Since moving to London last month, I’ve applied for part-time jobs which will allow me to have enough money to live, whilst also leaving room for me to pursue a career in radio and broadcasting. And during these job applications and subsequent interviews, I’ve been repeatedly faced with society’s favourite question about disability: how does your condition affect you on a day-to-day basis?

Everyone loves this question; it offers neat and comfortable parameters within which a disability can be defined and the methods for ‘dealing with it’ clearly laid out. Yet, every single time a person asks me this question all I ever feel like doing is laughing, because even though their intentions are probably good, the question makes literally zero sense.

On the surface, what’s being asked is how my Spina Bifida will impact my ability to work – or, if the government is the one asking, then it’s more about how it will impact general life. But the problem is that this seemingly simple question doesn’t have a simple answer, because it assumes that disability is this one fixed condition, which has these fixed symptoms, which impact everyone who has this specific disability in these fixed ways. Such an organised experience of disability would be nice – trust me – but it’s about as likely as pigs flying tomorrow morning.

Each time I apply for a job, I’ve carefully considered whether I think the role is something I can physically manage, so I don’t feel it necessary to tell the employer I’m physically disabled at that point because I’d prefer to be judged in the same ways as all the other applicants. Plus, at this stage, I don’t think that my medical history is anyone else’s business. However, when I get to an interview and the employer asks if I have any questions, that’s when I’m explicit about my needs – basically, I just need to be able to sit down regularly to relieve the pressure off of my feet for a bit. But by then, I’m 90% sure it’s wouldn’t disrupt my ability to do the job and it’s something the employer could sort out pretty easily. If the employer agrees (which, more often than not, they do) then we start filling out all the HR forms so I can be put on rotas.

This is where it can get a bit sticky because I always have to send over my medical information to prove my disability so the company can do a risk assessment, but that mountain of paperwork paints my condition as a ticking time bomb because all that’s mentioned are my operations, blisters and infections. But, as I explained to the lovely lady who recently gave me one of my jobs, the government (a.k.a. who the paperwork is written for) only cares about when the Spina Bifida has been at its worst; there’s no room in the notes for the million and one ways I take precautions every day to ensure that I’m fine.

So why is it a bit silly to ask me how my disability affects me on a day-to-day basis? Well, because I don’t know which days you mean. I could tell you the days when my foot is in a good condition, but how far are you asking me to walk? Are my shoes new? Is it hot outside? Am I walking uphill, downhill, or on a straight road? Can I drive part of the distance? Am I tired?.. Is there a correct answer to this question?

Obviously, I know that in the context of employment, companies have to cover their own backs and make sure that they’ve got the correct provisions in place to look after me. But the point I’m trying to make is that even though life with a disability can’t be explained as neatly as we might all wish it could, I still want and need to work, and ‘catering’ to the needs of disabled people in the workplace actually isn’t that hard when you listen to the person with the condition. I’ve worked all around the world in shops, and schools, as a summer camp counsellor, in radio stations and in car dealerships, and if I ever had a problem with my feet whilst employed, I communicated with my boss and I dealt with it just like everyone deals with random problems in life.

So, I don’t have an issue with employers asking a person how a disability affects their daily life, I just hope that they’re not surprised when they don’t get a simple answer. Also, I hope that there’s an acknowledgement that the person with the condition has probably put a lot of time and mental energy into deciding whether they can do the job before they even applied, and thus if they’re qualified in every other way for the role, then it’s no one else’s right to tell them what they can and can’t do.