Car-cleaning job is break worker was looking for

Matthew McAllum, who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, puts his cleaning urges to good effect. Picture / Richard Robinson

After many years in other jobs, Matthew McAllum has at last found work that plays to his strength - cleaning.

Mr McAllum, 36, has an obsessive compulsive disorder that makes him fanatical about two things: collecting computer parts, and keeping himself and everything round him clean.

He has worked for a shipping line, a catering company and in the computer business. But his breakthrough came eight months ago when former All Black and rugby league star Matthew Ridge gave him a job in his Greenlane carwash-and-cafe business, Car-fe.

"I found out from a personality test in the Herald that I'm a detail person," Mr McAllum said. "In this job you have to give attention to detail."

He is one of 248,200 New Zealanders in the paid workforce who said in the last national survey in 2001 that they had a disability.

An online survey of 368 of those people, just published by the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust, has found that 61 per cent of them had experienced problems trying to get a job.

Some found it no easier once they landed a job. A quarter said they had been harassed at work by other staff, and 35 per cent said they had been harassed by their employer or manager.

Trust chief executive Dr Philippa Reed said the extent of harassment was a surprise. But it was hard to know what people meant because they responded anonymously.

"I would certainly hope it wouldn't be physical [harassment]," she said. "It is most likely to be verbal or innuendo. Someone referred to people whispering in their presence, and someone talked about being expected to accept being lifted around the building [because there was no lift]."

Mr McAllum said he had been sworn at by a supervisor in the past, but "I think it was overflowing from his emotion. He's got personal issues."

The survey found that 58 per cent of working people with disabilities found it hard to get to first base - a job interview.

One respondent said: "The only interviews I have had are the ones where I have not mentioned on the application form that I have MS and a subsequent sight impairment which does not stop me working. As soon as that comes up the attitude changes and I can guarantee that I won't get the job."

A similar number (57 per cent) said they needed flexible or part-time hours.

Workforce Personnel, a part-Government-funded agency that supports disabled people in employment, helped Mr McAllum to get his job at Car-fe by organising an unpaid work trial rather than a formal interview.

"We do anything to avoid interviews," said Workforce consultant Nicola Bentley. "We go for the work trial because a lot of people don't come across well in an interview."

Car-fe was so impressed by Mr McAllum's work that they offered him more hours, but he chose to stick with three four-hour days.

Another respondent in the survey said: "Lip service is paid to staff using good self-care strategies (such as taking proper tea breaks and lunch breaks, limiting case loads and using mental health days) when actually the expectation is to have work meetings through lunchtime, cram in client sessions and never be sick."

Mr McAllum said everyone at Car-fe, including Matthew Ridge, worked as part of a team.

"Working gives you a shape in which you can fill up your life. It gives you links to more things," he said.

"That guy there [a workmate] is good at computer games, one of the top ones in New Zealand. He's humble. That makes you feel you can do that as well. You can use your brain as well as your hands."

Car-fe operations manager Karen Morfett said she wondered whether to try Mr McAllum at first, but she and Mr Ridge decided, "Why not?"

Workers with disabilities

* 58 per cent found it difficult to get an interview.

* 57 per cent need flexible hours.

* 35 per cent have been harassed by a boss.

* 25 per cent need adapted equipment or technology.

* 15 per cent need adaptation of building or work space.