Come Out and (Press) Play


June is LGBT–lesbian, gay, bi and trans–Pride month, when queer folks and allies come together in the name of pride and the pursuit of equality, inside and outside of the workplace.

Coinciding with the occasion, In the Life Media has produced a series of videos called “LGBT Executives Speak Out” in which corporate and non-profit leaders reveal their advocacy work. Press the play button to view the segment above, which features Bobby Wilkinson of State Farm Insurance.

The series is an interactive supplement to “A Message of Hope” viewable in its entirety here.

How do you like the videos?

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Come Out at Work: As Losing Your Eyesight

If you’re reading this, you probably take your eyesight for granted. Imagine what it would be like to lose your vision, after relying on your eyes all your life. It feels nearly impossible to fathom, yet this is what happened several years ago to Ashish Goyal, a trader at JPMorgan in London.

A happy child at age 9, he realized he couldn’t see all the lines in his school notebooks, and he was having difficulty recognizing faces. Afflicted with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic condition that leads to blindness, he struggled to deal with this newfound physical challenge. “What was I to tell people? ‘Sometimes I can see you, sometimes not?'”  By the time he was 22, he could make out only light and shadows, which remains true today.

Because of his blindness, as a young adult he considered working for his father, a real estate developer. With encouragement from his mother, however, he pursued formal education in business. After earning his degree, many employers turned him away once they learned he was blind. At one point, frustrated, he told a recruiter “I’m blind. Do you still want to talk to me or not?” Exposing his truth near the beginning of the recruiting process may have been a turning point. “They asked whether I could do the job. I said I think I can, and I was hired.”

While he likely didn’t define himself by his blindness, if others were going to, they would be better off knowing of Goyal’s vision impairment as soon as possible. The freedom to open up about the complexities of his abilities in part led him to JPMorgan, where he helps manage billions of dollars exposed to market risk.

At the financial services firm he uses screen-reading software to read e-mail, reports, and presentations. The audio speed is so fast it would sound like gibberish to the uninitiated. When he needs to read graphs, a regular occurence, Goyal pores over the data and works to imagine the graph — an asset when it comes to analyzing risk. A colleague has said “Ashish looks at where things are now and just follows the news flow. He’s not blinded by the graphs.”

Coming out at work as one who is losing her eyesight takes a significant amount of self-awareness, and strength. The more you’re grounded in the reality of your diminishing vision, the better you can communicate what you’re experiencing, and what sort of accomodation you need to continue doing your work. Your transition from identifying as sighted to your new identity as one who’s blind may be  full of uncertainty, confusion, and fear, and the conversations you have with colleagues on the subject may be awkward, at first. Yet just think: if you can work through this challenge, what obstacle can’t you overcome? Right, we can’t think of any either.

There are other conditions that cause gradual and irreversible loss of eyesight, with many corresponding online resources. The Birdshot Uveitis Society is one such support network for folks with, well, birdshot uveitis.

Beyond his professional work, Goyal takes tango lessons and plays cricket, albeit with a bigger ball that makes sound. We’re reminded of the concept of hedonic adaptation, which postulates that people can return to a stable level of happiness after a setback in their lives. More than stably happy, Goyal seems to be thriving fully.

Have you lost any of your abilities at work? How have you managed?

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The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: Books Revisited

This feature is called “Books Revisited” because the titles are typically out for a while before we get to them.

In 2007, Daniel Pink spent two months researching the manga industry in Japan. Fast forward a year, and The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need was published.

We want to tell you about it because upon finishing the last page, we thought of about ten people to whom we’d like to give this book.  It’s what great non-fiction in 2010 should be: concise, insightful and from the heart. Yes, non-fiction from the heart!

We aren’t completely sure of Pink’s motivations — is he an avid manga reader? does he love comics in general? — yet a career advice book presented as manga is certainly novel. Plus he accesses his experience in Japan and uses it to interesting effect.  That he’s the first writer of a manga-inspired professional development book suggests the idea may be born from the heart, rather than the product of a trend.

Listen to what Pink reveals about Johnny Bunko on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show”:

We could repeat in this post the six (6) main themes the author outlines in his text. However, we’d be doing our readers (all 4 of you!) a disservice. Viewing each page comprises an emotional experience of processing the ideas presented, to the extent that you’ll likely retain them long after you’ve put the book down.

Have you read it? What do you think?

West coast conference on being out at work

You live near Southern California? Then you should know that Out for Work is hosting the next LGBTQA College Student Career Conference at UCLA on April 10 & 11, 2010.  The two-day agenda includes workshops on building your personal brand and one called “Manners, meals and interviews.”

College students may benefit from exploring the dimensions of being queer and looking for work post-graduation.  Some parents, teachers–and yes, career counselors–talk about what it means to be “professional” at work, which can fly in the face of your desire to be out at work. If you plan to go to the conference, bring your toughest questions about what your sexual identity has to do with your career! Of course, for more insight, keep reading this blog…

Out for Work lists a national conference to be held in Washington DC in September 2010. More info