Starting a new job when I have an rare autoimmune condition has been exciting, but frightening. I wondered if the insurance would be good enough, if my coworkers would understand, if my boss would wonder why I needed three afternoons off my first month there.
As I interviewed via Skype with my future boss, her boss, then my assigned market segment leader, I wondered if they knew, if they could hear the anxiety in my voice, if they could see it in my face. If they knew, would they think me incapable, too much of a risk?
Just before July 4, I made it to the final interview with the vice admiral of the company. Perched across from him in a window-seat of a downtown Phoenix high-rise, I was reminded how different in-person meetings are. We both seemed more human, as though each of us could sense the bioelectricity stored in our cells and moving across our nerves. We shared a strategic vision for sales and a dislike for bullshit and sugarcoating.
After a 45 minutes, he all but offered the job. At that point, I had no choice: I to ask about health insurance. I let him know how important it was for my dermatomyositis.
He took no issues with any of it and summarized the benefits package. He even shared his family’s own struggle with kidney disease.
The autoimmune sales team / support group
Fast forward three weeks. I flew to New England to eat breakfast with my new boss for the first time. She had a jovial, energetic personality and an openness few directors believe they can afford.
On placing her order, I discovered she has celiac disease, an immune reaction to gluten, the protein found in wheat, barely, and rye.
Hours later, I learned my East Coast sales manager counterpart has psoriasis. Two weeks later, I learned my boss’s boss–our chief marketing and sales officer–suffers from rheumatoid arthritis.
Schadenfreude be damned: Hearing my new bosses’ and coworkers’ assorted plights filled me with joy. Joining the team was like joining a support group for people with autoimmune conditions.
At last, I thought, people who understand what life is like for those of us who itch and burn and ache, who visit three specialists five times a year, who track and take as many pills as people twice our age, who wake up asking the gods what fresh hell our body will bring us today as we scour our cabinets for modern medicine’s half-assed attempts to make us look and feel normal.
I shared my condition with them. I explained my appointments. Far from upset, my team members were kind, sympathetic, and curious.
Like my last job, insurance is amazing. And we can take sick time for appointments. I have nothing to fear.