February 2023 - Wheelie MS Advocate

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This time last year Molly Mae came under attack for stating that there are 24 hours in everybody’s day. She was referring to the fact that she’s the creative artistic director at Pretty Little Thing; I believe.

Who believes if you want something enough, you can achieve it?

Grey background, newspaper print top right corner, cream rectangle in the centre with hessian cloth surround test "If you want something enough you can achieve it"

However, how productive can you be through those hours?

I’ll put some context behind this because at the moment I am kind of thinking about getting back into working or freelancing. I haven’t decided; it is all still pretty much in the up in the air but I realised I do an awful lot of volunteering and support for different organisations and perhaps I require to be paid.

Now the issue I have is pulling a CV together. I haven’t had a CV for a long time and now 56 years old a vast working history and a very varied skill set which I didn’t realise until I started writing it down.

A brief history of my working life has been predominantly admin based, project management, facilities management, customer, services management, team leader.

Those who are regular readers will know in 2018 I left work following my diagnosis with MS.

I had very little understanding of what adjustments I could benefit from as a person living with a disability.

“If you didn’t have MS, we wouldn’t be agreeing to this decision”. Were the words from my senior manager when I agreed to take voluntary redundancy.

Pinky purple background with a speech bubble in white text "If you didn't have MS we wouldn't be agreeing to this decision

Which? left me feeling like my working life was probably over as I knew it.

I suppose the thing that I’m talking about here, are my skills over the years transferable? The main areas I contribute to nowadays are coproduction, sharing my lived experience, creating content for social media, writing for difference publication, whether that be mainstream or bespoke, even speaker on behalf of the End Social Care Disgrace, campaign for a National Care, support and Independent living service.

Representative on diversity and inclusion boards, for regional TV news and a local theatre company.

However, back to Molly Mae and 24 hours in everybody’s day.

During my 24 hours, I would travel from site to site, attending meetings with contractors, customers, senior management, health and safety and also managing the team of staff across two sites.

My working day was 7:30 till finish most days. If I had been out during the day then I would probably be still do dealing with emails till 10:00 o’clock at night and then back up the next morning to do all over again.

We can hazard a guess out of those hours. How many would have been productive? I we are honest, few.

Much to my detriment now and I’ve since found out therefore my 24 hours in the day are not the same as they were five years ago probably because that’s when I was really struggling for a year before I even went off sick to be fair.

I was also fit or at least able to walk my dog and swimming three times a week.

Until it got hard to get up in the morning and get out the door, sometimes, it would take me 2 hours to get ready, and for my faculties to work like hearing and seeing etc.,

Now I find hard to accept how much of a struggle it would be to travel to work and back every day.

On a night out last week, the first in some time, it was tough getting about. I haven’t been in my wheelchair since last year, so it was strange suddenly being back at the level of people’s backsides.

It brought me back down to earth with a bang when I got it ready to use, cleaning it and making sure I charged the batteries. Then the arrangement of transporting it, getting to the event, and back home again.

The point I am trying to make here is that for me to go out for one night took a lot of organising and support.

I can’t do any of this without friends and family but for me to consider going out the house early to work for even two or three times a week is too much I just I just won’t be able to do it and that’s not being defeatist because I’m not defeatist at all that is just honesty and I’m being realistic.

There has got to be another way. As I spend my day in meetings, taking part in focus groups, creating social media content from the comfort of my home.

If the pandemic taught us anything, it taught us that with the right support from employers, we can be just, if not more productive from home.

Getting back to the same 24 hours in a day we have there is 24 hours in a day but my 24 hours look so different to what they did five years ago I want to look at it now but just doing the odd hour here and there supporting charities writing articles I’m doing it in my own time and if I need to sleep I sleep.

I’m now more productive, than ever, instead of sitting in endless traffic jams, moving about from site to site and then catching up with admin late into the night, I am managing my time much better, while ensuring I keep my wellbeing and needs in check.

After speaking to a good friend yesterday I’ve looked and monitor what my 24 hours looks like for a week, it’s interesting because I keep getting profile matches on LinkedIn for jobs which I don’t even look at, I just think that’s my old life, but, does it have to be?