Pod Insights The Blindboy Podcast How to be Neurodivergent in the Workplace About this episode How to be Neurodivergent in the Workplace. Deal with eccentric behaviour and understand your rights and protections Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript 11,564 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Confidence, it's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear. For nearly 160 years, Pacific Life has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations. Whether you're confident in your financial future or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help. Ask a financial professional how. Pacific Life, the power of a promise. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.
0:34 Speaker 01 This episode is sponsored by Zocdoc. Have you been putting off a doctor's appointment or need a dentist and you don't know where to start? We've definitely been there and that's why we use Zocdoc. Actually, over the holidays, Michael had a dental emergency and seemingly every office was closed. But we hopped onto Zocdoc, found an in-network dentist, had great reviews, saw real-time appointments available, which was key, it was on New Year's Day, and booked an appointment in just minutes. It took so much of the stress out of the already stressful situation. Zocdoc makes it easy to search and compare over 250,000 local in-network providers across more than 200 specialties.
1:17 Speaker 01 So you can find the right doctor or dentist and book instantly. Taking care of your health just got easier. Download the Zocdoc app today and book that appointment on your to-do list. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C, Zocdoc.
1:35 Blindboy Boatclub? Squeal at the jettisoned testicles of the gelded beagle, you weeping sheelas. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. If you're a brand new listener, consider going back to an earlier episode of the podcast to familiarize yourself with the lore of this podcast. And if you're a regular listener, a 10-foot Declan, a steaming Quiva, you know the fucking crack. We are at the Kerryman's End of this heatwave, the longest heatwave in Irish history. The grass, the grass looks embarrassed by the sun. I've been in Spain and Australia where it gets really hot and the grass dries up and turns brown. That's happening here now. I don't think our grass.
2:20 Blindboy Boatclub? I don't think that's meant to happen to our grass, so it's bleaching it. The grass is turning a strange white colour, as if it's in shock. I'm finding myself in the middle of a very bizarre saga at the moment. Concerns my office. So as you know, for nearly the past five years, I have rented out a corporate office. And I come here to work, nine to five, five days a week, like a regular job. I always show up, I'm always on time. This office adds a wonderful amount of structure to my day because my job itself is unstructured and condemned to the freedom of doing whatever the fuck I want.
3:03 Blindboy Boatclub? If I don't motivate myself, nobody else will. So having a space called an office, where the only thing that I do here is work, that's essential, and I love it. One of the best decisions that I ever made. And I've mentioned this before, but one of the things that really inspired me to get this office was the Tibetan Buddhist practice of meditating around rotting corpses. In parts of Tibet, up in the mountains, when people die, they don't bury their bodies. The body is left on the top of a mountain. And vultures literally pick apart the corpse and scatter the body in the valleys. And Buddhist monks then meditate in the valley of rotting corpses so that they can
3:48 Blindboy Boatclub? accept death, so that they can confront and accept their greatest fear, which is death. My greatest fear, as a neurodivergent person, is having to work in an office, having to work in an environment, a bit like school, where I have to perform the mask of being neurotypical all the time as my job. And if I don't do it well, I lose my fucking job. So that's a big reason why I work in a corporate fucking office, as opposed to an artist's studio, or work in close to any type of creative industry. I work in a fucking office, surrounded by accountants and the administrative end of pharmaceutical companies.
4:32 Blindboy Boatclub? A very serious grey environment where people perform their LinkedIn personalities. So I create a little neurodivergent space within all that. Because once the door of my office is closed, I have a space that meets my needs. I can pace up and down, I can flick my fingers, I can wear my comfy clothes. I can create a space that meets my needs in a wider environment that's quite frightening to me. And that, to me, is meditating amongst the corpses, existing beside the thing that I'm afraid of. And when I step outside that door, and I'm in the corridors or the canteen, and I'm in communal spaces,
5:11 Blindboy Boatclub? then I mask, I say hello to people, I have small talk, I wear uncomfortable clothes that are socially acceptable. I dip my toe into just enough of the neurotypical performance that it doesn't burn me out. And when it does feel like it's burning me out, I fuck off back to my office and put on my 3XL tracksuit pants and rub my hands together for two hours, listening to the music of Janet Jackson and thinking about seagulls. But in the five years that I've been here, sometimes my neurodivergence spills out into those communal spaces in the form of eccentric behaviours that I'm not aware of until it's fucking pointed out to me.
5:51 Blindboy Boatclub? So you might have noticed that, if you follow me on Instagram, I shared a fucking, a photograph on my stories last week. I was eating a yoghurt, not with a spoon, but with the lid of my inhaler, of my asthma inhaler. I did this because I have personally caused a shortage of teaspoons in my entire office building. So here's what happened. Like a week ago, the administrators of the office, they sent around an email to everybody. And it was the photograph of an inside of a bin. And in the bin was a yoghurt carton and a teaspoon. And the email was like, over the past several months, we keep finding teaspoons in the bin.
6:35 Blindboy Boatclub? Someone is throwing teaspoons in the fucking bin. This is wildly unacceptable and we're gonna find out who it is. And then I look at the photograph and I go, shit, that was me. That's my yoghurt. I guess I've been throwing teaspoons in the bin. Now, first off, that is unacceptable behaviour. You can't do that. You can't throw teaspoons in the bin repeatedly. And I've obviously done it so much that I have exhausted the entire communal supply of teaspoons. So that's why I'm eating yogurt with the top of my fucking inhaler. And then everyone else has no teaspoons. So tha- that's unacceptable. That'll get you fired because there's not really a rational explanation for it. It looks like someone being a prick. It looks like someone going, ah, free teaspoons. I don't give a shit.
7:20 Blindboy Boatclub? They're not mine. Fuck them. Fuck them into the bin. Fuck your teaspoons. Ha, ha, ha. This is what I do with things that aren't mine. I don't own this and I have no respect for this. So I'm just gonna throw the cutlery into the bin and no one's gonna catch me. That's what it looks like. It's a very difficult one to explain as an adult while you're doing that. Was I aware that I'd been continually throwing my teaspoons into the bin? No. But once it was pointed out, then it like dawns on me like an awakening. It's like, oh, fuck. I guess I have been doing that. So I immediately replied to the email and just said, I'm so fucking sorry. This is me. And I came clean and I said, I'm autistic.
8:02 Blindboy Boatclub? And sometimes I do really, really silly things because I'm an autistic person. And I don't realise I'm doing them. And then I only realise I've done it after it's pointed out. Now, that there is the benefit of having a diagnosis as an autistic person because you can. It means that I can address this incredibly unacceptable and embarrassing behaviour in a way where I am taking accountability, but I don't need to have shame around it. So you can, I can take accountability for that, apologise and try and right the wrong, but without needing to feel ashamed about it. So you're probably wondering, why the fuck you throwing teaspoons into the bin, Brian? Why?
8:46 Blindboy Boatclub? So that's straight up executive dysfunction. Have you ever, have you ever gotten a Kit Kat? Have you ever bought yourself a Kit Kat? Unwrapped the tin foil from the Kit Kat. You've got a chocolate bar in one hand and a tin foil wrapper in the other. And you're distracted by a thought or whatever. So then what do you do? You throw the chocolate into the bin and you hold on to the wrapper and you go, ah, fuck. And it's a funny little story that you have. So I did that when I was eating my yogurt with a teaspoon. I think only on Tuesdays I'd be eating my yogurt with a teaspoon. Utterly focused, like a laser on my work, on my writing, on my research.
9:30 Blindboy Boatclub? Thinking about an idea so intensely that that is my only focus in the whole world. The yogurt eating is an autopilot exercise. Then throwing the yogurt into the bin, because that's what you do. And not noticing that I'm also throwing the fucking teaspoon into the bin with the yogurt. And I did that so many times that I deprived my entire office building of teaspoons. And I ended up eating a yogurt with the top of my inhaler. And so neurodivergent people, autistic, ADHD as well, dyspraxic, dyslexic people. We can struggle with executive functioning skills. The skills to execute tasks correctly.
10:13 Blindboy Boatclub? This is why I focus on mindfulness so much. If I'm consciously eating a yogurt, I eat that yogurt mindfully with all my senses. And I think about it as a meditative act. When that happens, I don't throw the teaspoon into the bin. But if it's a Tuesday and I'm at the final hurdle of the podcast and I'm really thinking hard. Then I'm not eating my yogurt in a meditative, mindful fashion. One facet of executive functioning difficulties is difficulty maintaining attention when you're switching between tasks. Monitoring my own actions, so you become clumsy. That's a bit of a clumsy thing to do. And then inhibiting an automatic response. And this isn't unique. It's not something that's unique to neurodivergent people.
10:56 Blindboy Boatclub? Like I've mentioned, every fucking single one of ye, everybody has thrown the chocolate in the bin and kept the wrapper. We have all done that. For some neurodivergent people, we do it a lot. A metaphor, a good metaphor for it is. If, if you're exporting something on your computer, or maybe downloading a large file, downloading a massive fucking file, your computer starts to get hot, the fan gets loud, and doing any other task on your computer is really difficult because clearly all of the resources are being sent to this one place to export that file or download that file. And if you push too much in the other direction trying to do something else, the computer could crash. That's what happens to me.
11:40 Blindboy Boatclub? If I'm thinking about something, if I'm in flow state, if I'm creating, if I'm like a laser beam, all that cognitive energy is going to one place. The upside of it, it's, it's my creativity, it's my work, my short stories, my music, this podcast. The downside is highly eccentric behaviour that inconveniences other people and then causes embarrassment for me because that's fucking embarrassing. What's the crack? I'm a middle-aged man. I'm a middle-aged man and I've thrown all the teaspoons in the bin. There's no teaspoons in that drawer because I've thrown them all in the bin while I was eating yoghurt. And I've spent my life doing utterly mad shit like that and embarrassing the life out of myself.
12:25 Blindboy Boatclub? Like, this is one of the reasons too why autistic people drift towards routine. I eat the same breakfast every day. I eat the same lunch every day because I don't have to think when I'm doing it. I can focus on my thoughts and these things just happen because it's so automated through routine. I have multiple items of the same t-shirt, the same pants, the same shoes. And it's one of the wonderful insights of, I'm diagnosed autistic four years now and one of the wonderful insights it's given me is what is perceived as eccentric, strange, odd behaviour to other people, it's, it's usually just the consequences of executive dysfunction. Like, I don't want, I don't want to be the fellow who's...
13:09 Blindboy Boatclub? The fellow who's throwing spoons in the bin. I don't wanna be that person. When you're a teenager and you're early twenties, you can kinda get away with eccentricity. Eccentricity is to be expected. You can fucking pierce your face and get pink hair if you want. But as you get older then, eccentric behaviour, there's less tolerance for eccentric behaviour. So putting ourselves in really embarrassing situations can bring great fucking shame. A shame so great that we then isolate ourselves. That's the other thing. Autistic people tend to be loners. And yes, we need a lot of time to be by ourselves. But often it's just straight up withdrawal. It's just, there's no fucking point. It's...
13:53 Blindboy Boatclub? Like, I can flick my fingers and pace up and down and wear mad baggy clothes by myself. And I'm not judging me. The problem is when you do it around other people and then you get judged. Or if I walk outside the house with fucking two different sets of shoes on, if I'm not careful, which can happen a lot. So autistic people tend to choose solitude as a way to avoid pain and rejection. But anyway, I was so happy this time. I was able to take accountability without shame. I was able to own up and say, "I've been throwing the spoons in the bin. I'm very sorry, but I am autistic and this is the type of shit I do as an autistic person." And then I replaced the spoons. I went online and I bought 24 teaspoons.
14:37 Blindboy Boatclub? I think it cost less than 10 euro and replenished the spoons personally. So I've taken accountability, made reparations, and then all I don't have to feel shame. I go, "I'm diagnosed autistic, alright? And if you boot me out of the fucking building, that's discrimination. So allow me to take accountability, but don't punish me for my actions." Because I'm not some fucking prick who's throwing teaspoons in the bin for the crack because I disrespect property that I don't own, which is the neurotypical way of viewing that behaviour. Now, I'm also a victim of private equity. Making a space.
15:18 Blindboy Boatclub? Not friendly for a neurodivergent person. Why are the teaspoon such an issue? Right, teaspoon shortage, that's a measurable issue that can inconveniences other people in the building, that's why I replace them. Right, that's, that's an actual issue. But I rent my office from a gigantic multinational office space business that have an annual turnover of 4.5 billion. And this gigantic global corporation at all times are trying to reduce costs. And one of the things they did, I used to have a wastepaper basket in my actual office and saw that everybody else about three years ago.
16:02 Blindboy Boatclub? And cleaning staff used to be hired to go into every single office at night time and empty that wastepaper basket. So the giant corporation introduced a new policy under the guise of environmental, being environmentally friendly, greenwashing. They said, no more wastepaper baskets in your office. Instead, there is one communal wastepaper basket in the corridor and everyone must go and use that. This is part of our global commitment to be more green. Now, if you work in a giant corporation, especially one that's run by private equity, this will have happened in your office too. You go, fuck it, we used to have wastepaper baskets, what happened? Why is there now only one bin that everyone has to leave their desk from to travel to,
16:47 Blindboy Boatclub? to put shit in there? It has nothing to do with being environmentally friendly. It's a way to cut costs on cleaning staff. Now, I like it if a corporation are going, we're going to be more committed to the environment, here's a new policy. I like that. What I don't like is, no, you're bullshitting. You want to fire some cleaners, you want to fire some cleaners and lie to me while you're doing it. I don't like that bit. I'd rather the cleaners keep their hours or don't lose their jobs. If I'd have had the wastepaper basket in my office and it was beside my desk, I'd notice when I'm throwing the teaspoon in there. But instead what happens is, I'm in my, my little office in a state of intense flow. Eating my yogurt in an automatic fashion.
17:30 Blindboy Boatclub? Then I have to leave the office while still in a state of flow. Walk down the corridor and use the communal bin. And that's where the problem happened. Now, no one asked me to replace the teaspoons. I think because I came forward, honestly, owned up immediately and said, look, I'm artistic and I do this type of shit that I do and I'm really sorry. So I think they went, well, that's fucking mental, but fair enough. I'm choosing to replace the teaspoons myself. Went online, I think it was 12 euros for 24 teaspoons, which
18:01 Blindboy Boatclub? that shouldn't be the case. It's just the world we live in. That means 12 teaspoons is like a fiver. That means that the utensils that I eat my, my food with, my lunch with are cheaper than the food. Because the teaspoons probably come from China and I just, I don't think that should be the case. I think food should be cheap and cutlery should be expensive and not disposable. I'm fully aware that I've been throwing teaspoons in the bin there. Why am I replacing 24 teaspoons for a gigantic corporation with a turnover of 4.5 billion a year? Why am I doing that? Because of the hostility of the corporate structure. The wage workers who manage this building, lovely people who I know, who I speak to every single day.
18:44 Blindboy Boatclub? Their job is to keep costs down and I want to insulate them from having to go above to the accountants or whoever controls the purse strings. And to have to go to them and say, we need more cutlery budget, the teaspoons have disappeared. So that's why I'm personally replenishing the teaspoon victuals. Not to save a giant corporation money, but to protect the workers from consequences as a result of my actions. And I know some of you are listening to this going, you fucking nut job. You want me to have, you've been throwing teaspoons in the bin? You, you want me to have empathy for your blind boy? You lunatic. I see where you're coming from. That's a nightmare. If.
19:27 Blindboy Boatclub? If I wasn't self-employed and wasn't my own boss and wasn't renting out this office privately as myself, if instead I was back working in that call centre that I worked in 20 years ago, and I end up in front of HR, because HR is what corporate structures use, HR has replaced unions, you see, a union would go, hold on a second here, we have a neurodivergent worker here, and yes, they've been throwing teaspoons in the bin, but other than that, they're very good at their job. So my shop steward in the union would defend me against the company. But unions don't exist anymore. Instead, you have HR. And what's the difference between
20:05 Blindboy Boatclub? HR and a union? HR is performative. HR arbitrates workplace difficulties, workplace disputes in favour of profits for the corporation. That's what HR does. A union arbitrates disputes in defence of the safety of the workers, so that workers are not unfairly dismissed. So if this was a normal job, Mr Teaspoon, Mr Teaspoon Destroyer is brought in front of HR, someone very kind and nice is speaking to me, I'll pull out my autism diagnosis, because I have the piece of paper, and I'll say, reasonable accommodation, EU law, I'm protected, you can't discriminate against me. And they'll go, of course, of course,
20:50 Blindboy Boatclub? and then they'll figure out a way to fire me. Whereas a union of my comrades is gonna go, no way, you're not fucking firing him, we're gonna go on strike. No, I'm the shop steward. I'm conscious of the fact that I'm fantasising about a job I don't have. But if I did, if I did, I'd still be doing the same shit with the fucking spoons, and I probably would get fired, because what the fuck would I be thinking about so intensely that I need to throw my spoon in the bin? In a regular job, I'd be wasting time. I'd be thinking about CIA crack cocaine smuggling, which is how I got fired 20 years ago. But yeah, if you're listening to this and you just can't relate to it, I've gone too autistic this week, and you cannot relate to the man who's throwing the spoons in the fucking
21:35 Blindboy Boatclub? bin, because it is wildly unacceptable. It's nuts. I know this. I'm aware of it, 100% aware, now that it's pointed out. Fucking mad. However.
21:47 Blindboy Boatclub? The context and intent is not hostile. I'm not being a prick. I'm not disrespecting property. I'm not behaving really selfishly and depriving other people of spoons. It's something very different and inconvenient for other people. But there's no podcast without this shit. There's no books. There's no, like, the hard sell for this type of behaviour is... If you see me on Instagram and you see me messing with my analogue synthesizers, three absolutely mad-looking electronic machines stacked on top of each other, over 100 different knobs and buttons.
22:32 Blindboy Boatclub? And I know exactly what every single one of them do without even needing to think in a state of pure flow to make whatever sound I want, to make music. And people watch that and people mail me as if I'm doing some type of magic. The complexity of what I'm doing for a lot of people is unfathomable. I get mails from people going, "How do I even start? I love what you're doing with synthesizers. Where do I even begin? What you're doing is mad. How can I coordinate hundreds of different knobs and buttons in the split of a second to make sounds? All this complexity." And then the same person is throwing teaspoons into the bin. Same person can't even eat a fucking yogurt without throwing the teaspoon into the bin.
23:17 Blindboy Boatclub? Or how do I write a short story? Or I have a fucking play coming out in the Abbey in a couple of months. It doesn't make sense. And that's in neurodivergence, that's called a spiky profile. I have certain abilities that are very, very, very strong. And then other stuff is very, very, very weak. I can get up on a stage at a festival and speak to several thousand people, no problem. I can, no fucking bother at all, speak to thousands of people in a room with no nervousness, with flow, relaxed, competent. But I can't have small talk. If I bump into one person in the street, I avoid it. That's terrifying.
24:02 Blindboy Boatclub? What do I do there? You mean I have to look at the person's face while listening to the words they're saying at the same time? I can't go to a wedding, if I do go to a wedding, and speak to strangers. Then for the next three weeks, a lot of fucking teaspoons are getting thrown in the bin because I lose my executive functioning skills. And that there is, that's the spectrum. That is the spectrum of neurodivergence. We call it autism because they've decided that that's what the category is. In my heart and soul, am I autistic? Do I identify 100% with the label of autistic? No. I'm, I'm whatever the mad artists are. Whatever that one is, I'm that one. We don't have a name for that one.
24:46 Blindboy Boatclub? We just call it autistic. There's a lot of stuff on the autistic spectrum that I don't identify with. And sometimes I feel like I'm just taking up space because I'm called autistic, but so is the person who's non-verbal. So is the person who has extreme difficulty functioning. And I'm level one and maybe they're level two or level three. And sometimes I don't know how useful it is for me to have a similar label to that person because people can go, oh, you're blind, but he's autistic. He throws teaspoons into the bin, but he's, he's able to write short stories. Doesn't sound too bad. And that takes up space for people that experience extreme difficulty in their lives.
25:28 Blindboy Boatclub? But that currently is the best that DSM, the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual has provided. Before 2013, I'd have been called Asperger's. If I was born as a millionaire in America, I'd have been called gifted. But when I read the biography of, of an artist and it's like, they were very strong here in this area and then the rest of their life was mad. Whatever that one is, which we don't have a name for, that's the spectrum where I am because it makes sense to me. Why would you throw teaspoons in the bin? Well, because I was thinking about the connection between salad and making gunpowder out of piss. That's what I've been thinking about a lot.
26:10 Blindboy Boatclub? And when I'm doing that, this teaspoon here just, it doesn't seem important enough for me to notice it's even in my hand. And then I behave like a lunatic and get myself in, in difficult situations. Apologies for the sound of that seagull. And some people, some people might have issue with me using the word lunatic, that it can be seen as ableist or judgmental. I am a lunatic. I use that word for myself. I'm not too comfortable with other people calling me a lunatic in a different context and intent, but the word lunatic for me, that feels okay for me because I'm using it in a self compassionate way. I flipped that same lunacy into creativity. Apologies for that seagull.
26:55 Blindboy Boatclub? I'm banished to the top floor. Maybe that's why I'm up on the top floor of this fucking office building as well. Because I'm on a corridor, only one or two other people in this corridor, but I'm up here at the very top with the tin roof, living with seagulls, away from the pharmaceutical companies and the accountants downstairs. I'm speaking about this shit for other autistic people so that you can feel more accepted. And for teachers, I have loads of teachers who listen, who listen to me because they have neurodivergent students. And then there's other people who listen to me because they have a spouse who's neurodivergent or a family member. And hearing things like this helps them to understand that person.
27:37 Blindboy Boatclub? But yeah, throwing teaspoons in the bin, unemployable, fucking unemployable, lose your job type of shit. However, I have created an environment where I'm self implied. I can't fire myself for doing that. I don't answer to anyone. And when I do engage in behaviour that impacts people around me, I can take accountability for it and engage in reparations, which is the best thing you can do. And then of course, what I'd hate to be doing, and it's probably what I might have done before my diagnosis, is hide, hide in intense shame and not open up to being the phantom teaspoon destroyer.
28:18 Blindboy Boatclub? Or quit my contract in the office and find somewhere else, run away from the problem. Hope I don't get caught. Mortify myself, shame myself, feel like fucking shit. Go home and say, what the fuck is wrong with you? What the fuck is wrong with you, you stupid useless cunt? Worthless, incapable, pathetic. You thought you were normal, didn't you? You thought you were normal there with your office. You thought you were doing alright. You thought you were being a fucking adult, didn't you? You stupid cunt. All happy with yourself because you're able to pay rent in an office and able to show up on time and able to work, all happy with yourself. And look at you throwing spoons into the fucking bin. You can't even explain why you're doing it, you mad bastard. You should go and check into a mental home.
29:03 Blindboy Boatclub? That's what you should do because no one else does this. And what are you gonna do? Ring up someone and say, do you ever throw spoons into the bin for no reason all the time? Do you ever do that? Like 10 times over the course of a month without knowing it? Do you ever do that? You can't call to a therapist about it because what did it tell you? You're schizophrenic. And that's an internal dialogue of self-flagellation, which leads to feelings of depression, anxiety, fear. Anxiety was more my thing rather than depression. I lived a huge portion of my fucking life with the fear of what if I do something mad in public? What if I do something really fucking crazy in public? Something that would bring a lot of eyes on me and a lot of attention and a lot of shame and judgment.
29:48 Blindboy Boatclub? And then the fear of that is so deep, then you're getting panic attacks in public places. Then you don't wanna leave the house. You wanna stay in this little controlled environment. Autism doesn't, doesn't cause mental health issues. It's the stress and pressure of having to be normal that causes the, the mental health issues. And the big one for me, it's the trying your absolute best to be normal, to fit in, thinking you're doing a great job. And then a deeply eccentric behaviour is brought to your attention by somebody else. And the pain, the pain of it is, I didn't know I was doing that. That is terrifying. That's very frightening.
30:33 Blindboy Boatclub? How could I not have known that I was throwing the teaspoons in the bin? Because it's really obvious now that it's been pointed out. How did I not know that? That's really scary. Am I going crazy? Am I losing control? Now I don't have to do any of that shit. There's a name for that. That's called executive dysfunction. Everyone does shit like that every so often. The chocolate in the bin, the wrapper in your hand. Everyone does shit like that every so often, but for neurodivergent people, it happens a bit more. That's called executive dysfunction. It means that your mind was somewhere else. You're not crazy, it's not toxic, it's not bad, it's not unhealthy. It is inconvenient. There are consequences.
31:17 Blindboy Boatclub? Your life would be a hell of a lot easier without it. But it's not a reason to, to feel shame, to self-flagellate and to experience as a a personal failure. And that's huge there. Cause now the only problem is, I threw away some teaspoons. I don't have the additional problem of mental health issues. And another thing I'll say in my defence, cause you might be thinking of the people in my office who are currently stirring their coffee with butter knives. I just realised there, I could have eaten my yogurt with a tablespoon. I just realised there's plenty of tablespoons. I could have eaten my yogurt with a tablespoon.
32:02 Blindboy Boatclub? I didn't have to use the top of my inhaler at all. That's on me. That's probably autism as well. I didn't have to use the top of my inhaler. There's, there's plenty of tablespoons. I don't like eating yogurt with tablespoons. They're too, too large, too much, too much yogurt per bite. I need teaspoons and the, the top of my Ventolin inhaler had sufficient parts that it would deliver the desired amount of yogurt into my mouth. Technically, it's not yogurt that I eat as well. I actually Kavarg. It's a type of low sugar, very high protein, soft cheese.
32:45 Blindboy Boatclub? That's wonderful as an incredibly filling snack that will satiate hunger between meals, but not spike your blood glucose so that you get out an energy crash. So I eat Kavarg with either a teaspoon or the tip of a Ventolin inhaler. Let's just have an Ocarina pause now, cause that's 30 minutes into this podcast, into this strange podcast. I'm gonna play this Ocarina in my office. There's other people in the corridor. They're gonna wonder what the fuck it is. That's the other thing.
33:16 Blindboy Boatclub? Once.
33:23 Blindboy Boatclub? Once a week. Once a week, this cunt plays a flute. For two minutes. Every Tuesday at a certain time. He plays a flute in his office.
33:37 Blindboy Boatclub? And never does it again. Just once a week, for three minutes, every Tuesday, he plays a flute in his fucking office. Jesus Christ, they don't know what I'm doing. They don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't sound like I'm talking to myself. It probably sounds like I'm on Zoom calls. So that's fine. So it's not like he's in his office on his own and he talks to himself for hours. He's on a Zoom call. I am talking to myself for hours. In, in my last, in my last office in this building. Uh, which was two floors downstairs, which I haven't been in, in three years. One, one of the reasons I had to move to a different office, there was a fella next door. And the walls were, were really thin downstairs. They were really, really, really thin.
34:20 Blindboy Boatclub? So after about a year, I think he'd figured out who I was. He'd heard the podcast, could recognise my voice, whatever. I don't think it meant shit to him, but a couple of times. His fucking, his wife. Used to come into the office. Late, like, like after six o'clock, when I'd be doing late night recording sessions. And she'd go into his office. And at night time, I was able to look out my window. And see the reflection in another window. Into his office. And his wife was, was sitting in the office with her back to the wall and her ear to the wall. And I think she was a podcast listener, about three years ago.
35:02 Blindboy Boatclub? And she used to listen to, I think she was listening to me recording my podcast through the wall. And getting her own private podcast. Now I can't be sure, never spoke to her, never met her. Locked inside in the office, but you see, I could see the reflection. And she was, she had her ear to the wall, sitting back on the chair. Maybe not, maybe that's where she got her peace. She would fuck off into the, into the office. Late at night, when there was no one in the building and just got peace and quiet and just wanted to sit there in silence. But why, why would you do that? If you're in the building and the only other person there is a man who's next door talking.
35:45 Blindboy Boatclub? But I think she was a podcast listener and this was her thing. And she kept it a secret and, and she would stick her ear to my wall. And, and if it is the case and you're listening, fair play to you and thank you for not talking to me. That would have seriously interrupted my state of flow. Actually Patreon first, then the adverts. If you listen to this podcast regularly, um, if it brings you mirth, merriment, entertainment, joy, relief, whatever the fuck this podcast does for you, please consider supporting it directly via the Patreon page. Cause this is a listener funded podcast. Patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast. This is my full time job. This is my vocation. I take it really seriously.
36:29 Blindboy Boatclub? I nine to five this. This is how I can afford to rent out my office so that I can research and write and record this podcast. I can't get fired. I can't get fired for doing eccentric shit. I'd have to fire myself. I am my own boss and this is my space where I can create an environment that works for me, that allows me to flourish, to create and to have value and to have meaning. This is how I earn a living. So if you're listening regularly and you think, geez, I'd buy him a pint or a cup of coffee if I met him. Well, you can do that once a month, cause that's all I'm looking for.
37:10 Blindboy Boatclub? The price of a pint or a cup of coffee, once a month, and for that you get four podcasts a month. If you can't afford that, don't worry about it. Listen for free. I'm interested in having a job and earning a living, doing what I love. That's what I want. And the Patreon provides that. So if you can't afford it, listen for free because the person who's paying is paying for you to listen for free. Everybody gets the exact same podcast, whether they pay or not. It's entirely up to you. Patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. It also means I'm not beholden to advertisers. Advertisers can't tell me what to speak about, when to speak about it, who to platform. They come here on my terms. Alright, here's the Ocarina. And you're gonna hear adverts for bullshit.
38:07 Speaker 01 This episode is sponsored by Zocdoc. Have you been putting off a doctor's appointment? Or need a dentist and you don't know where to start? We've definitely been there and that's why we use Zocdoc. Actually, over the holidays, Michael had a dental emergency and seemingly every office was closed. But we hopped onto Zocdoc, found an in-network dentist, had great reviews, saw real-time appointments available, which was key, it was on New Year's Day, and booked an appointment in just minutes. It took so much of the stress out of the already stressful situation. Zocdoc makes it easy to search and compare over 250,000 local in-network providers
38:47 Speaker 01 across more than 200 specialties. So you can find the right doctor or dentist and book instantly. Taking care of your health just got easier. Download the Zocdoc app today and book that appointment on your to-do list. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C. Zocdoc.
39:05 Speaker 03 Most women have been there. Something feels off. You don't feel like yourself. Yet your doctor says everything looks fine. Spoiler, it's your hormones. Midi is a virtual care platform built for women by women and offers specialized hormone care from trained clinicians. Plus, it's covered by most major insurances. Getting started is easy. You can book your first visit with a clinician right away. It's not you, it's your hormones. Visit joinmidi.com to book your first visit. That's join M-I-D-I dot com. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage.
39:35 Speaker 04 Hi everyone, it's Katie Couric. And on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households. Yet, many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected, whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years, so its customers can keep
40:16 Speaker 04 theirs. Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.
40:38 Blindboy Boatclub? Right, upcoming gigs. Got my tour.
40:44 Speaker 05 What if your at-home manicure could last up to 21 days and you don't need to cure it with a lamp? Hi, I'm Sarah Gibson's Huddle, founder of Olive and June, and that is exactly why we created our new Dip Powder System. You get a strong, salon-quality Dip Manny with up to 21 days of wear, right at home. No lamp and no salon appointment required. Our five-step method makes Dip approachable and easy to do yourself, and when you're ready for your next Manny, it soaks off in minutes with acetone. Salon-quality Dip, from the comfort of your couch while watching your favorite TV show. Starting October 22nd, Dip is officially coming home. Visit oliveandjune.com/perfectmanny20 for 20% off your
41:24 Speaker 05 first system. That's O-L-I-V-E-A-N-D-J-U-N-E.com/perfectmanny20 for 20% off your first system.
41:33 Speaker 03 Hot flashes, rage crying, forgetting words mid-sent-ten.
41:40 Speaker 03 Yeah, we know. Menopause is a lot. Midi Health gets it. That's why Midi offers virtual healthcare specially tailored to women's needs. Built for women by women. Every symptom, every stage, every question. Visit joinmidi.com to get started today. That's join M I D I dot com. Individual results and coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage.
42:03 Speaker 04 Hi, everyone. It's Katie Couric. And on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households. Yet, many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected, whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years, so its customers can keep theirs.
42:46 Speaker 04 Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.
43:04 Blindboy Boatclub? Of England, Scotland, and Wales in October. I'm going to be going up and down the length of that Long Island in the skeletal barrenness of winter. Kicking it off in Brighton and the Brighton Dome on the 18th, then over to Wales, Cardiff at the New Theatre, Bristol then on the 22nd at Beacon Hall, Guildford on the 24th of October, London, which is sold out, Glasgow, sold out, Gateshead, few tickets left for that, and then finishing it on Nottingham. Ah, fuck yes, I'm going to do Halloween. I'd be doing Halloween in Gateshead. That'll be my night off. My night off is the 31st of October in Gateshead, where I'll be celebrating Halloween,
43:49 Blindboy Boatclub? which that'll be my first ever Halloween outside of Ireland, I believe. Last gig then in Nottingham on the 1st of November. So that tour's setting out quickly. You get your tickets at fan.co.uk/theblindbypodcast or on my website, theblindbypodcast.ie. Then my next tour is Australia and New Zealand in April 2027, which I reckon, April 27, will that be a bit wintery? It'll be at the precipice. Sure, I don't want to be over at that part of the world in the middle of summer. That's hardcore. But anyway, kicking it off on the 9th of April in Auckland, at the Auckland Town Hall, then up to Melbourne at the Palais Theatre, nearly sold out.
44:33 Blindboy Boatclub? Brisbane, all of these are almost sold out, even though it's near, it's as good as a year away. Brisbane Powerhouse, part at the Astor Theatre, and finishing it off in the Sydney Opera House, where there's very few tickets left for that. Biggest gig of my career. I'll be having my birthday over there. And I thought the biggest gig of my career was Hammersmith Apollo, a couple of years back, where I also had my birthday. But no, it's gonna be the Sydney Opera House. And I'm honoured and humbled. And that's one of those external things that I can't take on board. It's not necessarily external praise, but something I'm, I am fucking proud of
45:15 Blindboy Boatclub? is being able to stay around as long as I have. I did my first gig, I think it was 2006. So 20 years into my career of gigging, 20 years in, I'll be doing my biggest gig. So that's, that's a serious honour because that's a strange trajectory.
45:35 Blindboy Boatclub? In the entertainment industry, trajectories don't work like that. You have your peak in your twenties and then you go down. So to be doing my largest gig on the twentieth year that I've been gigging is, I'm very proud of that in a way that feels safe. I found fucking emails two weeks ago, emails from 2015, where I had to cancel, I had an Australia tour booked. And the email was from the promoter and it was about six weeks off from the gig. It was four gigs, an Australian tour. They cancelled the gigs because the ticket sales were so low back in 2015.
46:20 Blindboy Boatclub? I think it was six weeks out and there was only 60 tickets sold in Sydney, which nowhere near. When you do a tour of Australia, it costs so much money to get to Australia that generally acts are doing it just for the fans. That's why a lot of international acts, they don't go down that far. They don't go to Australia or New Zealand. So if you go to Australia and New Zealand and you break even, that's a success. But back in 2015, with 60 tickets sold for Sydney, no fucking way. That is not paying for one person's flight, just not happening. So it's cancelled the tour. So coming back 10 years after that to be headlining the fucking Opera House,
47:04 Blindboy Boatclub? unthinkable, absolutely fucking unthinkable. And I'm very proud of it. And thank you to all of you who were setting out that show because it's nearly gone. So again, this week's podcast was supposed to be about the history of salad. But then this, the spoon incident happened that threw everything off. The spoon incident happened and I knew I needed to speak about this. So this week's episode. It's about being neurodivergent in the workplace. That's what this is about. I can always do an episode about salads. The research is done. But if I'm not feeding it and my attention is somewhere else, I wouldn't be doing the salad episode justice. But to all the other people in the office who've been deprived of teaspoons because
47:48 Blindboy Boatclub? of my actions, and if you're feeling sorry for them. So my autistic brain actually brought comfort into a lot of people in this office without them realising it over the past two years. Not just this office, but every one of these offices in all of Ireland. If you're a serious ten foot Declan, you will remember in 2024, my office, the company that runs my office, made the radical and terrible decision to replace the milk in the canteen from fresh milk to U H T milk. Why did they do this? To save fucking money, so that a multi-billion euro corporation could save a tiny bit of money. So milk in my office is provided by the building.
48:32 Blindboy Boatclub? So if you get tea and coffee, the milk is free. After the war in Ukraine, inflation went up and milk, fresh milk, became too expensive for the multi-billion euro corporation. Now, I'd worked it out, the entire milk budget for the year in my entire office was only 500 euros, but that was obviously too much money for the multi-billion euro corporation. So they decided to change to ultra-high-temperature milk, which is disgusting. It's that milk that you get in tiny little capsules in hotel rooms. It's the milk that, it's generally drank in, in very hot countries that don't have access to fresh dairy. In Ireland, we have probably the best dairy in the world because it rains so much.
49:18 Blindboy Boatclub? People are always saying, oh, it rains so much, if only we could bottle it and sell it. We do. That's our dairy industry. We've one of the strongest dairy industries in the world, where most of the market is export. We have grass-fed cows that produce a lot of milk because there's so much rain. Our butter is yellow. Because of the amount of beta carotene that's in that butter, because of how much beta carotene is produced by our grass because of the rain. Look at, like, that's carry gold. Look at American butter, it's white. Look at butter on the continent, it's, it's a white colour. Our butter is a deep yellow colour because of the presence of beta carotene. So our milk is astounding. You can't give U H T milk to an Irish person in their tea or in their coffee.
50:04 Blindboy Boatclub? It's just not happening. It, it is disgusting. If someone doesn't give too much of a shit about cups of tea, doesn't care too much about coffee, only drinks it occasionally, they're not gonna notice the difference. But Ireland is freezing in wet. And a nice cup of tea and a nice cup of coffee. It is an essential amenity if you work in a fucking office. So in 2024, the gigantic corporation decided that every one of their offices in Ireland is now gonna switch to U H T milk. And when that happened, I measured the impacts of this on my office building and witnessed social chaos occur as a result of changing the milk. And I did a podcast about it. There's one fridge in the canteen. It works.
50:48 Blindboy Boatclub? For the amount of people in the building, it works. There's enough space for everyone to put their lunch in there. And there's enough space for four litres of communal milk that everybody uses. Communal fresh milk. When that was replaced with U H T, nobody was using the U H T. And then all the individuals in the building, the communal milk problem was now shifted onto the individual. So everyone started buying their own fresh milk. Then the fridge started to get overcrowded and started to overheat because there was too much private milk. This created a stink in the canteen. Extra cleaners had to be hired just because of the smell of milk. Then after a week, people started stealing other people's fresh milk.
51:32 Blindboy Boatclub? And this started to annoy a lot of people. So then other people got fridges to put in their individual offices, helping safety issue. And others started to write passive aggressive and then eventually aggressive notes on their milk.
51:47 Blindboy Boatclub? Cullums milk, stay away. One man accused another man of stealing his milk. He was wrong. There was a big argument in the canteen. And you see what that is? That's the model of neoliberalism. It's the same as last week's podcast when I said, there's a water shortage in Ireland as a result of corporate data centres. But the government are not holding the data centres accountable. So instead what they're doing is putting a hosepipe ban, which puts the responsibility for that issue on the individual. Then they started to encourage individuals to report their neighbours for using the hosepipe ban. So a collective issue becomes an individual responsibility. And this then creates an environment of hostility, scarcity and distrust. That happened in my office.
52:31 Blindboy Boatclub? There was a communal pool of fresh milk, a social net, if you will, of an amenity that was free for all. And it worked perfectly and everyone was happy with their fresh milk. But just because this corporation that's worth 4.5 billion, wanted to save a tiny bit of money through austerity measures, they defunded the public milk and replaced it with U H T. So they reduced the quality of a public service so much that people couldn't use it anymore. This then forced the individuals to start purchasing their own fresh milk, privatised milk, which created an environment of hostility, which then made the work environment horrible for everybody.
53:16 Blindboy Boatclub? That's artistic pattern recognition. No one else is thinking about the milk that way. They're just noticing that work is shit now for some reason. But I had correctly deducted that the change from fresh milk to U H D milk caused social collapse. And I did this by using critique of neoliberalism. And I did a podcast about it. This podcast then got to someone who was high up in the company. They heard it, figured out that I was talking about one of their offices. My argument was so compelling. Because I argued that ultimately, see, it's gonna cost the company money. I had to go with that fucking capitalistic argument. But ultimately, you're hiring more cleaners because of the stinking milk. The electricity bill goes up for the entire building because people are moving fridges into individual offices.
54:01 Blindboy Boatclub? And then eventually, your clients are just gonna leave and not rent anymore because the hostility created, because of the milk scarcity and the privatization of the milk on an individual level, that hostility creates an environment where you don't wanna come into fucking work. And people all of a sudden are gonna just not renew their contracts. Anyway, this argument got to the top brass in Ireland. And for the past two years, all of those offices in Ireland have had fresh milk as a result of my fucking podcast episode in 2024. In fact, it was communicated to me that in that entire organization, where they have offices in every country around the world, in all of Europe, Ireland is the only country
54:44 Blindboy Boatclub? where they have a fresh milk budget because of my podcast episode in 2024. Now, none of the people working in my office know that because they don't know who I am and they don't know that I'm here. Some of the people who I rent the office from, they know who I am. They know what I do here and they're very discreet about it. But it's an important detail. So yes, my neurodivergent lunacy has caused a short-term teaspoon shortage in this office. But my neurodivergent lunacy and pattern recognition and obsessiveness is the reason why hundreds of Irish workers in every one of these offices around the country have retained access to fresh milk since 2024.
55:28 Blindboy Boatclub? Because other people just aren't gonna do that. Other people aren't gonna look at a fridge, look at how the milk changes in that fridge, and then forensically lay out an argument, a pattern of why that's actually creating chaos. Because I was fucking right. I was dead right. Now, that's a shitty little victory where I effectively did an accountant and a HR person's job for them. It's not like my dad. My dad was a union organizer. He was a shop steward. He'd be defending people's sick pay, contracts, pensions, instead of where I'm at, where the system is so fucking squeezed towards the bottom line that we're fighting for access to fresh milk in offices that we rent.
56:14 Blindboy Boatclub? We already pay fucking money, give us fresh fucking milk. They just wanna take it away so that more of our rent goes into profits. I had to make a systemic argument that showed that this short term saving actually results in a long term loss, which impacts shareholders. In 2023, if you remember, it was inferred that I'd been pissing into flowerpots. Some of the flowerpots in the building in 2023 were stinking and they couldn't understand why they were stinking. And an email was sent to me asking if I knew anything about it. And I think they thought I was pissing into the flowerpots because that's the other thing. Well, if anyone's gonna be doing it, it's gonna be that fucking mad cunt, isn't it? I wasn't, I wasn't pissing into the flowerpots.
57:00 Blindboy Boatclub? What had happened, someone was drinking a protein drink and then emptying the protein drink into the flowerpots. And this was creating a stench that was similar to piss. It wasn't me. Who got to the bottom of the problem? Who figured out that it was a protein drink that was creating the smell? Me. How did I figure it out? The smell reminded me a little bit of if I leave my protein drink in my shaker and don't clean it after a couple of days. And also, if you drink too much protein drink, your piss starts to smell weird. If there's too much protein in your body, your liver breaks that excess protein down to ammonia. Ammonia is toxic to your body, so then your liver breaks that down farther into urea, which is the smell of piss.
57:43 Blindboy Boatclub? So using that theory, I then poured a protein drink into a flowerpot and generated the exact same smell that was present in all the other flowerpots. I solved the problem, demonstrated that I wasn't pissing into the flowerpots. I don't think an neurotypical person is gonna do that. I don't think they're gonna end up finding themselves in that situation where they're accused of it either, but there you go. You can't just tell me that the flowerpots smell like piss and I'm not gonna figure out exactly why. I'm gonna think about it so hard that I throw spoons in the bin. I think I know who it was. The person hasn't worked here in four years. And I think that was deliberate vandalism.
58:22 Blindboy Boatclub? That was an angry disgruntled man and his little victory was making the flowerpots smell like piss with his protein drink. You see, that's the thing, this shit happens. When you have these fucking office environments, when you have people working in jobs that don't feel fair. People who don't have contracts, people who are being exploited in whatever little company was in this building, you do actually get disgruntled people who feel so powerless in the unfairness of their job. They engage in petty vandalism as a way to get that anger
59:02 Blindboy Boatclub? out, to rebalance a sense of fairness. Are they stealing full rolls of toilet paper? That's why the toilet roll dispensers in this office are, they're screwed in, you can't fucking open them. Because some people are like, I hate my job, I'm being exploited, I'm not earning enough money, my boss is treating me like shit. I'm gonna steal toilet paper, because toilet paper costs money and there's loads of it in this building, so I'm taking one of those big giant rolls home. And sometimes you go to a house party and you go to the toilets, and when you're upstairs in the house party, you see a giant corporate roll of toilet paper in that person's house, and that's what they're doing. Which is why
59:42 Blindboy Boatclub? my spoon frivolity is so dangerous, because I look like one of those cunts. I look like one of them. That fellow's disgruntled, he's stealing spoons, or throwing them away. Because he thinks he's not gonna get caught. That's a little bit of anger there. You don't wanna be that person. And how do I know the person who was throwing the protein drinks into the flower pot was not neurodivergent? The person who I think they weren't, it was neurotypical passive aggression. But I was a prime suspect. I was a prime suspect for pissing into flower pots in the year of our Lord 2023. Unfortunately, they're trying to bring the UHD milk back. Because there's no names at the top in the management, I've noticed, and they're trying
1:00:27 Blindboy Boatclub? the UHD milk again. So I sent strongly worded letters about the incidents in 2024, and hopefully they'll listen. This is the strangest podcast I've done in a long while, lads. This is really one of those ones, if you're a first time listener.
1:00:46 Blindboy Boatclub? This is one of the deep end ones, but I have a feeling it's gonna help one or two people who are dealing with executive dysfunction and struggling in their jobs. The waiter or waitress who's dyspraxic, who dropped 12 pints on the floor last weekend, or the shop worker. The shop worker whose responsibility is to show up at eight in the morning and you have the key that opens the shutters to the shop and you lost the fucking key and the shop isn't open today and you don't own the shop, you're an employee and you don't know how to explain to your fucking boss, "We can't open the shop today, I've lost the key."
1:01:26 Blindboy Boatclub? Or the hairdresser who doesn't understand why you have difficulty reading clocks or remembering things or preparing a meal for yourself or even getting up off the couch after an entire day of speaking with your clients while you're cutting their hair and engaging in stories about their holidays and suppressing your desire to speak about whatever thing you're really fucking interested in because if you do speak about it, they're gonna look at you like you're mad. This really eccentric, strange, humorous, I know it's fucking funny, I know it's funny that I throw the teaspoons in the bin, that I did it 11 times maybe, I know that that's funny, but this is, that's the lived reality of neurodivergence.
1:02:11 Blindboy Boatclub? Doing mad shit. Mad shit that looks destructive, it looks attention-seeking, really embarrassing, carry on in professional environments. And I hope there's employers listening. If you have neurodivergent workers, look towards the strengths and provide an environment where that worker feels safe enough to come to you with the ridiculous shit they just did. Try to take accountability for it and not be afraid of losing their job. And then for you as the neurodivergent person who's employed, if you have, if you have an official diagnosis, unfortunately, I think this is the only way that that works.
1:02:51 Blindboy Boatclub? To understand what a reasonable accommodation is, to understand your statutory rights. And statutory rights are, they're rights that just exist, they just are, they can't be taken away, they can't be argued against. And if you're protected under European disability law, if, if you're ADHD, if you're autistic, your employer is legally obliged to provide you with a reasonable accommodation, if your diagnosis means that you can't work as comfortably as the other people around you, if the office is too noisy and you need to wear headphones and HR come to you and say, "That's a bit rude. The other people in the team would prefer if
1:03:35 Blindboy Boatclub? you're talking to them. The other people in the team are saying that you're not sitting with them at lunchtime. The clothes you're wearing are a little bit too baggy. We have a dress code around here, we expect people to dress professionally and you're wearing these really baggy clothes." If you have a diagnosis, you can say, "I'm asking you," no, I'm not asking you, "I'm entitled to a reasonable accommodation here. I'm autistic, so I can't dress that way you want me to dress because if I do, I can't fucking work because I feel, I experience the fabrics very differently. So I dress this way and under EU law, I'm entitled to the reasonable accommodation that you must let me wear my baggy clothes in the workplace. I'm getting overstimulated by noises,
1:04:17 Blindboy Boatclub? the, the sound of so many people talking around me, so I'm gonna put these headphones on and listen to music while I work. I'm requesting that as a, as a reasonable accommodation because I get overstimulated by the fucking noises. The lights are too bright. The lights are too bright in my office. Can I change, can I have these lights changed to something that doesn't overstimulate me? Cause I experience, I experienced that as so irritating that I can't concentrate. So I'm actually shit at my job because of these things and it's, I'm gonna end up getting fired because I'm so shit at my job because of all these overstimulating things in my environment. So I'm requesting a reasonable accommodation. That's your statutory right. You don't have
1:04:59 Blindboy Boatclub? to argue for it. It is, it simply is. You shouldn't feel like you're gonna get in trouble. They're gonna figure out a way to fire you if you're, if you ask for it. That, you, you can challenge that as unfair dismissal then. The only way that an employer can deny you a reasonable accommodation for your, for what is legally classed as a disability, the only way that an employer can deny it to you, they have to prove that providing you with that accommodation means that their business model shuts down. So maybe, I don't know, if you're a guard, if you're a, if you're a police person, or if you're a bus driver, if you're working in, if you need a fucking uniform for your job,
1:05:44 Blindboy Boatclub? and that's really important, but that particular uniform is so overstimulating that you can't do your job, then if they can't find a way where you can be somewhere where you can wear clothes that don't overstimulate you, "Look, you're a traffic warden, and we need traffic wardens to wear the traffic warden uniform. We can't do this." But for most of the other shit, wearing headphones in the office, is that really gonna fuck with everybody? Or does it just piss people off a little bit? Look up your rights and know what a reasonable accommodation is. Same if you're in school or university. I was speaking to a person I know recently, who I suspect is ADHD or dyslexic, and I knew they'd been doing a night course, and I asked them,
1:06:29 Blindboy Boatclub? "How'd you get on with that fucking night course? Because I know you were so excited about it." And they adored the night course, and it was 20 weeks long, and they showed up every fucking night for this night course, and had perfect attendance, and adored it, and loved it. And I said, "Brilliant. Did you get, did you get your certificate?" And they went, "No, because when it came to the fucking end of the course, I was asked to do a 2,000-word essay, and I chickened out and didn't show up, and I didn't get my certificate, even though I showed up for the entire course." And I said to that person, "That's pretty extreme. That's, that's a very extreme reaction."
1:07:11 Blindboy Boatclub? I said, "Go back to the course. Tell them you suspect that you're ADHD or dyslexic, and ask them what can they do. You've got perfect attendance. Can they figure out another way for you to be assessed where it's not an essay? And in most cases, that exists." So that's all the time I have for this week. That was an anecdotal phone call-ish episode of things I needed to get off my chest. And also... I don't think many people are talking about this shit. I mean, there's more and more discourse out there about what it is to be neurodivergent. And I listen to some of it, but the thing I don't hear getting spoken about a lot is
1:07:51 Blindboy Boatclub? the eccentricity part of things because the nature of it is so fucking ridiculous. It's hard to take it seriously because it's too funny and it is funny. It's really fucking funny and ridiculous, but it has consequences when it pops up by surprise and it's outside of the person's fucking awareness. That's, that's the stinger, the outside of the awareness part. And it's brought to your attention and you go, oh my God, I can't believe I've been doing that. So I'll catch you next week, hopefully with the salad podcast. In the meantime, rub a dog, wink at a swan, genuflect to a kestrel. Dog bless.
1:08:44 Speaker 00 Confidence, it's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear. For nearly 160 years, Pacific Life has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations. Whether you're confident in your financial future or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help. Ask a financial professional how. Pacific Life, the power of a promise. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.
1:09:19 Speaker 06 Hi, this is Dr. Shoshana from TED Health and today's episode is sponsored by Kashi. Say hi to new Kashi Gut Health Granola, a straightforward, delicious way to fuel your gut, made with prebiotics, fiber and cultures. My favorite flavor, blueberry almond, has perfectly crispy clusters, delicious almonds and bursts of whole blueberries. It's an easy fit for a daily routine, whether that's for breakfast or a snack. In a world of overwhelm, it's a straightforward, delicious choice. Try new Kashi Gut Health Granola.
1:10:39 Speaker 06 Try new Kashi Gut Health Granola.
Previous The Irish Government is in the pocket of Big Tech and Data Centres Next The Magic of Mushrooms with Merlin Sheldrake Page updated October 29, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated