Presentation – can’t avoid it anymore, at least in job interviews. Not gendered presentation,but disabled presentation. Gendered presentation is iffy for me, no matter which direction someone’s reading me from. But with the applications and interviews, it’s difficult. When I was doing the hours for serve, after a few minutes (sometimes up to an hour) there comes the inevitable – “Why’re you wearing those? (ie, the sunglasses over my regular pair). Which was a bit odd, considering I was introduced every time as being there for voc rehab – any obvious anamolies should’ve been chalked up to me using voc rehab, I would’ve thought, especially as the places I was taken to were on the list of buildings that accepted it regularly. But apparently not, people are nosy. Unless it’s a specific item like a cane, I’m willing to bet money they’d ask everyone, and even then if they saw someone walking without it for a bit, you can bet they’d toddle on over and inquire once there was a spare minute. Anyway, without stereotyped, – visual – cues, people seem to assume competent, quick ability in every aspect of job performance , – no matter what they were informed of previously. On my last day working, I was helping one guy with his addition skills, the next worksheet was combining said skills with pictured money-coins. And down the table (which was about ten feet long all together) the other two aids were having a conversation. About me. Along the lines of “D’you think Worm can do this?” I dunno, might have problems…”
It’s like, well gee, thanks for caring, (really, don’t see that much in life, truly, thank you) but as I – was -a mere few feet away, you could always ask instead of trying to guess. Really – asking does not offend me.
Which illustrates, in a round about way, the problem. In a job interview, whats-her-name from voc rehab insisted I tell them about the eyesight. Now, everyone else on this planet knows that if I do that, there goes what chance I have of getting hired. Not telling them, however, isn’t really an option anymore. I’ve enjoyed living without an ocular migraine and a perpetual squint, among other things, and m’not giving it up just to get ‘layed off’ two weeks into wherever hires me. Leaving ‘em home in the hopes that ‘no one will notice’ said vision, I’ll end up getting ‘laid off’ again, but if I wear them to the interview, the interviewer will undoubtibly either ask -why- I’m wearing them (like the people did as I completed the hours), in which case = screwed, or they won’t ask at all (as they didn’t have proper time to get up nerve (since I’m in a precarious spot wrt transition, and binding is, bluntly, not an option wrt work I’m generally read as female, though funnily enough not ‘woman’ – half the time still he’d. Although I’ve doubts the people who actually read me as male think I’m particularly butch, but that’s another matter. Grew hair a bit longer, hoping that helps secure me a job since people loath androgyny, we’ll see, the great irony is you can’t do a damn thing transition and health care wise in any direction without money, and there’ll prolly be enough unpleasantness at work the second I get Dr’s approval). Seriously, by my calculations, three months of work’ll give me enough funds for an apartment and switching bills, et cetera, then hopefully off I go to a dr. office with whatever healthcare the state sticks me on, and good lord please lemmie find a doc. that’ll help slither it through the system – but anyway, leave glasses on, in which case they’ll think I’m rude and unprofessional, wearing sunglasses to an interview and there goes my job application, dismissed out of hand. I’m a bit lost, what the hell do you tell someone in job interviews? I’d say skip wearing them to an interview and then wear ‘em to work, but I’d rather not be accused of misrepresentation.
