K: Lately I’ve been thinking about how no job is 100% remote, and that every job requires some in person something. So we own Cinnabar Moth Publishing, and there is a point in time when that won’t be able to be done 100% remote, and that we’ll have to go to book conventions and such. And your job that’s supposed to be 100% remote is if you don’t want upward mobility. I guess, there are 100% remote jobs, but they come with no upward mobility. That’s my thinking. That’s my observation: my grand observation. I want to say my observation du jour but that is completely not the right phrase for it.

C: Your observation of the day?

K: Yes, and I just want to be like, “This is my observation du jour.” My observation du jour is that any job that is 100% remote, there’s no upward mobility.

C: Your observation a la mond.

K: (laughs) So, what do you think about that? I mean, what do you think about your job and upward mobility and not being 100% remote?

C: I think that most people who run things ultimately want to meet other people. I have seen some jobs that I believe are 100% remote, but they are also often very aggressive about them being remote, and they’re not open to people being at home. Because I think 100% remote and 100% work wherever you feel like it truly honestly are different. Because there’s one company, I’m not going to say their name, but – that advertises jobs, and they are like, “We are an alpha strike force of combat trained, by which we mean code trained… combat, by which we mean code, supreme elite operators-“

K: What are you saying?

C: It’s like this whole thing, like they’re-

K: You’re saying this weird jibber-jabber in a weird jibber-jabbery way trying to protect a company that’s being what? What is the company being? Because I don’t understand your explanation. So there’s this company-

C: This company that-

K: That uses a war metaphor for being a programmer, and that irritates you.

C: They say you can get be 100% remote. What they mean by being 100% remote – and they put this as a benefit – is that you could be called upon at any time to fly anywhere in the world to go write code for somebody.

K: Okay, so remote meaning not in their office.

C: Exactly. I think like saying, “It’s 100% remote, you never have to come to our office.” A lot of companies used to say that, and then be like, “Well, of course we get together in person once a year or twice a year, every couple of years, however often.” My current job tries to get together once a year. So every year they have held a conference, and the only reason that we’re not flying to Australia right now is that we can’t fly to Australia right now.

K: Yeah. You’re a keynote speaker at this year’s conference, which I’m super proud about, and you’re doing it with one of the founders. I’m super proud of you for that. I think that’s completely awesome. But when we were talking about your strategy for promotion, and climbing ladder, and all of those types of things, I was like, “You know, they’re not going to promote you – it’s going to be more difficult for them to make the decision to promote you if they’re never going to lay eyes on you.”

C: Yeah.

K: And I have people that really push hard to see me in person and really push hard to talk to me or video chat with me. And I just tell people, I don’t do that.

C: Yeah.

K: I just tell people no. But then everybody knows I’m notoriously a bad employee, so like no.

C: But my previous employer, they made me an offer and they said, “We’re going to make you an offer, and by the way you have to move to Tokyo.” And I said no.

K: Sorry if you can hear me using the brush to itch, I have hives. And… Chad, you’re just going to have to let this episode play with me itching. Sounds like, “No, we can’t have any sound. Let’s rerecord.” I’m like, “No. No, no, no, no.” I started work at 1:00 AM, and it is now 6:00 PM. How many hours is that?

C: 17.

K: Yeah, so no. 18 hour a day, I’m not recording shit. Rerecording shit.

C: (laughs)

K: Like, “Let’s get on the mic and do this.” And so I think people don’t understand podcasting is for real, it’s no joke. And we do this for free, so it’s the most expensive hobby ever. Because I feel like it’s a hobby. I wish it were a business. But I feel it’s a hobby. Because it doesn’t make any money, so therefore it’s not.

C: But if it were a business, we’d have to show up in person to podcasting conventions. It wouldn’t be remote.

K: Yeah, that’s you trying to bring it back. And we just talked about this right for the podcast, that you just interrupt me and try to bring it back full circle, and I might be on a roll with the tangent. And you just gotta vibe it out man.

C: Okay, I’m vibing it out.

K: Yeah. So I want this to be a full-time thing. I want us to make a living off the podcast, but I don’t think that’s going to happen, and that’s bumming me out. I think it’s because I feel I have podcasts envy when it comes to Sibling Rivalry. And I think everybody should. Because they have over 20,000 patrons on Patreon. I’m like, “What?” But then they do this thing where they started it as a YouTube channel and got the YouTube channel to be super popular over three or four years. And they started off famous, let’s just be clear.

C: Yeah.

K: Both of them are famous, and they’re in drag talking about topics. And they bicker in an interesting way. And it’s completely entertaining. Now what they do is they start the first 10 minutes off with the visual on YouTube and then go to audio only, and you can only see the visual on their Patreon.

C: So, people are willing to pay to get that video of them.

K: Yeah. And I’m not one of those people. They’re famous and successful, and Monét X Change and Bob the Drag Queen are the hosts of it. And I don’t know, just when I heard that it’s 20,000 patrons, I just… “Man, I’m jelly. I’m like magellan jelly.” And they’re able to work 100% remote, but they’re not wanting to – see, I did my own segue. I don’t need your stinking segues. I could do my own, get myself back on track.

C: You can, yeah.

K: I think it’s just a bad precedent if we stay on topic all episode.

C: Yeah. People would be like, “What podcast is this? What are we listening to?”

K: Yeah, it would be very confusing for our audience. Hit us up @TheMsuicks or drop a note in our Patreon if, you know…

C: And if we fail to hear anything, we are going to take that as you love it.

K: (laughs) Like we do with everything.

C: Yes.

K: Closed mouth don’t get fed. So you must not be hungry. I wish I could stop itching. I took Benadryl right before we started recording because I’m covered in hives, and I’m covered in hives because I’m doing really good in my PhD. And when something really good happens, it gives me hives. I get over stimulated and excited.

C: You’re PhD is supposedly remote, 100% online.

K: Yeah, but I had to do two in person residencies.

C: And then two synchronous residencies, is where you show up in the middle of the night because you’re in Japan.

K: Because Japan.

C: Yeah.

K: (laughs) And there are no options available that weren’t middle of the night in Japan. So for you, when I told you, “If you want a promotion, we’re going to have to go to Australia.” How did that feel?

C: Felt like, “Well, what if I just say we’re going to Australia? Can I get a promotion then?” The answer is yes. But… we’re not lying, we will go to Australia.

K: Yeah.

C:  But it’s sometimes a bit frustrating that… people don’t want to work the way that I want to work. But I know people are really struggling that they’re not going to an office.

K: Yeag.

C: That’s not most people. Most people are like, “I’m not going to an office.” And are having a hard time in Australia because they’re in lockdown rather than because they can’t go to an office, but… some people like it.

K: And here in Japan, the way the remote working was going at the height of things – it’s still the height of things here in Japan but the government has decided to not acknowledge that because, hello, the Olympics and the Paralympics both are coming, which we have on the schedule to talk more in detail about those things. But how Japan is doing the remote is that everybody could take one day off a week and work from home.

C: Yeah, that’s how some places were doing it, is we’re only going to be at 80% capacity because for every five people will have each person take one day a week off and work from home. They frame it that way, like you’re taking the day off. Just take the day off,5 chill, relax, get your 10 hours of work done from home. But you’ve got the day off, so we’re not going to pay you because you got the day off, but work from home.

K: Yeah. Other companies were remote with the client, but had the person still go in the office to work with the client.

C: Yeah, like a call center or a conversation school being like, “Okay, everybody go to your poorly ventilated cubicle and get on call and be sure to talk loud, so they can hear you. This will have nothing to do with any spread of the virus that might happen. 50 people in the office, because usually we have 100. So hello, we are being responsible.”

K: Yeah. And a lot of the schools had COVID cases.

C: Yeah, of course.

K: And still not vaccinated, but whatever.

C: Yeah, I see places that are… “learn how” – not going to say their name. Like “learn how big Japanese company is managing COVID by having everyone wear face masks.” And they’ll have 200 people in a small room. All wearing face masks though.

K: Yeah. And so, looking at the United States, a lot of people were doing remote work, and there was a huge increase in disabled individuals and how much they were working. There was a big increase in that, and they were promised… I have a group of disabled friends that live in the United States. And several of them had increased work and promises of upward mobility. And now that everybody is vaccinated at the office, they’re wanting people to return. Now, everything that they were promised is being reneged on because… they’re going to go back to their flextime, where they work part-time in the office and part-time at home.

C: Mhm.

K: And because of that flex-time, they’re not getting everything that they will offered, and I think that’s so weird. And a lot of disabled folks are just having to straight up quit jobs that are going back 100% to an office, because not everybody is vaccinated yet. And so, I know if you’re high risk, you’re supposed to be able to get vaccinated bada bada bada, but there are some people with disabilities based on where they live that they’re not vaccinated. And it’s weird that the offices in the United States seem to be like, “Oh, one person is vaccinated, we can all come back now.”

C: Yes. “If you’re worried, just stay near the vaccinated person.” It doesn’t work that way.

K: Right. There’s no herd vaccination. I know everyone’s like, “herd immunity,” no. Herd vaccination, and even people who have had COVID need to be vaccinated.

C: Yes.

K: I know this is kind of a COVID heavy episode, but we have COVID fatigue. And learning that things aren’t 100% remote is quite shocking because… I don’t know, I just still don’t feel safe. And I still don’t want to go out, because I’m still not vaccinated.

C: I think we’ve seen this pattern before in working though. Thinking like for Americans, if you go back to World War Two. During World War Two they were like, “Okay, women can enter the workforce fully because we don’t have enough men.” And then when the war ended, when the men came back, they were like, “Okay, go back home and bake your muffins.”

K: Yeah, and this is very that for a lot of people in the disability community because a lot of folks in the disability community are more Zoom savvy and more technologically savvy in terms of ways to communicate and work. And they had already been doing – the couple of friends I’m thinking about in particular had already been doing that flex thing where they would go in sometimes and work from home sometimes, so they were all set up to work. And they helped everyone else set up to work from home and got everything going.

C: Yes.

K: And they were doing all this, it was like, “Wow, you’re really a go-getter, and you’re really doing great. And so we’re going to put you on this promotion track, but being on this promotion track requires that you be in the office for 40 hours a week.” And that to me just is wild. That makes no sense – make it make sense, because this is about them saving your biscuits when you were caught off guard and unaware and unprepared. Because I don’t physically prep, but I mentally prep for the worst. And so for me when a pandemic hit, I knew what I would do if the global pandemic hit. Just like I know what I’ll do if this tsunami hits, or an earthquake or any other random horrible thing.

C: I think a lot of this is just kind of baked into the management structures at different companies. And the line managers and middle managers don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing if they’re not watching people work.

K: This is true.

C: Like the open floor plan in a lot of tech companies. One of these supposed benefits of it is that you can look and see all the people and what they’re doing at a glance-

K: I’m so itchy.

C: I’m sorry, you’re so itchy.

K: Yeah, I feel like everyone can hear me scratching. Can you hear it?

C: I can only hear it when you’re using implements to scratch.

K: When I was using a brush?

C: Yeah.

K: I itch myself with a brush. I have an old brush that’s missing a lot of… I don’t know, so in a comb it’s teeth. Is it teeth in a brush?

C: It’s bristles.

K: Bristles, thank you. I was like “it’s not teeth.” It’s missing a bunch of bristles, so… I itch. I use it to itch. And I have really baby fine… I think I’ve talked about on the podcast before, that if you look at my hair too hard it’ll fall out of my head.

C: (laughs)

K: So I don’t brush it. I comb it with a wide tooth comb.

C: Okay. I’m looking sideways at it now so it doesn’t fall out. But it looks like I’ve never looked at.

K: Don’t make eye contact with – aah, my mic fell. This is so chaotic. I’m so chaotic. I want to turn on my fan, this is just awful, it’s hot, and I’m itchy. This is wild. This is a wild time.

C: And you’re working remotely, how much worse would it be if this were in person?

K: (laughs_ You’re trying so hard to make it about the topic that I said it’s about. And I’m just like, I just want to complai – I just want to get on the mic and complain. I’m so physically uncomfortable, and I’m overtired, and I’m delirious. And… I don’t know. I think it’s more about… I feel like it’s more relevant to talk about disability rights than it is about remote work because I think that’s what’s bugging me about it. I think that’s why I’m actually thinking about, is why can’t any country get their disability rights together? Because my son has a friend in Belgium – and hey Belgium friend – and they are disabled and got messed about.

And so every country, even the countries in the Netherlands and stuff that are supposed to be so good about it are not good about it. And hey Finnish friend. So I have several friends from Finland, and I’ve been learning about Finland, and Finland pays people at a rate to not work that they can’t afford to go back to work. So it’s not only disabled people, it’s the working poor.

C: Yes.

K: We’re seeing it in the United States too, and lo and behold the republicans are right: if you give people more money, a living wage in their disability and a living wage in their unemployment that they won’t work for less than they made on unemployment. So let’s just pay everybody a living wage.

C: No, no, no those dastardly workers not wanting to go and work for still not enough money to live off of.

K: In dangerous conditions.

C: Yes.

K: For big, fat bloated billion-dollar corporations.

C: Thank you for recognizing that those corporations need to lose weight… by vigorous application

K: Oh my god, that was not that fatphobic.

C: I’m not saying it was, I’m saying-

K: Don’t come for my language usage.

C: I’m not.

K: I’m incorporating wild, and big fat and bloated. I’ve never called a person big fat and bloated. Have you?

C: No.

K: I’m fat, and I’m not fatphobic.

C: What? (laughs)

K: Yeah, I’m not fatphobic, and I don’t fat shame. And… my weight has nothing to do with any of my health stuff that I’m going through. But calling a company big, fat and bloated is a particular image. Like a whale is big, fat and bloated when it’s on the beach. A beached whale is big, fat and bloated. I think whales in the ocean when they’re free – not in aquariums and not in little pens in the ocean, but when they’re out in the ocean, and they’re free. I think they’re very majestic until – like, oh my gosh, trigger warning, I’m going to talk about the abuse of animals by animals. Until you find out that whales flip other animals for fun in the ocean, they will go swim under them and knock them out of the ocean.

C: Like weee.

K: Yeah, and so will dolphins. I’m like, okay, the two smartest creatures in the ocean are all cruel and mean just like humans. Humans that don’t treat disabled folks right, and don’t treat the working poor right. See, I brought it back around.

C: I think it’s fear. I think it’s fear that that’s going to happen to them. I think it’s fear that they will be treated like that. Because I have had people who haven’t met me, who are like, “You are the most competent person in the entire world.” And yes, they literally say that.

K: Yes, they do. Everyone should.

C: Yes, they literally say that me. And then they meet me, and they’re like, “Oh, I didn’t know you were…” I’m like, “Handsome?” They’re like, “No.” “Tall?”

K: You’re not tall.

C: Wow. Okay.

K: You’re not tall. You know I don’t like you calling yourself tall.

C: Just go straight for the jugular.

K: Yes, you know I don’t like you calling yourself tall. You are not tall.

C: I only need a couple more inches to be six foot tall. And if that-

K: I only need a few more inches to be six foot tall.

C: If five foot 10 is not tall, then what is?

K: I think you’re five nine, for one. Let’s just keep it real and honest.

C: See, now you’ve switched your position. Because when we met I said, “I’m five, nine.” And you’re like, “No, you’re not. You’re five, 10.”

K: I was fresh, all doey eyed in love, you were perfect.

C: You were saying “you’re six foot. You must be at least six foot.”

K: Yeah. Because when we stood super close together, which I don’t stand that close to you in the summertime. So I don’t look up at you – I don’t gaze up at you. We’re usually pretty close to eye level now almost all the time. Because I have a disorder that requires that I be bedridden, and that is awesome, so I have to work remote. And I have to have two walking sticks whenever I go out in public so I don’t faint, and all kinds of stuff.

C: So you don’t fall if you do thing.

K: Yes. I think even with my walking sticks if I fainted…. But the walking sticks give me time that if I start feeling-

C: Woozy.

K: Yeah, that I’m able to burl up to a spot where I can rest. And wherever I go, I map out like resting spots. I know how far away the next resting spot is.

C: I think if people can’t see that, they assume it’s not going on. But when they can see it, they’re like, “Oh, this isn’t right.” And a lot of the businesses want to micromanage people, or at least have a culture that rewards being a micromanager.

K: Yeah.

C: And micromanagement really relies on just asking people, “what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?” Which is so much easier if you could just go and look.

K: Yeah. And even if you’re going and looking, there’s no guarantee that you understand what you’re seeing.

C: Yeah.

K: Because for me, when you’re programming, I don’t know how to program. So I can’t tell the difference between several video games that you play that look like programming. You don’t play them during working hours because you’re a good employee. But I’m just saying, if I was going to supervise you, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a video game that you play that looks like code to me and when you’re writing code.

C: Yeah. Some of the video games I play are writing code.

K: Okay. Well that explains it.

C: Yeah.

K: Because you’re old enough that you didn’t always have a visual to go with your gaming.

C: This is true. I got started in text gaming.

K: But you’re not old. I said old enough. Don’t be like, “You just acknowledged I’m old.” No, I didn’t. I said old enough just because… you all don’t know: it’ll come back. Chad, will be like, “You said I was old on the podcast.” And I’m gonna be like, “No I didn’t.” So I have to really mark it for Chad.

C: Remember 24 minutes and 30 seconds of episode of 117 when you said I was old.

K: You see, Chad’s already planning it.

C: (laughs)

K: You see the plotting now goes on. It’s treachery. Treachery I say.

C: Well, that’s how I’m going to bring my discrimination suit. I’m gonna be like, “She wouldn’t let me work remote, because she said I’m too old to work remote.”

K: And I never said you’re old. I said you’re old enough.

C: To know better?

K: (laughs) I was thinking something way more saucy.

C: Okay.

K: I think you’re old enough to take them clothes off.

C: Wow. Okay.

K: Yeah. So, my mind’s always on naked Chad.

C: You’re younger than I thought, because I thought you’re old enough to know better on that.

K: No, Chad, nobody’s laughing at that. If you’re laughing at that, stop right now. Stop laughing and then send me an apology tweet.

C: I can hear them.

K: Yeah, no, send me an apology tweet. And be like “I am so sorry, I should not have laughed at that. I was encouraging him from afar.”

C: Yeah, “I am so sorry that I laughed at something funny. I promised to get rid of my sense of humor.”

K: (laughs) That was funny. But the other thing was not funny. Babe you have to accept the boundaries of your ability to make me laugh, which is the most important thing. Like, did I laugh?

C: I think what sometimes you don’t recognize is that humor is a ramp, and you have to ramp up. So those unfunny jokes, what you call unfunny, they’re pre-funny.

K: I just thought of like a horrible subway surfing, like disability ramps that they don’t have in Japan.

C: Exactly.

K: Such a terrible, terrible thing. So I can’t think of Mickey’s @ on… the reason I’m saying his name is because he has a podcast called Accessibility Japan.

C: Barrier Free Japan.

K: What?

C: I think it’s called Barrier Free Japan.

K: See, now you have to say his @ on Twitter so people can find him.

C: No, I don’t have to.

(extended laughter)

K: Oh, my gosh. I just got read the house down. That was so awesome. Oh, my gosh. (laughs)

C: Well, you were trying to control me. You were like, “You. You’re disabled, you work for me, do this.” I’m like, “No, I still have dignity and rights.”

K: Yes, you’re like, “You don’t own me.”

C: “I’m not just one of your many toys.”

(laughter)

K: Because I don’t know it. I’m sorry, Mickey, I don’t know it. You can @ us with all the information, the next time we talk about you, we’ll get it right. And if you don’t @ us, we’ll know that you’re not listening to our podcast.

(laughter)

K: So with disability rights in Japan, they’re way far behind, and Japan does the most bizarre things when it comes to disability. And so, Japan – we’ve talked about how unaccessible it is, but they make modifications that make it less accessible, not more. Like they recently in one of the cities changed all the subway entrances, when you’re on the platform to get onto a train. That’s supposed to make it more mobility friendly.

And the reason I mentioned Mickey, is because he doesn’t always use a wheelchair, but sometimes he does. He’s like “This is not wheelchair accessible.” And so I like him and talking with him about it because he’s living it. It his lived experience. And I’m able to get a deeper understanding of what it’s like to be disabled in the workforce in Japan. And there’s this talk in the community about visibly versus non-visible disabilities. So if you just looked at me, you cannot tell I’m disabled because I’m not stereotypically disabled. And the way that I handle mobility is not stereotypically disabled. And to read disabled in Japan, there’s certain things that you need to do – like Chad reads as disabled, I do not. I think when you go out in public, you read as disabled.

C: I think so, to most people. As I get older and my hair gets more gray, people are more ready to accept it. So when I started using a cane here in Japan, a lot of people were… reacting as though it was a prop. Which it’s literally a prop, it props me up, but as though it were used effect. Again, it is used for effect, as though it were theatrical, there we go, rather than a serious need. Now, I think most people see that, “Okay. Oh, not only do you use a cane, you limp and all that? Maybe you’re really disabled.”

K: I feel like your current job doesn’t treat you like you’re disabled and doesn’t accommodate but does good conversation about it.

C: I think that’s your perspective from the outside. I think that-

K: As your wife who lives with you, and observes you?

C: Yes.

K: You’re very protective of the company you work for. You don’t like me saying anything that could even slightly be perceived as negative about the company, and I think that’s really good. So, if you work at the same company as Chad, this is Kisstopher talking, not Chad. Don’t think that I’m voicing his opinions for him. we have a strict deal that I don’t get to voice opinions, or emotions or ideas for him.

C: You can acknowledge that I’m funny but-

K: But I think that we made that deal when you were a him. And now that you are openly non-binary, you are no longer he/him. You are just Chad.

C: I still accept people calling he/him. I think this is an area where… I feel a severe disconnect between my body and my experience of self. And I feel like I toodle around the world in a male body, and so he/him… yeah, I don’t know. That’s where I end up always… I don’t know.

K: Yeah, that where you end up. I’m trying to stop he himing you. I like it as – that I think of it as my husband formerly known as he/him.

C: But nobody called me that.

K: I just called you that. I call you that in my head all the time.

C: Wow. Do I need to move to just being a simple?

K: Who else could call you my husband, formerly known as he//him?

C: Nobody could call me that.

K: Thank you.

C: Nobody but you.

K: Thank you. So when you say nobody calls me that, and I just called you that, what’s that about?

C: That’s about saying you’re nobody, which is so wrong. Because you are not nobody, you’re everybody.

K: Thank you-

C: Everybody knows it.

K: Thank you, recognition. So I find that none of the people we work with even the disabled people give me accommodations for my disability. And I feel like I don’t give them accommodations for their disability. But all of disabled people who work for us and who are authors of ours, we knew them previously. And so… everybody who works for us truly works remotely. And I think, I’m gonna be the first gig that I know of with upward mobility and completely 100% working remote.

C: Yeah, I think that the remote work has come first to two ends of things. One is people who are highly skilled in the way that the market values in digital skills that can be applied from anywhere with an internet connection. And then the other is on people who are doing things that are completely non-digital but just require… skill plus manual labor. Like assembly work, and that’s fallen out of popularity in the US, but is still very much a thing elsewhere. And your mom did assembly work, and my mom did assembly work on crafting on things.

K: Okay, how many years ago did your mom do it?

C: Well, she died 32 years ago, so I think it was like 10 years ago she was doing it, like her ghost was. No, she was doing it 40 years ago.

K: She was doing it 40 years ago?

C: Yeah. 40 years ago.

K: She was doing it 40 years ago?

C: She was not digital working. She was doing assembly. She was building things. She would get the materials. She would build things and sell them.

K: My mother was doing it between 47 and 45 years ago. I find that interesting that our age difference is often so much the difference between our mother’s ages.

C: Yes.

K: Well, I don’t know… no, the difference in our ages because I have no idea how old my mother was. And you have like a really firm idea of how old your mother was at every turn of the stage.

C: Yeah, I know her birthday and everything.

K: Yeah… I famously don’t know my mother’s birthday. I don’t know if famously yet. I don’t know, if I’ve said that before on the podcast, but I don’t. So my mother was also disabled as was yours.

C: Yeah.

K: Do you think that this choice for your mom to work remotely with about disability? Because for me, for my mother, it was about being a single mom and having two kids to raise on her own and not being able to physically go into a job because she didn’t have childcare.

C: I think that was one aspect of my mom’s. I think also, she couldn’t build a career because my dad was in the military, so we’d move every couple of years. Best she could build like a reputation for doing particular kinds of things that got mailed off. Because even if she moved, then we could mail things. That pretty much ended when we moved to Alaska, because it was so much more expensive to mail things from there. But when we moved to Alaska, she started selling Tupperware and that kind of thing.

K: My mom worked remote, and her remote work was so good that she got a job. And then started working full-time and had tons and tons of problems because of the sensitivity of skin and sinuses that come along with having hereditary coproporphyria, HCP, that… it was really, really difficult. And they told her “If you want to go back to doing things remotely, we’re going to have to demote you and pay you half of what we were paying you.”

C: Yeah. For doing the same work, probably. Because I know that…

K: Yeah. And I feel like that’s still going on today like-

C: Yeah, absolutely.

K: You know, it’s just not… disability rights are just not advancing. I know that we were really hopeful that COVID would help them advance and help people see that individuals who are disabled – if you listen to them about what they need to work, they can work.

C: I think that’s why I’ve consistently said I feel like my company accommodates me because if I mentioned that I need something for work, then they’re quite willing to do that. There’s been nothing that they say, “No, just suck it up.”

K: Okay. But how often do you say you need something?

C: I don’t say I need something very often. I feel like that’s on me and maybe it’s just like my little area of the world. But I have several people that I work with, who are disabled, who I know receive reasonable accommodations on things. And so I just guess I feel like, if I asked I would probably get those too, and working remotely for me as an accommodation. Because if I have a rough time, if I have a seizure or something, being at home makes that so much easier.

K: When the world opens up everybody is going to expect us to go on tour and go to different places, and I’m thinking one international trip a year would be enough. I don’t think I can do international travel more than once a year, and that’s because being in planes make me really sick.

C: Yeah.

K: And so I need recovery time once we arrive at our destination, and recovery time, once we come home. And so there’s two or three days, when we’re at the place that I really struggle. And then whenever we come home, it’s usually about a week. I really struggle.

C: Yeah, that’s right. Because we went to Paris, and we went to Madrid, and both places… part of the time there was spent with you recovering from traveling to there, and then you do your thing and then travel back.

K: And airports blow me out. And you like to go two hours in advance, and I find that challenging. I’m sick today, and my allergies are bugging me and I’m itching and everything. Sorry guys, I think we’re going to wrap a little early today. But only like a few minutes, not like a big deal. We hope that you enjoyed this ramble and I appreciate you watching – I appreciate you listening. Your time and energy are important to us, and we love that you share your resources with us.

C: Thank you for listening. And if you would like a discount on this episode, because it’s shorter, just let us know.

K: (laughs) You can have free minus free.

C: Yes, exactly.

K: You get 50% off for your free, or you can get 50% more free.

C: Yeah, make your choice and let us know or don’t and either way, we will accommodate that.

K: (laughs) I hope that we follow you over to take two where we’re going to be talking about developmental deals. And… if you sign up and join Patreon, even if you only join for a month, you’ll have to have access to over 100 different pieces of things. You’ll have like our writing, you’ll have like all the-

C: All the take twos.

K: Yeah, all the different take twos we’ve done over the years, because we used to do-

C: In writing.

K: Yeah, in writing, we used to like our take extra notes about the episode. And that became rather cumbersome and now we do

C: More voice.

K: Yeah. Bonus conversation. Thanks so much for listening. We totally appreciate you. You guys are awesome. We love every single Music Note out there. Please join us next week or follow us on over to Patreon where we’re going to talk about… see I already forgot.

C: Developmental deals.

K: Right. Brain like a sieve. Thanks a bunch. Talk to you next week.

C: Bye.

K: Bye.