. Burke: unhelpful supports, perhaps, where, in my tender years when there was too much of it.

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James G. Burke: But I was struggling myself to understand why I could not use my voice to speak my thoughts and people trying to give helpful support

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James G. Burke: simply made too many choices for me of their own selection.

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Maxfield: Thank you.

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Maxfield: John.

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Maxfield: Were there things you struggled with as you got your business up and running? Were the resources for small businesses accessible to you?

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John Marble: Well, I mean no, and I think, as

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John Marble: someone who thinks like I

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John Marble: do. It was. It was hard to even know that there were resources without somebody modeling that for me. I think that's maybe a struggle that that a lot of people have in what they're doing.

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John Marble: It also happened at a point in life that I realized for the first time that I had always been pulled forward in my career, that you know I was just told, "oh, John, we need you to come work here," and I would go work at that place, and then somebody else would say, "Well, we need, you know, you should be doing this." And so I remember I

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John Marble: left the White House, because when the President's job ended, my job ended. And they're really good about preparing us for that transition, and I moved to California and

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John Marble: My autistic brain was just like, well, I did construction and worked in warehouses when I was in college, so I took a minimum wage job in a warehouse whereas my other White House colleagues were

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John Marble: going on to other things, and it took

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John Marble: A friend realizing that on my lunch breaks, on my 35 min lunch breaks that I got at my, not. I'm not knocking minimum wage jobs. But at the minimum wage job in the warehouse I was giving free advice to corporations on the phone who would call me. And

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John Marble: he said. "You know, I think you have some skills that maybe are beyond what you're doing now." And I'm like this is repetitive work that I can do over and over again. It's very stimmy. He said, "yeah, but I think you need to

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John Marble: share some of your insights with other people," and I look back. And I'm like, you know, I had

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John Marble: this neurotypical person help me with that. And

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John Marble: I

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John Marble: I just wonder how many other people are in in situations like that, who want to start businesses. But just don't know what's out there, because nobody models it for us.

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Maxfield: Absolutely. The only reason that I was able to start my writing business is seeing my writing teacher doing something similar with Tarot cards and thinking, I've been studying astrology since I was 12. I can help people write using that.

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Maxfield: modeling, having something modeled for us is so important.

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Maxfield: Thank you.

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John Marble: I I remember I also do like keynote speeches for companies. And after maybe like a year or so doing that, autistic friends said, "Oh, I think I saw autistic people really bad when we speak to corporations about asking for speaking fees." And I'm like "what's speaking fees?" And like it just hadn't occurred to me. And so like, that's something I do with a lot of autistic people. I'm like, if you're going to a company make sure

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John Marble: to ask them to pay you, cause it doesn't

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John Marble: occur to a lot of us.

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Maxfield: Absolutely. I've seen that time and again and in myself.

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Maxfield: It's hard to know how to ask for money and how to ask for enough money.

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Maxfield: I see

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Maxfield: so many, so many autistic entrepreneurs underselling what they're offering because it's so hard to ask for money.

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Maxfield: Raesin.

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Maxfield: Was there anything that you struggled with in actually getting hired, such as interviewing or onboarding? Were alternatives to traditional interviewing, provided?

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Raesin Caine (she/her): Well, yeah, interviewing is not my favorite thing. I think most people aren't that into interviews. I'm always always nervous.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I? And and I've always I've typically worked in stem jobs. So I never know if it's gonna if I'm gonna walk in there, they're gonna have corny, you know, "name a time you had to face advert. You know you faced adversity," those kinds of questions. Or if somebody's gonna ask me a formula, you know, to repeat a formula and and calculate something. So I can. Never. I typically, never feel prepared enough.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): And for the the job that I have now, I knew there was gonna be an interview. I knew it was gonna be a panel of people and I knew that there was gonna be a a coding portion, which, of course I was.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I was a wreck about a timed coding portion.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): And I needed

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Raesin Caine (she/her): So the version of SAS that I had to use did not have like a dark mode built in, and I need one of my accommodations that I

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Raesin Caine (she/her): one of the things I need because of a TBI is, I need to be able to view this thing in dark mode. And it it basically, I don't wanna get into the minutia of this, but

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Raesin Caine (she/her): regular SAS has is color coded.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): And when when I was using, like the version that I needed, it, stripped away all the color, so it you don't recognize as quickly, or at all, if you've made a mistake. All you know, if you made a mistake is that you? It's not running or something gets stuck, and you have to figure out where it is. So I needed. They gave me more time. But just my stress level around that was was absolutely through the roof.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): But I did get. I did get accommodations for more time on that all that to say like this is one of those things where I wish developers

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Raesin Caine (she/her): could

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Raesin Caine (she/her): think about accessibility and build it in more widely into their programs? I've spoken to the people at SAS, they. They're like, Oh, well, we have dark mode in these versions. It was like, Okay, well, you have it in these versions, but not all versions.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): and in order to get like a like a workaround, I had to basically have, like an act of Congress to get it, because, you know, there's security concerns, and that kind of thing. So just little stuff like that can be a tremendous obstacle for people.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): in other jobs, I've had difficulties just getting past the AI like, I know what people have there. There can be good things about AI, but there, it could also be bad where like, if your sent sentence structure is too complex in your cover letter or in your resume, the artificial intelligence screening the resumes might be, too, might not be sophisticated enough to parse out that you're actually very qualified for the for the position, and you might not get

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Raesin Caine (she/her): selected, which is something that I was thinking about with somebody put a con comment. Sandy was talking about her son and

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Raesin Caine (she/her): and his many job applications. So

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I

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Raesin Caine (she/her): wish it could be easier for all of us to get the kinds of jobs that that we want to get. I also think that in the environment of.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): you know, looking through jobs looking for jobs on in places like, Indeed. Those are also businesses, you know, and so they make money on, or I think they make money. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but they make money on views and advertising, and the number of times you visit, so you could be spinning your tires, putting in your best effort to get a job when in in reality you're never gonna get one, because it's not set up for that. It's set up to have visitors, you know.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): and it can be spirit crushing for a lot of people who are earnestly trying to look for work.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): So that's my! I'm that was a total rant. I'm sorry. Maybe I'm not sorry. Actually, I'm not sorry.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I

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Raesin Caine (she/her): it shouldn't be so hard.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): other other thoughts about interviewing. I wish we could do away with I I have a hard time with phone interviews because especially paneled phone interviews, because I don't know when someone's done talking.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I don't know if people are thinking, I don't know if they're taking notes, and if there's dead silence. It can be really, really awkward. And and challenging.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I've had panel interviews. I'm okay with those sort of, like they're nerve wracking. But

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I, in a way, a panel is more comfortable because I don't make I can't really make eye contact. So if it's a panel, everybody might think that I'm looking at somebody else

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Raesin Caine (she/her): rather than if you're talking to one person there. Well, they know that I'm not looking at them like ever, or maybe, for you know, a split second, and some people really really care about that stuff. I I don't. But I know that people care about that it can, and it can be a reason why people don't select you.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): So those are my thoughts.

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Maxfield: Those are great thoughts.

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Maxfield: And oh, my gosh! When you said that that the SAS didn't have the color coding, I I felt the panic of.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): I saw you.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): It's so much harder. Yeah.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): And it took me over a year to get the to get ColorVeil, which is like a like a you know, it's an a a accessibility. Little 121 kB Kilobyte program. That just kind of puts a

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Raesin Caine (she/her): like it kind of puts a veil like a

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Raesin Caine (she/her): a color veil over the screen so I can still see the color. But it's not a blinding white background

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Raesin Caine (she/her): but.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): Yeah, small things can make a big difference.

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Maxfield: I have a friend who does she's autistic, and she works for one of the big streaming companies, and she wrote Code for the back end for the servers that would

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Maxfield: code things. And she showed me before and after. I'm like, I don't even see how you could have read before, because it's just this wall of text

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Maxfield: accommodations are so important.

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Raesin Caine (she/her): They really are.

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Maxfield: Margaux.

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Maxfield: I'm going to ask you the same thing? I asked John, which is: were there things you struggled with as you got your business up and running,

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Maxfield: and were the resources for small businesses accessible to you?

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Maxfield: you're muted.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): So

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): there.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): The resources that were available were not.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I don't know necessarily the lack of accessibility versus the fact that they didn't meet my needs.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): So I had reached out to Small Business BC,

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): and it was not a very good interaction that I had, so moving forward, it was kind of like me figuring out how to do everything on my own, like literally everything.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): you know, figuring out,

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I don't know, like even like physical, logistical things like

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): all the things that I needed.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): A lot of it I already taught myself, because you know, the skills that I had selling on ebay.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): Which, realistically, I learned a lot of how to sell an ebay from a website called Neopets, which is a kids gaming website because you would have to list items on the auction, and based that on the prices of the other items. So that, translated into how I used ebay with my vintage clothing. And because again I was 12, it was kind of all happening at the same time.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): So I would take those skills of okay, if I find this dress, and it looks similar to another dress that's on ebay. Well, I can utilize the pricing structure for what I'm doing as a kind of one on one to one comparison, and even still, with my business today, my pricing came from comparing it to other

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): other people doing similar things.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): So I feel like a lot of the practical knowledge that I got was really like self taught. Or there was even a website as a child growing up called Head Bone Zone.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): And it had a lot of very amazing games that had to do with business or with like putting an input like inputting data, or even like playing roller coaster tycoon.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): you know, like those were. Those were the games that I enjoyed playing as a child. And I found that these challenges of like, okay, you're gonna you're gonna lower the entry fee for the park. But you're gonna make the fees for the each ride, you know, a little bit higher or whatever. And so playing around with that really translated into how I run my business today. It's pretty awesome that I enjoyed those games.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): But you know, like figuring out boxes for my shelves, figuring out what Ikea shelves to get, figuring out how I can

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): fit the boxes on the shelves, and where I should source that from, and getting my scale and getting my envelopes and figuring out Canada post and all this kind of stuff. Nobody helped me.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I couldn't find the help I needed

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): and really like, even with finances,

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): figuring out my finances was a little bit challenging.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): So you know, I've come to the plate point, where I'm doing so many transactions that I just hired a bookkeeper, and I hired an account. Who's also my accountant.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): but there was no subsidies, and there was no resources for that. Which is I have. I'm pretty sure I have, dyscalculia. That's not diagnosed, because I've always struggled with math to the point where I had mental breakdowns as a child, and I would start crying and feeling panicked, and there are no subsidies for finances. The the Community Futures Employment. E. EDP program

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): gave me a business coach, but she was teaching me how to do all the financial stuff. And I

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I'm so busy I don't have the time for that. So yeah, getting my needs met were really difficult. I see that Wendy in the chat has been asking for consulting. I do business consulting

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): if anybody else does I'm sure they can answer and I will be starting my business consulting actually, this upcoming week.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): So yeah, it's just been, you know, what? I couldn't get the resources that I needed.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): But it is my absolute goal in life to help people with everything that I have been able to teach myself. Because

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): again, I'm neurodivergent as we are here. And so I can serve the neurodivergent community who would like to be small business owners just based on

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): practical knowledge, really trial and error, and seeing what works for me.

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Maxfield: Absolutely, and that is so brilliant. How you learned pricing and supply and demand from games. I I played neo pets. I had a a blue cow on neopets and and what you learned. Cause I I was in the marketplace, too, and

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Maxfield: I took a microeconomics online class, and we used a lot of online models to learn supply and demand and pricing.

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Maxfield: And it's very much what you were doing. You were getting an economics education at age 12, and I just I applaud that so much.

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): Yeah, it's

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): it's super fun, you know, and even like there was the stock market on neopets, too. And they've recently redone neopets. So yeah, I mean, I don't think that it is a bad thing for children who might be interested in business to play those games or to play tycoon games like. It is a fun way to learn pricing and inflation and loss, and everything like that. And

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I always, ever since I was a very young child. I wanted to run my own business like that was my dream. So you know, and I'm doing it now. So it's

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Margaux Wosk (They/Them): it's pretty interesting.

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Maxfield: I. I'm very excited about what you're talking about helping other neurodivergent people, because we we need someone doing what exactly what you're talking about: helping us understand

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Maxfield: how to navigate

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Maxfield: starting a business and and and

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Maxfield: and also for those of us who are like, I'm just this year transitioning off of benefits. And that's a big thing for for entrepreneurs. If they're on benefits, it's re that's a whole nother maze to navigate absolutely. So

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Maxfield: kudos kudos.

466
01:03:25.540 --> 01:03:26.670
Maxfield: Jamie.

467
01:03:26.780 --> 01:03:39.899
Maxfield: I'm going to ask you the question I asked Raesin, which is: was there anything that you struggled with in actually getting hired, such as interviewing or onboarding? Were alternatives to traditional interviewing provided for you?

468
01:03:48.320 --> 01:03:51.349
James G. Burke: That question. Yeah, I don't have that question.

469
01:03:51.760 --> 01:03:53.420
Maxfield: Is there a question.

470
01:03:53.420 --> 01:03:57.460
James G. Burke: Are you satisfied with your current position and the support that you receive. Why, why not?

471
01:03:58.250 --> 01:04:03.109
James G. Burke: I? Are you satisfied with your current position and the support that you you receive. Why why not?

472
01:04:03.570 --> 01:04:05.479
Maxfield: Go ahead and answer that one then.

473
01:04:05.680 --> 01:04:08.889
Maxfield: Are you satisfied with the support you've received? Why or why not?

474
01:04:08.890 --> 01:04:11.109
James G. Burke: Am I satisfied with my current situation?

475
01:04:11.160 --> 01:04:13.820
James G. Burke: I would say, for the diverse things I am doing,

476
01:04:13.930 --> 01:04:17.460
James G. Burke: I am. I do know that what I do is unique to me.

477
01:04:17.530 --> 01:04:22.859
James G. Burke: I believe the difficulties of my sensory system and my anxiety can make a described normal job

478
01:04:23.040 --> 01:04:24.529
James G. Burke: more puzzling to me.

479
01:04:24.570 --> 01:04:26.039
James G. Burke: more puzzling for me.

480
01:04:26.170 --> 01:04:34.560
James G. Burke: I continued to do my enjoyable passions of painting, ceramic sculpture, wheel pottery formation, exercising, and much reading and visiting museums,

481
01:04:35.040 --> 01:04:38.199
James G. Burke: research on my interest topics, and attend social gatherings.

482
01:04:43.730 --> 01:04:45.230
Maxfield: Excellent.

483
01:04:47.270 --> 01:04:49.550
Maxfield: John, back to you.

484
01:04:50.510 --> 01:04:56.059
Maxfield: Did you have any problems navigating the social demands placed on you as an entrepreneur?

485
01:04:58.864 --> 01:05:04.775
John Marble: I might have been clueless to most of them. So I I I'm not sure.

486
01:05:05.860 --> 01:05:06.580
John Marble: I'm

487
01:05:07.070 --> 01:05:11.619
John Marble: this is not the Obama administration, but I took. I took

488
01:05:13.890 --> 01:05:18.810
John Marble: a contracted job between the Obama Administration and moving to California.

489
01:05:18.920 --> 01:05:24.740
John Marble: and I ended up getting penalized because I would not go

490
01:05:24.860 --> 01:05:43.630
John Marble: out socializing with my boss afterwards. Not that I didn't want to. I was just exhausted at the end of the day, and come to find out later, that was, it hadn't even occurred to me that that was something that was expected of your off time to go and do that.

491
01:05:43.760 --> 01:05:53.769
John Marble: Since then I've discovered that a lot of people kind of go through that exact sort of difficulty at work, but also the the

492
01:05:53.820 --> 01:06:01.629
John Marble: socialization part at work. I one of the things that we do with our students.

493
01:06:02.130 --> 01:06:24.599
John Marble: besides getting them to accept and understand and appreciate who they are as autistic people, including how they socialize as autistic people, is trying to just demystify more the neurotypical workplace socialization, and have them understand that not so that they could change who they are. But to say

494
01:06:24.780 --> 01:06:53.439
John Marble: this is often what is happening, this hidden curriculum of the workplace through socialization. We don't want you to change who you are, but we want you to at least understand where maybe neurotypical people are coming from. And if you want to explore a bit in that world, that's fine. But if you want to find other ways to communicate that you're doing the job, that is fine as well. It's kind of one of those deeper subjects that I think a lot about.

495
01:06:53.810 --> 01:06:55.490
John Marble: And I've actually

496
01:06:55.670 --> 01:07:16.269
John Marble: focused on when I also go in and train companies on how to support their neurodivergent employees is kind of focusing on that end of saying, let's talk about this socialization. Because maybe if it's a neurotypical audience might not be aware of actually how you're using socialization and the workplace. And maybe there's some other ways

497
01:07:16.607 --> 01:07:26.739
John Marble: that you can engage with autistic people. And I've actually found a pretty good reception to that when I talk to people that there's a lot of unawareness of like

498
01:07:26.740 --> 01:07:40.180
John Marble: "Oh, I didn't realize that I socialized differently than maybe somebody with Adhd or autism." So that's at least been a glimmer of hope for me in working with employees at companies.

499
01:07:42.570 --> 01:07:43.105
Maxfield: Excellent

500
01:07:45.670 --> 01:07:46.960
Maxfield: Sujit.

501
01:07:48.471 --> 01:07:56.650
Maxfield: Are you working now? And if so, what does that work look like for you? What supports were available to help you get the kind of work you do?

502
01:07:57.500 --> 01:08:13.210
Sujit Kurup: In the 2 jobs at ICI and AutCom, I work in the situation as favorable for me as there were conversations with issues I had, like motor planning and dyslexia, and to my method of communication I use.

503
01:08:13.810 --> 01:08:25.279
Sujit Kurup: such understanding and supports are so difficult to find, and few and far between, and maybe the reason to find jobs that welcomes people like me in their organization.

504
01:08:29.890 --> 01:08:31.829
Maxfield: Thank you. Thank you.

505
01:08:34.250 --> 01:08:35.979
Maxfield: Raesin.

506
01:08:38.260 --> 01:08:41.490
Maxfield: Every workplace has its own accepted culture.

507
01:08:41.600 --> 01:08:48.538
Maxfield: What has it been like for you, navigating the social demands and expectations? Is there anything that would make that easier for you?

508
01:08:51.740 --> 01:08:54.020
Raesin Caine (she/her): Oh, you know.

509
01:08:56.680 --> 01:08:57.947
Raesin Caine (she/her): I can hang.

510
01:08:58.479 --> 01:09:02.099
Raesin Caine (she/her): It's just that I don't always want to, or I don't always

511
01:09:02.470 --> 01:09:14.239
Raesin Caine (she/her): want to do it in the way that's being proposed. I don't want to go to Happy Hour. I don't ever want to go to Happy Hour. I don't. I don't like pub noise. It's it's it's intolerable for me. I don't like drunk.

512
01:09:14.300 --> 01:09:15.641
Raesin Caine (she/her): I don't. I don't like

513
01:09:15.979 --> 01:09:19.271
Raesin Caine (she/her): being around people who are intoxicated.

514
01:09:20.510 --> 01:09:33.190
Raesin Caine (she/her): And I don't understand the the emphasis on certain types of social interactions for team building. I don't think that's necessary. I I don't always think that's necessary. And

515
01:09:33.250 --> 01:09:35.650
Raesin Caine (she/her): I have found that

516
01:09:37.290 --> 01:10:01.130
Raesin Caine (she/her): it's it's almost. It's it's been kind of an offensive where people I've been invisible people to people for years until they find out something like, I remember, I told somebody I like journey, and all of a sudden I'm worth talking to, and I'm like, Are you kidding? That's what it took? Like you don't like my work products. But I like journey. And now we're now we're friends? Like that's that's kind of that's kind of ridiculous. But okay, whatever it takes, I guess. But

517
01:10:03.750 --> 01:10:10.220
Raesin Caine (she/her): I don't understand why, just being good at your job and being diligent and being reliable isn't

518
01:10:10.600 --> 01:10:18.720
Raesin Caine (she/her): enough for people to bother with you in a way that's be. That is beyond like, what what can you do for me? You know.

519
01:10:20.500 --> 01:10:24.709
Raesin Caine (she/her): I would love for it to be easier

520
01:10:24.750 --> 01:10:31.169
Raesin Caine (she/her): for people to decline politely, and that be respected like, if somebody doesn't want to go, don't keep asking them,

521
01:10:31.634 --> 01:10:39.325
Raesin Caine (she/her): don't pull them into the the relay race for team building. If they don't want to do it.

522
01:10:41.720 --> 01:10:42.600
Raesin Caine (she/her): I

523
01:10:43.190 --> 01:10:50.489
Raesin Caine (she/her): I don't know. Let's see. I've had trouble with work in in some in some work places where I'm just. I have

524
01:10:50.620 --> 01:10:51.280
Raesin Caine (she/her): oops.

525
01:10:51.480 --> 01:11:01.950
Raesin Caine (she/her): a a number of identities that people just aren't familiar with, like I might be the only black person on staff. I might be the only queer person on staff. I might be the only autistic person on staff, or like all 3 of them

526
01:11:02.428 --> 01:11:14.132
Raesin Caine (she/her): together. People really don't know what to do with me. And it's only through like something like forced travel. And they realize, like, Wow, I'm not that different from them that they can actually talk to me.

527
01:11:15.020 --> 01:11:23.792
Raesin Caine (she/her): it's just kinda sad. The barriers that people put in the way of getting to know somebody just because they present or seem different from them.

528
01:11:26.140 --> 01:11:47.950
Raesin Caine (she/her): my current job, I work from home, and they they do a really nice job of of making sure people get to know each other through optional hangouts, you know, and I like that like I could go if I feel like it. I don't have to go. It's sufficient where I feel like I know my coworkers, and I care about them like deeply, you know. And

529
01:11:48.412 --> 01:11:56.159
Raesin Caine (she/her): I I just like the way that it's structured. And it's also like the rule is, you can't talk about work. It's really just

530
01:11:56.410 --> 01:12:01.440
Raesin Caine (she/her): a little hangout, and you can learn about, you know, people's pets, or what they're into. And

531
01:12:01.950 --> 01:12:05.800
Raesin Caine (she/her): I do. I do like that. I think that works well.

532
01:12:06.420 --> 01:12:10.130
Raesin Caine (she/her): and is that everything? I'm looking down at the notes I took.

533
01:12:14.500 --> 01:12:17.320
Raesin Caine (she/her): I think. Let's see.

534
01:12:17.810 --> 01:12:18.910
Raesin Caine (she/her): Yeah.

535
01:12:19.180 --> 01:12:35.280
Raesin Caine (she/her): yeah, Sujit just put in the chat that he agrees with me. Why, why, drinking beer, other other drinks together are the only way of socializing and team building totally. I also think that that's not a great choice, because some people are trying to maintain their sobriety. And you know, if if

536
01:12:35.930 --> 01:12:39.690
Raesin Caine (she/her): they don't want to be around drinks, that shouldn't be a penalty against them.

537
01:12:42.680 --> 01:12:44.351
Raesin Caine (she/her): thanks, Nick, for coming

538
01:12:45.590 --> 01:12:46.869
Raesin Caine (she/her): I think that's

539
01:12:48.270 --> 01:12:49.950
Raesin Caine (she/her): I think that's everything.

540
01:12:50.270 --> 01:12:51.660
Raesin Caine (she/her): Thanks for the question.

541
01:12:52.020 --> 01:12:53.020
Maxfield: Thank you.

542
01:12:53.260 --> 01:13:00.250
Maxfield: And yeah, it's it's ironic that you talk about team building activities. To me, I always feel the most like

543
01:13:00.870 --> 01:13:07.290
Maxfield: like a team is being built when we're solving problems together, like actually working as a team is what builds a team.

544
01:13:07.920 --> 01:13:08.680
Raesin Caine (she/her): Yeah.

545
01:13:09.400 --> 01:13:10.270
Raesin Caine (she/her): yeah, and.

546
01:13:10.890 --> 01:13:22.210
Maxfield: And happy hour. The only good thing about happy hour is the free food. There was a time when I would go to Happy hour with headphones on. Get the food and some juice, and sit in the corner doing crossword puzzles with the free food.

547
01:13:22.850 --> 01:13:26.220
Maxfield: That's what happy hour's for is free little tacos.

548
01:13:27.450 --> 01:13:28.250
Maxfield: Okay, so.

549
01:13:28.250 --> 01:13:35.349
Raesin Caine (she/her): One more thing actually since you brought that up. I I had a job where I worked for a chem lab, and everybody was

550
01:13:35.390 --> 01:13:57.999
Raesin Caine (she/her): kind of the stereotypical nerdy scientist, and we would get together, maybe for the holidays at work we'd have like a potluck. We'd all have our food. Everybody would take up, make a plate and then go go back to their cube. But you know, and it was fine, you know, you know, there might be just like an agreement about wow. This this sauce is really good or something like that. And and nobody was trying to make sure

551
01:13:58.000 --> 01:14:06.899
Raesin Caine (she/her): anything in particular happened. It was free form we cared about each other. There were, there were rivalries and stuff, and that was all part of the workplace. And it was okay.

552
01:14:07.220 --> 01:14:13.509
Raesin Caine (she/her): and just being nerdy and problem solving on on actual work tasks like you, said Max. Like that. That would that.

553
01:14:13.660 --> 01:14:15.399
Raesin Caine (she/her): That's how we got to know each other.

554
01:14:18.940 --> 01:14:19.850
Maxfield: Thank you.

555
01:14:21.320 --> 01:14:22.370
Maxfield: Margaux.

556
01:14:24.000 --> 01:14:31.980
Maxfield: Same question as I asked, John, do you have any problems navigating the social demands placed on you as an entrepreneur?

557
01:14:33.810 --> 01:14:35.000
Maxfield: You're muted.

558
01:14:35.350 --> 01:14:37.579
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I do. I get a lot of

559
01:14:37.950 --> 01:14:56.234
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): questions and interactions, and I do my best to dedicate my time to that, however, I would say that the most socially demanding is, when a video goes viral, and all the trolls come out and say the worst possible things you could imagine

560
01:14:56.720 --> 01:14:58.760
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): about my business.

561
01:14:59.367 --> 01:15:10.489
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): So that is unfortunate, which means I have to a lot of the time turn off the comments I have to ban words. I have to ban people.

562
01:15:11.155 --> 01:15:25.939
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): There was one day where I swear I went, and I blocked like 50 people because my video went so my reels go very viral on Instagram and Facebook. And one time I had something go viral on TikTok that got like 1.2 million views. And so

563
01:15:27.686 --> 01:15:35.140
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): it's very demanding. A lot of people say just ignore it, but it's kind of hard to ignore it when it's a literal barrage of like

564
01:15:35.970 --> 01:15:39.570
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): all these comments of people that

565
01:15:39.740 --> 01:15:46.069
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): just don't understand why somebody would wear a PIN that

566
01:15:46.370 --> 01:15:57.239
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): talks about, you know, their pronouns or their pride flags or their access needs or their various identities. And I always say to people, you know, when I have the chance,

567
01:15:58.790 --> 01:16:17.719
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): If if you don't understand the purpose of something, then chances are it's probably not for you. Like I say, I use this analogy that you know when we walk into a grocery store I'm a vegetarian, but I don't go in the meat section and get mad at it. I just avoid that section right? Like I will go

568
01:16:17.860 --> 01:16:29.079
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): find the stuff I like, but they people are not gonna stand in front of a product and start complaining like to the product, basically, you know. And so

569
01:16:29.380 --> 01:16:32.040
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I think the social demands become

570
01:16:32.200 --> 01:16:41.069
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): a lot when it starts to lead to Burnout, and, fortunately enough, I do have a counselor who I meet with weekly, and it helps me to kind of

571
01:16:41.914 --> 01:16:45.635
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): debrief my week. And I

572
01:16:46.670 --> 01:16:53.149
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I think it's really important, especially as neurodivergent people that we have an outlet for,

573
01:16:53.210 --> 01:17:00.820
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): you know, venting our frustrations because it can be a lot to have to kind of harbor all of this.

574
01:17:01.220 --> 01:17:18.760
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): Well, basically, I become a sponge, right? So I start to absorb all that negativity. And it's just really unhealthy for me. So I try really hard to focus on people who do benefit from my products. And I think, having people be very positive, especially on my Facebook page,

575
01:17:18.760 --> 01:17:43.269
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): has been really nice. I think it's also important to make sure that you're setting up rules. So I have a list of essentially rules for my page, and if somebody, you know, tells me to just ignore it, I'll send them to the rules and say, you know, like telling somebody to ignore something can come off is very dismissive, and I think it's important for us to acknowledge what is bothering us. Get that feedback and allow ourselves to move on from it, and whatever

576
01:17:43.270 --> 01:17:57.599
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): time works for us, you know, I don't think it's fair to determine how somebody is going to process negativity or process that, because I'm sure we've all faced that where we know that we're helping people through our work,

577
01:17:57.600 --> 01:18:09.358
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): but that just a few of those naysayers can really kind of like put us back, especially somebody like me who has negativity bias just due to my upbringing and stuff like that. It can be really hard. But

578
01:18:09.870 --> 01:18:35.090
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): at the end of the day, when somebody tells me that they have worn like one of my "please be patient with me," or autistic pins, or "please communicate directly" pins, etc, through the airport, or something like that, or at a convention, or at a con, or they wore a pronoun pin and help them have better interactions with people. Then at the end of the day, you know, that's what I need to focus on

579
01:18:35.507 --> 01:18:44.870
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): moving forward. But you know it can. It can be hard when you get that feedback that's not nice. And to kind of

580
01:18:45.320 --> 01:18:48.019
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): not allow ourselves to be

581
01:18:48.380 --> 01:18:53.420
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): taken down by that, especially when we're doing work that helps to serve our communities.

582
01:18:54.900 --> 01:18:59.299
Maxfield: Absolutely. And I have seen those attacks. There are some people that just

583
01:18:59.390 --> 01:19:03.509
Maxfield: want to go around tearing things down. I think they just feel so bad about

584
01:19:03.580 --> 01:19:05.140
Maxfield: their own lives. That

585
01:19:05.410 --> 01:19:06.190
Maxfield: but

586
01:19:06.360 --> 01:19:20.150
Maxfield: the effect is is is horrifying, and I know that I've had to deal with a lot of those similar attacks. And there's a Winston Churchill quote that I turned to. He said "Do you have enemies?

587
01:19:20.230 --> 01:19:24.540
Maxfield: Good? That means you've stood up for something sometime in your life."

588
01:19:25.070 --> 01:19:28.570
Maxfield: and and I carry that that quote close to my heart, because.

589
01:19:28.570 --> 01:19:33.260
James G. Burke: I deal with anxiety that causes dizziness, not a complete nightmare.

590
01:19:33.820 --> 01:19:47.469
Maxfield: Yeah. Yeah. And when people start tearing me down, I remind myself they're doing that because I'm doing good things in the world. And the same goes for you. You are. You are doing good things. I wear your patches and pins. I love them.

591
01:19:47.780 --> 01:19:49.930
Maxfield: So. Yeah, just

592
01:19:49.960 --> 01:19:51.420
Maxfield: remember that that

593
01:19:53.500 --> 01:19:59.769
Maxfield: while I wish those people didn't act that way. That's a sign that you're actually, that's a sign you're on the right path.

594
01:19:59.920 --> 01:20:00.490
Maxfield: It really.

595
01:20:00.490 --> 01:20:12.660
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): Thank you. I appreciate that. It's especially it's really funny when they're like I don't care. And I'm thinking. But you took the time to literally leave me a comment that says you don't care. So you must care. So yeah, I that's a great quote.

596
01:20:16.210 --> 01:20:18.662
Maxfield: Jamie. I have

597
01:20:20.740 --> 01:20:23.790
Maxfield: the question that I asked Raesin. Every workplace has its own

598
01:20:23.790 --> 01:20:26.590
James G. Burke: I think something about navigating the social demands of a job.

599
01:20:26.990 --> 01:20:27.550
Maxfield: Yes.

600
01:20:27.550 --> 01:20:29.999
James G. Burke: And he's talking about navigating the social demands of a job.

601
01:20:30.930 --> 01:20:31.620
Maxfield: Yes.

602
01:20:31.740 --> 01:20:32.580
Maxfield: absolutely.

603
01:20:32.580 --> 01:20:34.410
James G. Burke: Navigating the social demands for myself

604
01:20:34.970 --> 01:20:39.910
James G. Burke: means that I have learned subdue head movement and vocalizing and needing to have books with me.

605
01:20:40.110 --> 01:20:48.370
James G. Burke: Those were some of the stims I did. It was a hard thing to know that I was simply realizing success at what I was doing that helped my anxiety to quiet.

606
01:20:48.640 --> 01:20:59.729
James G. Burke: however, people find it was a curious and strange thing to do. I do not need to do those much now at all, but it is helpful to now have the ability to do presentations in the online era.

607
01:21:03.090 --> 01:21:04.190
Maxfield: Excellent.

608
01:21:06.200 --> 01:21:10.599
Maxfield: We are cycling back around to John.

609
01:21:11.010 --> 01:21:21.050
Maxfield: How can autistic people use their talents and abilities to start their business and advocate for supportive government regulations on any level?

610
01:21:22.326 --> 01:21:23.280
John Marble: I'm having

611
01:21:24.100 --> 01:21:25.800
John Marble: a a bit of

612
01:21:26.620 --> 01:21:29.470
John Marble: sorry I wasn't prepared for that question. Have a bit of a hard.

613
01:21:29.470 --> 01:21:30.270
Maxfield: That's it.

614
01:21:30.780 --> 01:21:32.153
Maxfield: That's okay.

615
01:21:32.920 --> 01:21:46.410
Maxfield: how about how about the the question about AI. How do you think advances in AI and other assistive technologies will affect the ability of autistic individuals to succeed in their own businesses?

616
01:21:47.980 --> 01:21:48.920
Maxfield: And if you're not prepared.

617
01:21:49.210 --> 01:21:50.660
John Marble: Yeah. Well, first of all.

618
01:21:51.580 --> 01:21:52.270
Maxfield: Ok go ahead.

619
01:21:52.270 --> 01:21:54.059
John Marble: Glad that that

620
01:21:54.380 --> 01:21:57.390
John Marble: Raesin raised the

621
01:21:57.500 --> 01:22:15.699
John Marble: frustration that a lot of people have, including my students, with the application tracking systems. I wish that we could spend all the time that we use with our students on those to talk about other things. So definitely detrimental parts of AI. But

622
01:22:16.940 --> 01:22:23.239
John Marble: I think that there is something there for the autistic brain that

623
01:22:24.060 --> 01:22:45.800
John Marble: there's a potential with AI for us to really start using it to figure out the accommodations that we need. Whether it's things such as you know, I use chat GPT figuring out how to use chat GPT as an accommodation. I'm I'm ha gonna have a hard time vocalizing that right now, but I've used it as such an accommodation cognitively for myself.

624
01:22:45.920 --> 01:22:57.519
John Marble: I also think that there is a bit of a curiosity in the AI space that's a little bit different than the tech space that I've seen in that

625
01:22:57.520 --> 01:23:16.790
John Marble: traditionally, people who build tech for us build it on a lot of assumptions about us, and they waste a lot of money building products without actually asking us whether or not it's helpful. I think, because of the way that large language models operate in the AI operates,

626
01:23:16.790 --> 01:23:43.289
John Marble: I've started to see people who work on AI products, especially startups be very concerned about how well it's functioning. And so I think it's coming that I don't know what it looks like just yet, but I do see larger autistic as well as disability, participation and hopefully profit and building these things that can actually benefit us.

627
01:23:48.260 --> 01:23:49.090
Maxfield: That's.

628
01:23:49.210 --> 01:23:50.790
Maxfield: Excellent!

629
01:23:52.760 --> 01:23:57.069
Maxfield: we're we are down to the last couple of questions. So

630
01:23:58.000 --> 01:23:58.950
Maxfield: um

631
01:24:01.770 --> 01:24:12.404
Maxfield: Rae Raesin, since you already talked about AI, you can say more if you want to, but I think for your last question:

632
01:24:13.470 --> 01:24:32.569
Maxfield: sometimes workplaces have unacceptable interactions. Have you ever experienced bullying, sexual harassment, exploitation, or other unfair treatment in the workplace that you can talk about today? And if so, do you think being autistic was a factor in how people treated you? And also,

633
01:24:32.990 --> 01:24:41.030
Maxfield: you probably don't want to name any company names, because this is being recorded, and and protect your your career.

634
01:24:41.160 --> 01:24:44.269
Maxfield: When you, when you think about how you respond to this.

635
01:24:44.900 --> 01:24:51.755
Raesin Caine (she/her): I appreciate your consideration with that, cause yes, that's true. I I I'm trying to be careful with how I answer all these questions.

636
01:24:52.600 --> 01:24:55.619
Raesin Caine (she/her): definitely have. I mean, I'm a black, queer,

637
01:24:56.310 --> 01:24:58.880
Raesin Caine (she/her): autistic female, so I've dealt with

638
01:24:59.380 --> 01:25:01.316
Raesin Caine (she/her): oh, so many things.

639
01:25:02.610 --> 01:25:03.730
Raesin Caine (she/her): I the

640
01:25:05.220 --> 01:25:07.786
Raesin Caine (she/her): I don't even know where to start with that. I I

641
01:25:09.180 --> 01:25:14.767
Raesin Caine (she/her): you know I had a I had a whole answer for this, and I think just thinking about it like scrambled, scrambled everything.

642
01:25:15.690 --> 01:25:17.120
Raesin Caine (she/her): I

643
01:25:17.500 --> 01:25:22.880
Raesin Caine (she/her): I'll talk about just being autistic on the job and and what that that can mean. And for me it it

644
01:25:23.860 --> 01:25:50.630
Raesin Caine (she/her): has meant it has turned into exploitation a little bit. You know these are paid. Most of them are paid gigs, but what it can look like is somebody comes to me and says, "Hey, we have this new thing. Do you? Do you wanna learn that we think you'd be good at learning this?" Okay, great. I learned it. I I get good at it. Now I'm suddenly this, the subject matter expert on it. Nobody else can do it. I get all the tasks related to that,

645
01:25:52.180 --> 01:26:05.130
Raesin Caine (she/her): and no reduction of other tasks. And then there's a like a mountain of stuff that I'm being asked to do, and that's where, when I was talking earlier about familiarity with the workload and what's being asked of me. It can be

646
01:26:06.960 --> 01:26:11.680
Raesin Caine (she/her): just a lot for one person, and it's gotten in in the past for me,

647
01:26:12.030 --> 01:26:16.220
Raesin Caine (she/her): Oh, positions have been eliminated because it's like, "Oh, well, you've you've got it!

648
01:26:16.740 --> 01:26:26.810
Raesin Caine (she/her): you know, these other people like we, we're we've. We've reallocated the money from these positions and we're gonna use it for this. Now, just just take on the workload." Okay, great. Well, now, I'm getting burned out.

649
01:26:27.600 --> 01:26:42.879
Raesin Caine (she/her): and I'm letting people know like, "Hey, this is, this is a lot." And they're like, "Yeah, we're sorry we're we're we're sorry. But you know you're doing great." Okay. Great. Well, I'm I. I'm doing good work. But this is

650
01:26:43.220 --> 01:26:55.240
Raesin Caine (she/her): a lot for me, and it seems like you're not listening. And people, I think, because I'm not a huge complainer. I don't throw fits like, I'm not even talk. I'm just talking about like seeing bad behavior in the workplace

651
01:26:55.480 --> 01:26:57.370
Raesin Caine (she/her): by everybody. Just

652
01:26:57.400 --> 01:27:09.699
Raesin Caine (she/her): I'm not. I'm not particularly vocal, you know, and I'm I'm I'm so responsible that I'm not gonna let things go down in flames while I'm there, cause I don't want to see that happen, and that's how

653
01:27:10.330 --> 01:27:12.746
Raesin Caine (she/her): I end up in this

654
01:27:13.320 --> 01:27:16.339
Raesin Caine (she/her): situation where I'm trying to keep

655
01:27:16.820 --> 01:27:21.550
Raesin Caine (she/her): an unreasonable amount of stuff afloat at the expense of my

656
01:27:23.470 --> 01:27:27.060
Raesin Caine (she/her): my wellbeing, you know, and

657
01:27:28.140 --> 01:27:29.800
Raesin Caine (she/her): days off are

658
01:27:30.040 --> 01:27:35.490
Raesin Caine (she/her): don't feel like an option, because then, you know, now you're even more behind, and then, rather than

659
01:27:36.620 --> 01:27:40.083
Raesin Caine (she/her): sorry. This is. This is a hard topic for me to talk about.

660
01:27:40.500 --> 01:27:55.909
Raesin Caine (she/her): rather than adjustments be made for me. It's just like, well, you're behind now. It's like, what? Unrealistic expectations. I'm not even speaking coherent sentence any sentences anymore. I'm I'm sorry. Yeah, thanks, Sujit.

661
01:27:57.280 --> 01:27:59.890
Raesin Caine (she/her): So that's what it can look like. And it's happened

662
01:27:59.930 --> 01:28:21.079
Raesin Caine (she/her): in multiple places. And it's happened even in volunteer work, where somebody wants to try something out. I do a great job with it, and then they decide that they want me to do it 100 more times. It's like, okay, well, why is this research assistant getting paid? And I'm not getting paid? Like at this point this is gone beyond, like what a volunteer should do. And this should be

663
01:28:21.452 --> 01:28:31.689
Raesin Caine (she/her): like a research position or something like, can you even kick me minimum wage? Like I could make, you know, like chicken tenders or something for for more than what you're trying to give me.

664
01:28:31.870 --> 01:28:34.237
Raesin Caine (she/her): And it's just

665
01:28:35.250 --> 01:28:41.969
Raesin Caine (she/her): It's not good. And I I I feel like this is something that can happen to a lot of us. So

666
01:28:42.200 --> 01:28:45.989
Raesin Caine (she/her): and saying, no doesn't always work. And sometimes you gotta just get up out of there.

667
01:28:46.420 --> 01:28:48.620
Raesin Caine (she/her): Sorry, there was my rambling answer.

668
01:28:48.670 --> 01:28:49.809
Raesin Caine (she/her): Thanks for listening.

669
01:28:50.800 --> 01:29:03.079
Maxfield: No apologies, and if you saw what looked like laughing, that was me going. "Oh, my God! That sounds like a manager I had, and what they did!" I I understand that getting piled on and not listen to I I

670
01:29:03.640 --> 01:29:13.180
Maxfield: I I started telling people when I'd say, You know, this, this is more work than I can do, and they're like. "But you're doing it!" I would say "But this is not sustainable," and.

671
01:29:13.180 --> 01:29:15.209
Raesin Caine (she/her): Right? Exactly. That's yeah.

672
01:29:15.820 --> 01:29:19.689
Maxfield: And if they won't listen to that, then then you're right. You kinda you you gotta

673
01:29:20.070 --> 01:29:24.019
Maxfield: pull out the the the ads and look for another job. Then.

674
01:29:24.200 --> 01:29:24.850
Raesin Caine (she/her): Yeah.

675
01:29:25.060 --> 01:29:28.504
Maxfield: And yeah, thank you. I know that is a hard thing to talk about.

676
01:29:29.450 --> 01:29:31.220
Maxfield: I appreciate that. Thanks.

677
01:29:31.220 --> 01:29:36.000
Raesin Caine (she/her): Thanks and thanks for all the support in the chat. I haven't even read at all. But I I I appreciate it.

678
01:29:36.400 --> 01:29:42.789
Maxfield: Oh, yeah, I I like to the person who said, reallocate. They should reallocate that money to you. And I agree. I agree.

679
01:29:42.900 --> 01:29:46.629
Maxfield: Yeah, you've you've freed up this money. Well, then, you're the one that should get it.

680
01:29:46.630 --> 01:29:47.810
Raesin Caine (she/her): Thanks a lot.

681
01:29:50.750 --> 01:29:51.400
Maxfield: Margaux.

682
01:29:52.780 --> 01:30:00.779
Maxfield: I, since we're on our last round of questions, there's 2 questions left, and I will let you choose.

683
01:30:01.470 --> 01:30:12.780
Maxfield: You've heard them both. But I'll repeat them both. One is, how can autistic people use their talents and abilities to start their business and advocate for supportive government regulations on any level?

684
01:30:12.860 --> 01:30:25.129
Maxfield: and the other one is: how do you think advances in AI and other assistive technologies will affect the ability of autistic individuals to succeed in their own business? You can answer whichever.

685
01:30:25.800 --> 01:30:48.359
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): Yeah, speak to the first one. So I would highly recommend finding a nonprofit in your area that may align with the values that you have. So, for instance, like BC People First, has given me the opportunity to go to like provincial budget meetings with our provincial government. I've been able to speak at rallies.

686
01:30:49.126 --> 01:31:12.703
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I was able to speak at Ottawa for the Disability Without Poverty rally for something called Bill C. 22 here where we're. It's the Disability Benefits Bill, where we're actively trying to get the Government to give additional funding to anybody receiving disability, whether it's provincial or Federal. I would definitely say, that's a great place to start.

687
01:31:13.140 --> 01:31:26.051
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): you know, I'm somebody that's very comfortable with public speaking and getting up in front of a crowd, and, you know, commanding my audience, I absolutely love public speaking like sometimes more than breathing. I swear.

688
01:31:26.480 --> 01:31:46.040
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): And I think that you know, maybe be becoming more comfortable with that. If you're able to find ways like, I know, there's toastmasters even just making content online is a really great way to kind of get your voice out there. And utilizing any audience that you may have already

689
01:31:46.958 --> 01:31:56.130
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): been able to establish. For your own, for you know, for actively getting people to come together and fight for different causes.

690
01:31:56.200 --> 01:31:57.280
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I

691
01:31:57.540 --> 01:32:01.110
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): will continue to do the work with the nonprofit that I'm part of

692
01:32:01.130 --> 01:32:18.369
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): you know, I've applied for other nonprofits, but I also think it's really important that you don't burn the candle at both from the both ends and that you ensure that the work that you're doing is really hyper focused. So instead of joining a bunch of nonprofits, which I was part of another one at 1 point,

693
01:32:18.410 --> 01:32:27.450
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): focus on something that really speaks to you. And I know there's People First of Canada. I know that there's other People First, organizations as well.

694
01:32:27.510 --> 01:32:30.179
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): and I don't necessarily agree with you know,

695
01:32:30.220 --> 01:32:38.720
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): people like person first versus identity first, I prefer identity first, but we've really come to respect

696
01:32:38.920 --> 01:32:54.900
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): the way that anybody wants to refer to themselves. So definitely doing that because reaching out to the government and trying to get any legislative change is really hard as an individual, but if you have a nonprofit behind you, then

697
01:32:54.990 --> 01:33:03.554
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): it gives you a little bit more credibility, especially having a title. So if you're able to run for a board position and put in those volunteer hours.

698
01:33:04.220 --> 01:33:18.299
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): It is so rewarding, and not only that, but you will find a community of people who are like minded. And if it wasn't for all the people there that I I work with and do amazing events with, you know.

699
01:33:18.300 --> 01:33:40.360
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I would probably feel pretty lonely, and I would probably feel a little bit defeated in fighting for these causes, and not having people who are aligned with my values. So definitely look for a nonprofit, definitely get involved if you're able to. And you know, even if you're not involved with them immediately, you know, joining as a member, going to events, and volunteering your time.

700
01:33:40.640 --> 01:33:43.640
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): Then you can see if it's really something that's for you. But

701
01:33:44.000 --> 01:33:55.800
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): it's been really the only volunteer work where it for me, where I really wanted to do it. And it doesn't feel like I'm volunteering. So I think that's also the key is to really find something you're passionate about.

702
01:33:55.890 --> 01:34:06.853
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): and putting your time, because you know that helping other people will also help you. And it just it's given my life a very

703
01:34:07.940 --> 01:34:11.120
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): It's given me additional value as a person, for sure.

704
01:34:16.400 --> 01:34:18.449
Maxfield: That is an excellent answer.

705
01:34:19.340 --> 01:34:30.110
Maxfield: And yeah, as as a member of the AutCom board, I've experienced exactly what you're talking about, I I put in the time at to help AutCom succeed, and that

706
01:34:30.620 --> 01:34:35.310
Maxfield: gives me a little that little extra credibility that I'm a board member

707
01:34:35.610 --> 01:34:37.080
Maxfield: at AutCom it.

708
01:34:38.410 --> 01:34:47.289
Maxfield: Yeah, that volunt I think you called it laser focus on on the the volunteer work. That is, that can really help a career,

709
01:34:47.740 --> 01:34:52.330
Maxfield: absolutely as well as as well as helping an organization that you believe in.

710
01:34:52.800 --> 01:34:53.910
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): Absolutely.

711
01:34:55.670 --> 01:34:57.199
Maxfield: And, Jamie.

712
01:34:57.780 --> 01:35:09.450
Maxfield: you get to choose between the question that Sujit answered earlier about AI, or the question that Raesin answered about unacceptable workplace

713
01:35:09.530 --> 01:35:11.050
Maxfield: experiences.

714
01:35:11.080 --> 01:35:13.280
Maxfield: which would you like to address?

715
01:35:13.280 --> 01:35:21.340
James G. Burke: Based on your experience. What would you tell other autistics and those who may support them about how best to approach employment and career development.

716
01:35:22.240 --> 01:35:24.220
Maxfield: That's a good question. Do that one.

717
01:35:25.540 --> 01:35:34.580
James G. Burke: A somewhat difficult question from my perspective. For people who communicate with typing the typing, the issue of finding and keeping a good support communication person is paramount.

718
01:35:35.730 --> 01:35:37.919
James G. Burke: Knowledge of autism is extremely important

719
01:35:38.050 --> 01:35:41.090
James G. Burke: as well as sensory regulation, movement and motor planning.

720
01:35:41.150 --> 01:35:45.379
James G. Burke: That is the scaffold that everything builds and moves forward on for my success.

721
01:35:45.530 --> 01:35:48.500
James G. Burke: People who are in the roles of support must recognize this:

722
01:35:48.730 --> 01:35:50.419
James G. Burke: Their knowledge is my power.

723
01:35:50.930 --> 01:35:53.420
James G. Burke: I feel planning is important in the earlier years,

724
01:35:53.550 --> 01:35:56.919
James G. Burke: but I feel so different now from when I was in college.

725
01:35:57.150 --> 01:36:02.370
James G. Burke: It's a personal choice of observing when the conversation can have passionate, passionate planning,

726
01:36:02.500 --> 01:36:08.340
James G. Burke: and it seems difficult to ascertain the most excellent time to do this because of the anxiety it riles up.

727
01:36:09.180 --> 01:36:10.779
James G. Burke: and thinking about AI,

728
01:36:11.450 --> 01:36:20.160
James G. Burke: Perhaps the passion of developing a language reality of transfer from thoughts to a device that can move around the complicated and difficult muscle patterns for speech

729
01:36:20.930 --> 01:36:25.170
James G. Burke: would be important and exciting for people who do not have reliable speaking.

730
01:36:28.400 --> 01:36:29.250
Maxfield: Thank you.

731
01:36:29.650 --> 01:36:31.125
Maxfield: Thank you. That was excellent.

732
01:36:32.420 --> 01:36:35.030
Maxfield: It is now time for the Q&A.

733
01:36:35.750 --> 01:36:39.739
Maxfield: We have a few great questions, and

734
01:36:40.760 --> 01:36:47.039
Maxfield: I will present them one at a time to the panel, and anyone who feels moved to address

735
01:36:47.220 --> 01:36:48.899
Maxfield: answering that question

736
01:36:49.210 --> 01:36:55.050
Maxfield: can do so. And if nobody feels moved to answer it, then we will move on to the next question.

737
01:36:58.510 --> 01:37:04.850
Lisa Keller: Alright, Matt. Max! The first question is from I don't know. How does I? Is it Mei Kat?

738
01:37:05.898 --> 01:37:07.530
Lisa Keller: How can you improve

739
01:37:07.660 --> 01:37:18.459
Lisa Keller: your interroception. I love it. To judge your energy level? I struggle to tell when I am running low while being productive, and end up, really shut down the next day.

740
01:37:18.830 --> 01:37:24.320
Lisa Keller: Or is it actually actually okay and sustainable to work like that in bursts?

741
01:37:25.850 --> 01:37:34.470
Maxfield: Excellent question, and for people who might not know the word interoception, it's just a fancy way of saying, feeling how you feel inside.

742
01:37:35.170 --> 01:37:38.670
Maxfield: Would would anyone like to address this question.

743
01:37:49.960 --> 01:37:51.587
Raesin Caine (she/her): Yes, I can.

744
01:37:52.410 --> 01:38:00.939
Raesin Caine (she/her): I just have to check in with myself a lot throughout the day. It can. It can be seeing how you're doing mindfulness, practice

745
01:38:02.490 --> 01:38:04.530
Raesin Caine (she/her): or just even building in

746
01:38:05.010 --> 01:38:08.489
Raesin Caine (she/her): breaks to make sure that you

747
01:38:09.210 --> 01:38:16.689
Raesin Caine (she/her): get to recharge a little bit. To me, if if you have a flexible schedule that allows you to

748
01:38:17.045 --> 01:38:27.424
Raesin Caine (she/her): work in bursts, if that's what works best with best for you, I think that's what works best for you. And there's that that there's nothing wrong with that.

749
01:38:28.140 --> 01:38:33.680
Raesin Caine (she/her): I I learned a lot about what I need to do for myself after

750
01:38:33.810 --> 01:38:36.829
Raesin Caine (she/her): I have a brain injury from a car accident and

751
01:38:37.147 --> 01:39:05.979
Raesin Caine (she/her): I work from home. But my, you know, cause I have this brain injury, I have to really make sure that I don't fry all my circuits from coding too long, or whatever, and I have to make sure, because if I'm in a work groove. I can stay in that groove because I wanna finish, and I have to make sure that I snap out of it. Find a good place to stop and snap out of it before you fry every circuit you have. And it's not easy. And it can be.

752
01:39:06.090 --> 01:39:18.430
Raesin Caine (she/her): It might be a habit you have to build in, or even if you set up alarms or kick, you know, slots on your calendar, your your work calendar to make sure that you build that in whatever you need for yourself.

753
01:39:19.550 --> 01:39:27.449
Raesin Caine (she/her): But I think you know what works for you is what works for you, and if you talk to your employers, hopefully, you can figure out something that everybody's happy with.

754
01:39:31.360 --> 01:39:34.809
Lisa Keller: And the next one is: I'm autistic,

755
01:39:35.610 --> 01:39:40.133
Lisa Keller: And after 20 plus years in corporate and nonprofit jobs of increasingly

756
01:39:40.690 --> 01:39:43.860
Lisa Keller: increasing responsibility without the right knowledge,

757
01:39:43.940 --> 01:39:50.339
Lisa Keller: supports, and self-care around autism, I utterly burned out in a scary way and quit my job.

758
01:39:50.820 --> 01:39:58.620
Lisa Keller: As I try to get back into the workforce. I'm not sure I can live up to my resume anymore. I'm in a better position to self advocate now.

759
01:39:58.930 --> 01:40:07.559
Lisa Keller: But still, how can I differentiate between what I can try to do, and what may be an unfair or dangerous self expectation for work.

760
01:40:18.740 --> 01:40:22.730
Maxfield: I'd like to address that one a little bit myself.

761
01:40:23.900 --> 01:40:29.580
Maxfield: I find writing lists of things help me like a list of

762
01:40:32.930 --> 01:40:34.599
Maxfield: things that that

763
01:40:34.860 --> 01:40:37.590
Maxfield: that made everything fall apart

764
01:40:37.780 --> 01:40:41.279
Maxfield: like what? What are, what are the things that?

765
01:40:41.800 --> 01:40:47.589
Maxfield: And sometimes I have to be a detective, I'll say, Oh, well, on this day I just couldn't get out of bed.

766
01:40:47.620 --> 01:41:09.840
Maxfield: And so I'll just start listing all the reasons why I think I I didn't have that energy, and that helps me shape what I can't do. And then I write a list of the things that I love that give me energy, and some of them are work things, and some of them are not work things. And the work things tell me what kind of work I should be doing

767
01:41:09.880 --> 01:41:14.130
Maxfield: and the not work things tell me what kinds of things I should be doing

768
01:41:14.540 --> 01:41:15.590
Maxfield: to feed

769
01:41:15.730 --> 01:41:30.769
Maxfield: my energy levels, to be able to do the kind of work I like. And so just the act of making those lists a lot of times helps me sort out what's going on. It's not like there's more information at the end than there was at the beginning, but it's

770
01:41:31.150 --> 01:41:36.580
Maxfield: in a in a way that I can see it and think about it more clearly when I write it out.

771
01:41:37.490 --> 01:41:40.020
Maxfield: Anybody else wanna talk about this?

772
01:41:43.930 --> 01:41:45.459
Maxfield: or type about this?

773
01:41:47.540 --> 01:41:53.463
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): I think utilizing a calendar is a really great thing as well, along with the list that you were suggesting.

774
01:41:54.231 --> 01:42:16.099
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): You know, I think scheduling time for yourself or allocating specific amounts of time to your work. It's something that I need to do more of, and I just haven't been doing that, and I'm getting to the point of being burnt out. So it's kind of finding a really good balance. And again, for me, you know, having the work balance with,

775
01:42:16.100 --> 01:42:32.080
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): you know, trying to get myself to doing some fitness and also having counseling. I think it's really important to just find that balance where you're looking after, you know, not only your employment situation, but your body and your mind as well.

776
01:42:39.520 --> 01:42:42.159
Lisa Keller: Okay? And then we had one from Olga.

777
01:42:42.220 --> 01:42:46.140
Lisa Keller: Solomon. Is anyone aware of programs that support nonprofit

778
01:42:46.300 --> 01:42:54.240
Lisa Keller: organizations founded and led by autistic individuals, including getting started launching a nonprofit? And Ogla you don't.

779
01:42:54.380 --> 01:42:59.149
Lisa Keller: You don't indicate whether you're in Canada or the United States. So I

780
01:42:59.330 --> 01:43:00.170
Lisa Keller: I think

781
01:43:01.280 --> 01:43:03.599
Lisa Keller: we have to assume it's United States. But

782
01:43:03.720 --> 01:43:05.229
Lisa Keller: maybe that's not the wrong

783
01:43:05.380 --> 01:43:06.360
Lisa Keller: assumption.

784
01:43:06.860 --> 01:43:14.100
Maxfield: Well, and also even in the United States it will vary from state to state. I. I helped someone in Maryland

785
01:43:14.230 --> 01:43:19.482
Maxfield: put together a nonprofit. And the rules were very specific to Maryland.

786
01:43:20.190 --> 01:43:25.649
Maxfield: So that's that's gonna be something that people can only address generally.

787
01:43:26.650 --> 01:43:28.039
Maxfield: In the first place.

788
01:43:30.280 --> 01:43:31.520
Lisa Keller: John, do you think you're

789
01:43:31.600 --> 01:43:34.420
Lisa Keller: up for that? No, okay, that's fine. Thank you.

790
01:43:34.420 --> 01:43:35.900
Maxfield: Quite alright, quite alright.

791
01:43:35.900 --> 01:43:36.570
Lisa Keller: Yeah.

792
01:43:37.300 --> 01:43:37.860
Lisa Keller: Q&A.

793
01:43:37.860 --> 01:43:48.729
Maxfield: Q&A I just want to take a moment to validate that Q&A is hard, and not everybody has the skills for questions on the fly like this, and it's

794
01:43:48.900 --> 01:43:51.309
Maxfield: totally fine if if

795
01:43:51.560 --> 01:44:03.840
Maxfield: you know if you if you don't and and some people have the skills. But a certain question comes in, or just, yeah, there's no shame if you, if we can't answer some of these questions.

796
01:44:06.550 --> 01:44:07.560
Maxfield: that's fine.

797
01:44:08.560 --> 01:44:13.699
Lisa Keller: Alright! Then an anonymous attendee. What ideas do you have to assist individuals

798
01:44:14.080 --> 01:44:23.320
Lisa Keller: who don't speak, but work at supported typing, who have very severe motor planning, and who require great support for activities of daily living?

799
01:44:33.140 --> 01:44:35.930
Lisa Keller: It might be something for Jamie or Sujit.

800
01:44:37.800 --> 01:44:39.730
Maxfield: Also, and it.

801
01:44:40.080 --> 01:44:49.249
Maxfield: if one of them is, is typing, I want to jump back to the last question and point out that Margaux said, a good thing to do is reach out to other nonprofits in your area

802
01:44:49.260 --> 01:44:51.859
Maxfield: and ask them for advice

803
01:44:52.240 --> 01:44:53.930
Maxfield: on on how they did it.

804
01:44:55.160 --> 01:44:55.810
Lisa Keller: Hey!

805
01:44:58.900 --> 01:45:04.329
Maxfield: Jamie or Sujit. Did did you want to type anything in response to

806
01:45:05.880 --> 01:45:08.320
Maxfield: the question about motor planning and?

807
01:45:09.420 --> 01:45:14.440
Lisa Keller: And I I just want to say Todd Woodward, who asked who asked several questions here,

808
01:45:16.830 --> 01:45:18.809
Lisa Keller: suggested that AutCom

809
01:45:18.930 --> 01:45:20.649
Lisa Keller: could post them

810
01:45:21.110 --> 01:45:26.150
Lisa Keller: both the questions and answers on the website, which we could do definitely.

811
01:45:28.490 --> 01:45:32.649
Maxfield: And also I'd like to suggest, if we share those lists with

812
01:45:32.750 --> 01:45:36.620
Maxfield: the panelists and me, then we might have a chance to write.

813
01:45:37.720 --> 01:45:38.900
Maxfield: More answers.

814
01:45:39.060 --> 01:45:41.130
Maxfield: Jamie says he's trying to scroll.

815
01:45:43.860 --> 01:45:46.190
Maxfield: so let's give a little space for.

816
01:45:46.940 --> 01:45:47.490
Lisa Keller: Yeah.

817
01:45:55.380 --> 01:45:57.600
Maxfield: You're muted, Jamie. If you're trying to talk.

818
01:45:58.180 --> 01:45:59.280
James G. Burke: As a person

819
01:45:59.290 --> 01:46:02.250
James G. Burke: who was typing to communicate in college, I always.

820
01:46:07.230 --> 01:46:09.079
James G. Burke: I was always feeling

821
01:46:22.070 --> 01:46:26.430
James G. Burke: in college. I was always feeling under observation, and had a hard time to relax.

822
01:46:45.720 --> 01:46:46.470
Lisa Keller: Okay.

823
01:46:54.970 --> 01:46:55.660
James G. Burke: Sorry.

824
01:46:56.830 --> 01:46:57.730
Maxfield: You're fine.

825
01:46:58.740 --> 01:46:59.750
James G. Burke: I met.

826
01:47:00.720 --> 01:47:02.469
James G. Burke: can't find

827
01:47:03.960 --> 01:47:05.020
James G. Burke: find the

828
01:47:07.300 --> 01:47:08.570
James G. Burke: I can't find.

829
01:47:08.710 --> 01:47:10.130
James G. Burke: Find the message.

830
01:47:10.430 --> 01:47:12.379
James G. Burke: Sorry, I cannot find the message.

831
01:47:15.130 --> 01:47:16.180
Maxfield: And Sujit.

832
01:47:17.080 --> 01:47:27.049
Margaux Wosk (They/Them): Sorry. I just wanted you know that in the Q&A tab at the bottom, I'm answering a few questions that are going into the answered tab. So just letting you know.

833
01:47:28.570 --> 01:47:38.949
Maxfield: Excellent, and I wanted to read out loud what Sujit said, so difficult to answer that question, as that is a tough question. As we are struggling with our situation.

834
01:47:41.460 --> 01:47:43.740
Maxfield: Absolutely. That's fair.

835
01:47:52.630 --> 01:47:54.089
Lisa Keller: So then we have.

836
01:47:55.740 --> 01:47:58.609
Lisa Keller: We have Todd Woodward

837
01:47:59.260 --> 01:48:00.090
Lisa Keller: who

838
01:48:00.420 --> 01:48:18.099
Lisa Keller: has several questions which are great. Many corporations are pushing return to office initiatives, which means it's disproportionately affecting our disability community. How do we fight against RTO initiatives that aren't based on data, performance, productivity and more?

839
01:48:20.440 --> 01:48:21.730
Maxfield: Such a good question.

840
01:48:21.730 --> 01:48:22.340
Lisa Keller: Yeah.

841
01:48:24.490 --> 01:48:35.219
Maxfield: I I know that I share the complaint I've heard from so many people who said for years they asked to be able to work from home, and we're told that was impossible.

842
01:48:35.230 --> 01:48:37.250
Maxfield: And then the pandemic happened,

843
01:48:37.280 --> 01:48:41.040
Maxfield: and suddenly the impossible was ubiquitous.

844
01:48:41.490 --> 01:48:47.460
Maxfield: And now they're trying to take that away, saying that it's it's not effective.

845
01:48:48.100 --> 01:48:49.150
Maxfield: I think.

846
01:48:49.370 --> 01:48:51.349
Maxfield: I think, pointing that out

847
01:48:51.540 --> 01:48:53.070
Maxfield: when when

848
01:48:53.160 --> 01:48:57.670
Maxfield: companies are pushing to go back to the office pointing out, "Hey.

849
01:48:59.060 --> 01:49:05.039
Maxfield: I needed to work from home, and when the pandemic came we all did it, and it worked, and

850
01:49:05.110 --> 01:49:14.110
Maxfield: I know you have the mechanisms in place. Could you please let me continue to work from home, because I will be more efficient and productive."

851
01:49:14.240 --> 01:49:22.213
Maxfield: and present it to them as their bottom line: You will get better work from me. You will get better productivity from me.

852
01:49:22.600 --> 01:49:24.020
Maxfield: because

853
01:49:24.680 --> 01:49:32.080
Maxfield: profit is what speaks to a business, and and so the more you can put it in terms of how it will benefit them

854
01:49:32.090 --> 01:49:35.449
Maxfield: as opposed to how it will benefit you, because

855
01:49:35.540 --> 01:49:38.310
Maxfield: they know it will benefit you. You're asking for it.

856
01:49:38.370 --> 01:49:39.610
Maxfield: and that

857
01:49:40.080 --> 01:49:45.470
Maxfield: companies aren't in the business, most companies aren't in the business of helping people.

858
01:49:45.480 --> 01:49:47.280
Maxfield: so putting it in terms of

859
01:49:47.380 --> 01:49:49.249
Maxfield: why it's better for them

860
01:49:49.390 --> 01:49:51.259
Maxfield: is going to have more impact.

861
01:49:53.480 --> 01:49:58.519
Lisa Keller: And what do we think of 4 day work weeks instead of 5 day work weeks? Anybody?

862
01:50:07.060 --> 01:50:12.909
Maxfield: I think it's great, but I work 7 days a week, and I probably would, even if we had 4 day work weeks.

863
01:50:15.160 --> 01:50:16.030
Lisa Keller: Yeah.

864
01:50:21.470 --> 01:50:22.540
Lisa Keller: okay.

865
01:50:22.990 --> 01:50:29.406
Lisa Keller: well, I think what we should do is save these questions and

866
01:50:30.240 --> 01:50:31.629
Lisa Keller: and answer them.

867
01:50:31.720 --> 01:50:35.559
Lisa Keller: I think we have something called The Communicator.

868
01:50:36.530 --> 01:50:39.430
Lisa Keller: publishes. It's a newsletter that we publish.

869
01:50:40.872 --> 01:50:44.480
Lisa Keller: Quarterly, supposedly. And

870
01:50:44.590 --> 01:50:47.229
Lisa Keller: I think that that might be a good place

871
01:50:47.380 --> 01:50:49.820
Lisa Keller: to put the answers to these questions.

872
01:50:50.688 --> 01:50:55.220
Lisa Keller: But, Max, I'll I'll bow out now, and leave it to you to

873
01:50:56.130 --> 01:50:57.249
Lisa Keller: to do the rest.

874
01:50:59.840 --> 01:51:07.473
Maxfield: First, I would like to to catch up on a couple of other things that were typed in response to these questions.

875
01:51:09.590 --> 01:51:11.139
Maxfield: Sujit said

876
01:51:12.722 --> 01:51:20.779
Maxfield: "About the struggle, our struggles of not finding suitable jobs, giving validity and great understanding to our abilities and possibilities."

877
01:51:22.160 --> 01:51:36.299
Maxfield: and Raisin said, "for the person who asked about interception. This timer can provide a visual queue, though there is a jarring audio alarm option," and you may have to scroll for it, but that should be in the chat everyone can see.

878
01:51:37.020 --> 01:51:44.930
Maxfield: and other than that, I I think it would be awesome if, as many of us as feel moved to

879
01:51:45.070 --> 01:51:48.250
Maxfield: address some of the questions and and it

880
01:51:48.500 --> 01:51:51.160
Maxfield: and it gets put in the communicator

881
01:51:51.270 --> 01:51:53.250
Maxfield: whenever the next one comes out.

882
01:51:53.903 --> 01:52:17.926
Maxfield: That would be wonderful. And also it's absolutely fine if nobody wants to address those questions because you all did a great job here. You helped a lot of people by sharing your experiences and your thoughts, and I am so grateful for the 5 of you, and grateful to AutCom, and grateful to the audience now and in future replays.

883
01:52:18.700 --> 01:52:22.379
Maxfield: Thank you, everybody for coming and being part of this, and

884
01:52:22.470 --> 01:52:25.590
Maxfield: I hope you all have a wonderful day.

885
01:52:27.030 --> 01:52:29.850
Raesin Caine (she/her): Thank you. Thanks for coming. Everybody.

886
01:52:36.650 --> 01:52:38.960
James G. Burke: Thanks everyone. It's always so engaging.

887
01:52:43.840 --> 01:52:45.540
Sujit Kurup: Say thank you. I do.

888
01:52:49.400 --> 01:52:50.860
Alan Kurtz: This was amazing!

889
01:52:51.780 --> 01:52:52.190
Raesin Caine (she/her): Yay!

890
01:52:52.600 --> 01:52:54.379
Alan Kurtz: You guys did an amazing job.

891
01:52:55.750 --> 01:52:57.130
Raesin Caine (she/her): I really enjoyed it.

892
01:53:01.280 --> 01:53:06.709
Raesin Caine (she/her): We had some good questions and good participation in the chat that was awesome.

893
01:53:07.530 --> 01:53:08.690
Raesin Caine (she/her): Put it in here.

894
01:53:10.890 --> 01:53:11.800
Maxfield: Yes.

895
01:53:15.430 --> 01:53:17.769
Alan Kurtz: Very nice job, moderating Max.

896
01:53:18.320 --> 01:53:28.879
Maxfield: Thank you. Thank you to everyone who assisted in me being able to do that, instead of just blowing off to all 4 corners and scattered frustration

897
01:53:29.380 --> 01:53:32.370
Maxfield: that that was much appreciated. Your support.

898
01:53:33.720 --> 01:53:34.500
James G. Burke: We are.

899
01:53:35.920 --> 01:53:37.039
James G. Burke: we are so

900
01:53:37.990 --> 01:53:38.989
James G. Burke: we are. So

901
01:53:41.160 --> 01:53:42.220
James G. Burke: we are so

902
01:53:42.560 --> 01:53:44.319
James G. Burke: we are so interesting.

903
01:53:45.870 --> 01:53:47.240
James G. Burke: interesting in

904
01:53:48.070 --> 01:53:49.590
James G. Burke: interesting in our

905
01:53:51.000 --> 01:53:51.920
James G. Burke: in our

906
01:53:53.380 --> 01:53:54.710
James G. Burke: in our diverse.

907
01:53:56.340 --> 01:53:58.740
James G. Burke: in our diverse paths

908
01:54:02.420 --> 01:54:03.859
James G. Burke: great to share

909
01:54:04.050 --> 01:54:04.870
James G. Burke: our.

910
01:54:11.570 --> 01:54:15.139
Maxfield: I agree. This was this was such a diverse panel.

911
01:54:16.300 --> 01:54:18.569
Maxfield: and that that is one of the strengths

912
01:54:19.170 --> 01:54:21.059
Maxfield: that everyone was coming from

913
01:54:21.080 --> 01:54:22.199
Maxfield: very different

914
01:54:22.620 --> 01:54:25.100
Maxfield: backgrounds and experiences.

915
01:54:37.360 --> 01:54:40.151
Maxfield: So I guess we turn this off now?

916
01:54:41.310 --> 01:54:42.330
Maxfield: I'm not.

917
01:54:42.550 --> 01:54:45.604
Maxfield: I don't have the button, so whoever has the button.

918
01:54:47.180 --> 01:54:48.529
Judy Bailey: I can do that.

919
01:54:50.240 --> 01:54:51.140
Alan Kurtz: Bye everyone!

920
01:54:51.630 --> 01:54:52.990
Maxfield: Button who's got the button

921
01:54:52.990 --> 01:54:55.150
Judy Bailey: It's been great. Yeah, this has been great.

922
01:54:55.720 --> 01:54:56.570
Judy Bailey: wonderful.

923
01:54:56.570 --> 01:54:57.810
James G. Burke: great day folks

924
01:54:58.010 --> 01:54:59.800
James G. Burke: have a great day. Folks.

925
01:55:00.090 --> 01:55:01.447
Judy Bailey: Get your rest.

926
01:55:01.900 --> 01:55:03.050
Raesin Caine (she/her): Thank you.

927
01:55:03.290 --> 01:55:05.599
Sujit Kurup: Thank you. Say thank you. Bye.

928
01:55:05.600 --> 01:55:07.219
Raesin Caine (she/her): I'm totally lingering. I don't want to go.

929
01:55:07.220 --> 01:55:08.600
Sujit Kurup: Oh.

930
01:55:08.600 --> 01:55:09.309
Judy Bailey: I can leave it on if anyone wants to chat

931
01:55:09.310 --> 01:55:10.720
Sujit Kurup: Mm