The Professional Series: Stuttering with Colleagues

Welcome to part two of my Professional Series on Stuttering! Today’s topic dives deep into stuttering with colleagues at work. Stuttering around colleagues used to be a highly feared situation for me, and to be honest, it still is. But everyday I’m learning to show my stutter a little bit more and each little victory is worth celebrating. Let’s get to it!

Advertising with colleagues: Why, how, and when!? This is different for everyone. How do you casually drop your biggest insecurity during water cooler gossip? (if that’s really a thing? Or is it just in the movies? The water cooler at my internship is usually deserted haha!). I advertise to my colleagues so I feel more comfortable if a moment of stuttering comes out. I also advertise because I don’t want to let my stutter hold me back from achieving my career goals. As far as how I do it, I try and slip it in during non work related conversations – a great route is to casually mention that my after work plans include speech therapy or that my weekend plans include a social outing with my speech friends. I also bring it up in conversations about travel; if it’s relevant, I’ll mention how I went to Chicago last summer to attend a conference for people who stutter. And when do I advertise? Whenever I am comfortable enough! It’s all about personal preference.

Related: The Professional Series: Stuttering During Interviews

Similar to what I wrote in my first post, I feel more comfortable open stuttering after I’ve advertised to people. The driving factor that motivates me to open stutter is self acceptance; I want to be totally at peace with my stutter. I think I will have reached that point when I can walk up to a stranger and initiate a conversation without a care in the world – and every little bit of open stuttering around colleagues is a step in that direction. It took me years to start showing some raw open stuttering around my retail job colleagues (and I’ve been working with them for four years!) and that’s okay. Everyone’s timeline is going to be different. Just take baby steps!

Saying everything I want to say at work is so important to me because I can’t stand the thought of letting my stutter hold me back professionally. It also really helps push me through the first two components; if I want to say something really important, I’m going to say it even if I stutter and even if I didn’t preface my audience about my stutter. When I was a kid, I purposely avoided speaking up in class because I didn’t want to interact with people and show my stuttering. Those moments made me feel so powerless. And that’s never a feeling to be desired. Once I recognized that same behavior was occuring in job settings, I realized I had to change my mindset. Deciding to face stuttering head on was a bold, scary, and amazing move. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still really hard sometimes, but knowing that I’m fully expressing myself to those around me is very rewarding. Through this, I’ve learned that it’s far more important to speak up and say a bold idea if you have one instead of holding back.

Aaaand that about wraps up part two of the Professional Series! Let me know your thoughts so far, I’d be curious to know how you guys handle stuttering with your colleagues! Or if any non-stutters are reading this, do you have any colleagues who do stutter? Comment your thoughts below! And as a friendly reminder, the NSA has a wonderful We Stutter @ Work initiative that talks about stuttering in professional environments. Go check them out for more advice! Thanks for reading!

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