In this week’s episode of Disability Bandwidth  Sam and Nikki engage in a conversation with Drew Herrema. We discuss Drew’s complex journey into the design field despite the numerous obstacles he’s faced because of his disability. Drew shares his experiences of being discouraged during his early education and being made to focus on his weaknesses instead of his strengths. Drew’s love for design has fueled his drive to tackle accessibility issues and positively impact the world.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] (music)

[00:00:05] Sam Proulx: Welcome to season two of Disability Bandwidth.

[00:00:12] Nikki Nolan: A show where we talk with experts in disability about their journey, life and inspiration.

[00:00:17] Sam Proulx: I’m Sam Proulx.

[00:00:18] Nikki Nolan: and I’m Nikki Nolan.

[00:00:20] Sam Proulx: Let’s get started.

[00:00:21] Nikki Nolan: Do you mind introducing yourself?

[00:00:22] Drew Herrema: Drew Herrema. My pronouns are he/him and I have blue eyes, light brown hair and beard. I’m wearing metal glasses with headphones and a green hoodie with a green t-shirt.

[00:00:34] Sam Proulx: Now that we know who you are, what are you up to these days in accessibility?

[00:00:40] Drew Herrema: Right now I am the UX Accessibility intern working at Kobo on the design team.

[00:00:44] Sam Proulx: Nice. Sounds vaguely more in the realm of the things that you do.

[00:00:48] I think you said you’re kind of just getting started on this kind of career path around design and around UX. Is this kind of the thing you’ve always been doing, or is this a new path in life for you? And if so, what were you up to?

[00:01:09] Drew Herrema: I originally went to school for American Sign Language and because it was very visual and I figured that would be a good fit for me, until I realized that fingerspelling involves a lot of working memory. So after a year of that, I went to school for American Sign Language or went to school for industrial design and really loved that.

[00:01:28] And it fit my skills perfectly because throughout my life I’ve struggled with school. But then after graduating, I wasn’t able to get work because of my ADHD and dyslexia. Without a portfolio, it is really hard to get design work, and I was struggling with writing a portfolio.

[00:01:46] So it was in this limbo of not being able to get design work and not being able to get experience.

[00:01:51] Sam Proulx: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Everybody wants five (5) years experience, right?

[00:01:54] Drew Herrema: That’s a bigger issue, but just like even without any proof of what I can do, no one would take a chance.

[00:02:00] And so the entire time I was trying to hide my ADHD and dyslexia, which wasn’t helping. So eventually I started leading with it and started networking, trying to network past the issue of the portfolio. And I made a lot of connections. A lot of people wanted help, but there’s not much you can do.

[00:02:24] There’s no advice on how to get past the hiring process. Even some people have told me to just design my way through it. And that’s really frustrating because you’re giving people with disabilities more work to do instead of trying to solve the actual problem.

[00:02:41] Nikki Nolan: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:43] Drew Herrema: So eventually I found the position for UX Accessibility intern, and that was a perfect fit because it was part accessibility, part design. And with Wendy, my managerthey’ve been my biggest accommodation at work because they understand that. That is like how I got into a design position.

[00:03:03] And after that I realized how much I wanted to fix the whole design process. And since then I’ve been basically trying to learn more about HR. What are the problems that can be fixed and what are the problems that can’t be fixed?

[00:03:17] Sam Proulx: Yeah, it’s really interesting that you bring that up because, not to plug myself, but at a time of recording, I’m just fresh off last week, giving an hour long presentation on the employment gap. And the holistic problem that needs to be solved. First of all, you got in, you got the break, you got the start, you got the position, and that’s amazing.

[00:03:38] Was that through an especially great hiring process? Or was that through I think, an experience that is very common to people with disabilities in that you know someone or you network and you finally get one person who’s willing to give you a chance?

[00:03:55] Drew Herrema: There’ve been three (3) companies that when I asked for accommodations while applying, the HR responded and asked clarifying questions. And Kobo was the third one. Accenture was the second one. I forget the first, but they actually asked what I wanted. So my accommodation requests were questions in advance and an alternative way to demonstrate my skills without a portfolio.

[00:04:20] And so with those two things, I was able to demonstrate what I was able to do. With the questions in advance, I was able to connect what they were asking for with past experience.

[00:04:31] Sam Proulx: Hmm. So, it sounds like you finally found some HR processes that were functional for you as a person with a disability?

[00:04:39] Drew Herrema: I don’t know how much that was at Wendy or, or how much that was Kobo, So it’s hard to really say. And with my next position, will that be the case?

[00:04:45] Sam Proulx: Yeah, it’s always frightening, isn’t it, when you think about job searches as a person with a disability. I’m interested in your thoughts about the problems with HR because it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about. I know you probably don’t have fully thought out solutions or fully thought out answers yet because these are hard problems and these are difficult problems that we’re all thinking about.

[00:05:07] But I’m interested to hear the directions that your thoughts are trending in. What are the big problems in HR and what do you think are the wins and what is fixable?

[00:05:19] Drew Herrema: The overall answer is options.

[00:05:23] The more options you add into the hiring process, the better because not everyone is willing to disclose. Not everyone knows they should disclose. So the more options you have, the less time people need to ask for accommodations. So if questions are provided in advance, then people don’t have to ask for that.

[00:05:43] Then people don’t have to disclose, so people feel comfortable. If you have alternate ways of doing interviews, then you have that one less reason for discrimination. If you have developers, multiple ways or multiple options to demonstrate your developing skills instead of just whiteboarding, which is the most stressful way to demonstrate your skills as a developer. Then people can choose what works for them as opposed to having to disclose. Because a lot of people who are neurodiverse don’t realize it. And so they’ve been struggling, they don’t know why, but if they have different options, they can pick what would work for them. So even if they don’t know they need it, they don’t have to ask for it.

[00:06:27] Nikki Nolan: Yeah, it’s really the curb cut effect. Like where that curb cut helped people who were disabled, but it also helped so many other people. Just giving people that sort of variety of options. Sam, were you gonna say something?

[00:06:40] Sam Proulx: I was just thinking over what you were saying about options and about accommodations. And it was interesting to me that you said people don’t know that they should disclose. And I think disclosure or disability rights is a really interesting thing that we all struggle with.

[00:06:57] Do you disclose upfront? Do you disclose a little bit later? What are your thoughts and feelings about when and why to disclose? That can be really scary for some folks.

[00:07:11] Drew Herrema: Yeah, the advice is always, it depends. And that’s the frustrating thing, it depends on who you are. It depends on who they are. Like playing poker with someone, but they’re holding all the cards. They know how they’re gonna react to you asking for accommodations, but you don’t know how they’re gonna react.

[00:07:28] And if you don’t know what’s being tested, you don’t know what you need to ask for accommodations or not. I was once given a paper printout to look for errors and without spell check, that wasn’t gonna work for me.

[00:07:42] Sam Proulx: Yeah.

[00:07:43] Drew Herrema: And you’re not gonna get printouts for checking errors. So this honestly, is not a realistic expectation. So the test is disconnected from the actual work, which is another huge problem.

[00:07:55] Sam Proulx: Yeah, absolutely. And some of these tests are so fake and so artificial. And I know I’ve really dived in here because it’s something that super interests me and sounds like it interests you too. What is the thing that lights a fire in you?What gets you out of bed in the morning and gets you passionate to do what you do?

[00:08:14] Maybe it is HR, but also maybe it isn’t.

[00:08:16] Drew Herrema: It is. It started with being a designer, but not being able to design and seeing all of the bad design out there. Like all of the different bad text to speech options that don’t work for me, but not being able to have any input on them.

[00:08:31] Sam Proulx: And so it sounds like your goal is to bring more flexibility and options. Maybe not just in HR, but in life, right?

[00:08:44] Drew Herrema: Yeah, but you need people with disabilities and other minorities to get into work, to get into the positions where you’re making the decisions in order for everyone to have representation.

[00:08:56] Nikki Nolan: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:56] Drew Herrema: And it’s not about what I like, it’s not about me getting in there. It’s about everyone, because I have my perspective of white, male, cisgender. And that’s a very narrow perspective to consider everyone’s needs.

[00:09:10] Sam Proulx: Yeah, the same diverse teams build diverse products, right?

[00:09:13] Drew Herrema: Exactly.

[00:09:14] Nikki Nolan: So what are some of the key moments that led you to this place?

[00:09:18] Drew Herrema: I was struggling with trying to find work. First, struggling with education and loving learning, but hating books. And so, if you hate books and hate writing, then it’s hard to see yourself in higher education. After high school, I just struggled with trying to find something that worked for me and then eventually decided to go to school for American Sign Language. And then when that didn’t work, I decided to go to school for industrial design.

[00:09:48] The frustration of being good at design, but not being able to do it. That kinda built up into something needs to change.

[00:09:55] Nikki Nolan: I’m really curious, does the school provide accommodations? Did you find a school that has really good disability services? Because that’s why I chose the school I went to. I specifically chose my undergraduate school because they had a good disability services department and every accommodation I asked for, they were like yes.

[00:10:16] And it was heaven for me. I was just curious, does your school have anything like that?

[00:10:21] Drew Herrema: It did but wasn’t what I needed enough. It wasn’t everything I needed. I don’t know if it was better or worse than other options. So it was extra time on tests as well. Books as well.

[00:10:35] Nikki Nolan: For my books, people recorded them with their mouths because I can’t do technology based reading because my brain can’t process it. It has to go through someone else’s brain for me to. I don’t know why that’s my accommodation. I need it to be read by a person. So I had double time on tests and then orally had them read the test and people would fill in the bubble sheets for me because I have this thing that circles freak me out.

[00:10:59] So it was really helpful that I had that in undergrad. I think I wouldn’t have been able to get through it if they hadn’t provided those accommodations. But then when I got to grad school, it was so bad that I just gave up on trying to get accommodations. It’s really hit and miss between the schools.

[00:11:15] Drew Herrema: I feel like everyone who went through school and got as far as they did if they had the accommodations, would be so much further just because of how inefficient accommodations usually are.

[00:11:28] Nikki Nolan: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:29] Sam Proulx: I’m gonna say something very, very controversial that you both might disagree with and that’s totally fine. One of the things that I noticed in my own life is that I went to school for journalism and I don’t use that at all in my work. The reason I went to school is because there’s so much pressure on us as people with disabilities like, oh, well if you don’t get a university education to overcome your disadvantages, you’re never gonna be anything. I wonder sometimes if that’s fair? I wonder if there was some program where you could just do design as opposed to being in school, doing theory all the time?

[00:12:04] Nikki Nolan: Sam, you’re like, baiting me. Cause you know that I have another podcast about student debt…

[00:12:11] Sam Proulx: Yeah. I’m just interested in both your thoughts.

[00:12:13] Nikki Nolan: No, I’m curious about Drew’s thoughts, but I definitely have a lot of thoughts.

[00:12:18] Drew Herrema: Well, for me, learning through doing would’ve been better, but I never had the,” you gotta go to school first” thing. It’s more of a generational thing as opposed to a disability thing.

[00:12:33] Nikki Nolan: Can you explain that a little? What do you mean generational versus disability?

[00:12:36] Drew Herrema: I felt like I’d have better opportunities with school. But like the time when I graduated in 2003 and I went to start in 2012. So it wasn’t that I went straight from high school to school. There’s a huge gap there of me struggling to find something that worked. So it was more of I don’t feel like there’s a need to go to school because of your disability to do something. But like had there been an option, more hands-on learning, that would’ve been much better.

[00:13:15] Nikki Nolan: I have found that with other people, they get pressured into going to school because they’re told that if they go to school, they’ll be able to overcome all the hurdles and the boundaries that have been set up by society and stuff like that. And that it will help them excel and then they graduate from school.

[00:13:30] And that was just a false promise. Just end up being a whole in a lot of student debt. So I do think there needs to be different systems. The current education system seems to be failing, but it’s set up to fail. Honestly, it just seems like it’s a money laundering scheme.

[00:13:47] Sam Proulx: Right. I mean the thing that I learned at school was how to advocate for myself and how to get all these accommodations and how to identify as a person with a disability and how to talk about that and how to be that. Because in high school, at least in my experience, you have your parents or other folks helping you.

[00:14:05] Whereas in university, you don’t. But maybe we could have learned that in the workplace, right? And not get the debt. I don’t know. Drew, what was the learning process there? You seem to have a pretty good idea of what accommodations you want and what accommodations you need and how to advocate for them, but there’s a real learning process there. What was that like for you?

[00:14:29] Drew Herrema: The first thing I did when I got accepted to OCAD was to contact the students with disabilities office. But that was the extent of accommodating and advocating for myself really. And I don’t think it was until I started applying for jobs, and asking for accommodations either in the form of a cover letter that actually calls myself or identified as someone with a disability.

[00:14:59] So up until then, it was always, I would just hide my neurodivergence because it would just been discrimination. It wasn’t until I gave up trying to hide it that I actually recognized that I am someone with a disability and that it’s not me that’s broken, it’s the system.

[00:15:23] Sam Proulx: Was there a particular moment that crystallized that for you where you thought, oh, I’m a person with a disability and I don’t need to be ashamed of that? Or to hide that and it’s time to embrace it and to put it up front and to put it out there and to be my true self?

[00:15:37] Drew Herrema: It was along the process of trying to network into a position and writing comments and posts about accessibility on LinkedIn. I’m not sure it was an exact moment, but it was somewhere in there. So it’s all been very recent.

[00:15:55] Sam Proulx: Yeah, absolutely. I know you noticed that you went to OCAD. Full disclosure, at the place where I work we’ve got a lot of OCAD connections. Both of our founders went to OCAD. We’ve been privileged to do a number of things with Jutta Treviranusyou to Trevor Anniss.

[00:16:08] Have you worked with her at all? I’m just curious for my own interest and it seems like the OCAD program worked for you. Was it because the accommodations were excellent or was it because design is just your thing?

[00:16:21] Drew Herrema: It’s because design was my thing. The accommodations kind of helped, but not really. And it was basically the design side and the university side. And so I struggled incidentally with the university side, and then I was good with the design side. So the design part kept me going and slugging through the university part.

[00:16:45] Sam Proulx: Yeah, it sounds like maybe if the system was different, if things worked differently, if accommodations were different, maybe you’d be a sign language interpreter today.

[00:16:55] Drew Herrema: Yeah, well, because of my working memory, it just was not a good fit. But yeah, it wasn’t about the school. It was not a good fit because you have to keep all the characters in your head as you’re coding them and then put them together. I learned a lot about disability and the deaf community, but was not a good fit for me and I’m glad that after the first year I stopped.

[00:17:25] Sam Proulx: Yeah, that’s always an interesting balancing act thing I think about a lot, right? Because there’s a lot that goes into us as people with disabilities, learning our needs and learning what accommodations we need. But there’s also a lot about learning about ourselves, right?

[00:17:39] And sometimes we are more complex. It’s just interesting. I know Nikki, you’ve talked about it in the past about that journey you went on, not even deciding to identify as a person with a disability, but just self-knowledge and knowing yourself. It sounds like that was the thing that you had to do Drew.

[00:18:01] Drew Herrema: Yeah, because throughout school, they only focused on what I was not able to do, which was writing, reading, and they didn’t even mention that I have strengths at all. Like my perceptual organization is in the 99th percentile and I didn’t know.

[00:18:17] Nikki Nolan: Hmm.

[00:18:18] Drew Herrema: Throughout your whole life, you only get told what you’re bad at and what you can’t do, you only notice the pain points. It’s hard to notice when things go right because with design it’s easy to notice the bad things, but it’s hard to notice the good design.

[00:18:34] So when everything’s negative, it’s hard to have self-confidence about what you’re able to do. I’m still trying to rethink that I am really smart.

[00:18:49] Sam Proulx: Before we continue this conversation, it’s time to pause for just a minute for a word from our sponsor.

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[00:19:52] Sam Proulx: And we’re back. Let’s get right back to it.

[00:19:54] Nikki Nolan: It’s really interesting hearing your journey, but what experience shaped your perspective around disability?

[00:20:02] Drew Herrema: I guess it’s all growing up, struggling with school, and then I guess learning about accessibility and learning about other people’s needs.

[00:20:15] I can’t think of a specific moment when I understood myself, it’s hard to understand. Because of the complexity of trying to understand myself and my disability, it’s hard to really understand my perspective of disability, because I’m still trying to unpack that.

[00:20:44] Nikki Nolan: So it sounds like you’re in the middle of shaping what your perspective of disability is based on your personal experiences.

[00:20:55] Sam Proulx: The other thing that’s interesting to me is change. It seems like you’ve been on a life journey and sometimes even our own experiences of our disability can change. Is that something you’ve noticed and had to contend with?

[00:21:11] Drew Herrema: Yeah, as I discover different tools or like different things work and different things it changes how I perceive myself.

[00:21:22] Sam Proulx: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:23] Drew Herrema: If I had text to speech in public school, I would’ve been much better. Instead of where I was because like there’s one time when everyone was giving a test with a few paragraphs in the front and questions on the back.

[00:21:37] And so I was reading it and it was halfway through like the first paragraph and I heard someone else flip over their page and then another person, another person. By the time everyone had finished, I had only gotten like halfway through the reading. But if I had text to speech, I would be able to read it through at twice the speed or more.

[00:22:01] And so I wouldn’t have been at that disadvantage of trying to focus on one, the reading and struggling? Both the dyslexia for reading and the ADHD with all the noise around.

[00:22:16] Sam Proulx: Mm-hmm. Then of course on top of that there’s the daily variability in a tiny way. I don’t consider it a disability, but like I have a stomach condition and some days are great days and some days you just have to recognize that you’re lying in bed and in pain.

[00:22:31] And some days your brain works and some days it doesn’t. That can make things even more confusing. But that said, let’s move things forward. People are fascinating and we could talk about this stuff forever, but moving down the timeline.

[00:22:45] It seems like you kind of came to figure out what you needed and came to know your disability and yourself and you’ve started sort of embracing that identity and that label. You know, disclosures upfront. And so what are the outcomes that you’ve experienced as you begin to talk about disability and embrace that more?

[00:23:13] How has that been for you?

[00:23:16] Drew Herrema: Definitely growing confidence. Because it’s under a better understanding of what I’m good at and how it could be so much easier if things were set up differently. Also hearing other people’s struggles and then trying to help them also navigate employment.

[00:23:42] Sam Proulx: Yeah. And it’s a frustration when you suddenly realize, man, things should be better and they’re not. There’s some frustration there. I love what you said about helping others because we don’t do it alone. We aren’t islands. I’d love to hear about your experience with who’s your community?

[00:24:08] Did you find them or did you have to build it yourselves? What kind of communities did you find, what kind of communities did you build and how has that gone for you along the way?

[00:24:20] Drew Herrema: Just all of the different people who focus on accessibility on LinkedIn and hearing their struggles. Hearing what has worked and all the people with disabilities and their struggles and what has worked and mostly what has not worked and feeling connected to everyone.

[00:24:48] Nikki Nolan: It seems like a lot of people have found their community through LinkedIn. A few of our guests have actually said this, that their biggest engagement or their conversations really happen on LinkedIn. Do you feel that is like the place where you have the biggest online sort of community or network?

[00:25:07] Drew Herrema: It’s hard to have more than one social network to focus on. And because my struggle is focused around employment, that’s where I’ve focused my energy. It’s where a lot of people who have the power to make the change are so it’s trying to connect with them.

[00:25:30] Nikki Nolan: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:32] Sam Proulx: It sounds like some people have that luxury of building the community where they want to be in a place that’s great for them and other people sort of have to go to where the community already is. What’s your experience of doing that?

[00:25:50] Of trying to build connections or trying to connect with influential people? Is it a great experience? Are you loving every day and excited to do it? Or has it been sort of more of an ongoing challenge?

[00:26:05] Drew Herrema: I was surprisingly good at it. Whether it be making comments about text and CamelCase hashtags on people’s posts. And then starting conversations with that. Then building on that or complimenting people when they have a good text.

[00:26:32] Then just expanding my understanding of different people’s use of emojis as bullet points is bad for screen readers, but it’s also helpful for other people with autism. So it’s trying to find that balance of that double-edged sword of accessibility.

[00:27:01] Nikki Nolan: That one’s really hard for me because I love emojis and gifs and stuff like that, but I don’t like too much motion. I’m dyslexic as well, so it’s really hard for me to write with words and I love to express myself with words. I’m trying to be very conscious of other people’s experiences and make everything as inclusive as possible, but then how do we balance that? It’s so hard.

[00:27:28] Sam Proulx: That’s something that has played out a lot. For example, in the history of screen readers, emojis were seen as kind of a silly fad for a while and nobody wanted to put in the work to make screen readers read them, right? How do we balance when somebody’s AT (assistive technology) or a person with a disability needs to change? And when is it that the world needs to change? It can sometimes be a more difficult question than we think.

[00:28:01] Nikki Nolan: Mm-hmm. I’m really curious Drew, what discoveries have surprised you on your journey?

[00:28:08] Drew Herrema: I’ve had two (2) people say I should write a book. That surprised me, but also I got to the point where I’m not scoffing at the idea anymore. Five years ago, if you told me that I would actually be considering writing something longer than a few paragraphs, I would be very surprised.

[00:28:29] And the fact that I had the confidence to ask for a lot of random people on the internet to have informational interviews with me about design and that a lot of directors and executives were actually willing to talk.

[00:28:54] Nikki Nolan: Mm-hmm. I think that’s important for people to know that they can. People are nice. Sometimes you’ll get a lot of rejection, but sometimes you’ll get very surprised by the amount of people who are willing to talk to you. You reached out to me on LinkedIn and look, now we’re here.

[00:29:09] Sam Proulx: Yeah. Isn’t it? I mean, these days you can just email people to reach out to people and ask for a chat. I think we’ve hit the point in tech now where the worst thing that’s happened, they won’t even say no. The worst thing that can happen is they just won’t answer you.

[00:29:24] Which can be anxiety of its own. It seems l from what you said, you found it really around giving people. Practical things they can do. Like alt texts and CamelCase, hashtags and things like that. Did that surprise you, actually asking someone to do something like that rather than a more theoretical task, would be more productive? How did you get to that place?

[00:29:56] Drew Herrema: Well, because I’ll text and things like that are the easiest ways to get the simplest things for people to do. If you can get them to switch that, then maybe you can get them to think about bigger ideas and bigger concepts.

[00:30:17] Sam Proulx: Yeah, it’s like exercise, right? If someone starts doing it for three (3) minutes, then eventually they’ll get to 30. But, you can’t ask them to start with 30. I mean that’s such a great segue into the next thing that we’d like to ask all of our guests about.

[00:30:35] First, I hope that all of our listeners of this podcast are including alt texts on their posts, but maybe they’re not. What are the things that those people can do right now, after this episode, to start on that path towards inclusion and access and furthering the rights of people with disabilities?

[00:30:54] Whether they’re a person with a disability themselves or wanna be an ally. What advice do you give people who come to you and just want to get started?

[00:31:04] Drew Herrema: Listening is the big one because if someone asks for accommodations, actually don’t just question it, but actually think about it. Because an accommodation doesn’t mean it’s gonna be easier for them. And it doesn’t mean that it’s gonna be an unfair advantage, it just means that they are gonna be doing something differently.

If you want someone to get from point A to point B, you could have them ride a bike, but that’s not the only way to get from point A to point B. So if someone wasn’t able to ride a bike and you rejected them because of that, but they could actually teleport from point A to point B, then you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities.

[00:31:52] Sam Proulx: Yeah, that’s the key, isn’t it? That accommodations, people think accommodations are gonna be hard for them when really they’re just gonna be different for them. How do we break this narrative that to do something differently somehow means it has to be hard?

[00:32:05] Drew Herrema: It’s also like if in public school I was able to use text to speech and I was able to read the text three (3) times faster. Does that mean everyone has to read the text three (3) times faster with text to speech, if I’m able to finish something in three (3) minutes and everyone takes nine (9) minutes? Does that mean they have to finish it in three (3) minutes?

[00:32:28] Sam Proulx: Yeah, there’s this false narrative, oh, well if someone does something really well, now they’re gonna raise the bar on all of us, right? It seems to come right out of capitalism, and I don’t know if you’ve experienced this Drew, but maybe we as people with disabilities can do that to each other sometimes?

[00:32:45] Oh, if he’s really good at doing this, then I’m gonna be expected to be really good at doing this. So I better keep him from being really good at doing that. Which is interesting the way we think about talent and accommodation. Sometimes it kind of makes me also think about when you’re talking to people about your kind of disability and your needs. How do you get them to understand that difference between equality and, and inclusion and start striving for inclusion? Inclusion instead of maybe striving for equality?

[00:33:34] Drew Herrema: I haven’t had much experience because when applying for jobs, you don’t know if they’re rejecting you because of your qualifications or because you’re asking for accommodations. If you just hear nothing, you don’t know why. So it’s hard. I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to have that conversation.

[00:33:53] Sam Proulx: Mmm hmm.

[00:33:55] Drew Herrema: It’s tricky.

[00:33:59] Sam Proulx: It’s tricky. It’s okay not to know, you know what I mean? Because I don’t necessarily know either. But these are kind of the conversations to have. To close us out, is there anything that you would love to share that we didn’t ask you about?

[00:34:14] Drew Herrema: Disability is the most inclusive minority and anyone can join at any time, so act accordingly.

[00:34:21] Nikki Nolan: Drew, this conversation was great, but all conversations come to an end. But if people want to continue this conversation or do you have anything you wanna promote?

[00:34:31] Drew Herrema: Yeah, I can be found on LinkedIn or if something happens with LinkedIn my website, which is www.drewherrema.com.

[00:34:38] Sam Proulx: Links will be in the show notes.

[00:34:39] Nikki Nolan: Thank you so much for being here.

[00:34:46] Sam Proulx: Thanks for listening to Disability Bandwidth. If you liked this episode of Disability Bandwidth, please subscribe and share it with friends and family. Today’s episode was hosted by Sam Proulx and Nikki Nolan. Edited and produced by Nikki Nolan. Transcripts are written by Emma Klauber. Music is created by Efe Akeman.

[00:35:04] Special thanks to everyone at Fable who without their support, this show would not be possible. You can find out more about Disability Bandwidth on Twitter and Instagram @disabilitybandwidth, or on our website at www.disabilitybandwidth.com.

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