I got a complaint at my job for being Dyslexic.
I’m a trivia host. My day job has been teaching elementary/middle school for the past 8 year so I can obviously read and write well enough to be a teacher. I got this Trivia job because public speaking/performing are some of my strongest skills. Ives won public speaking awards and I also have a background in Theatre so I can say with confidence I’m pretty good. I love Trivia, I have a team and we go weekly and I’m a teacher so Trivia host seemed like a great side gig. I was really excited about it. I was hired by a trivia company and went above and beyond for my shows. I make sure to practice and read the questions before hand, I spend a good amount of time creating a DJ playlist for between questions, and have even hand painted my own sandwich boards for trivia nights. This is all for only $50 a week.
I’ll admit I mispronounce names sometimes and once in a while I’ll mispronounce a word that’s in another language or something very scientific that you don’t see in everyday language. I do my best to practice before hand. Plus, the trivia is digital so everyone can read the answers on their phones as well. I didn’t think I was struggling that much.
Anyway, my boss called me today to say some of the trivia players complained about my mispronunciation of words… he asked me why I had been mispronouncing things and I told him I had pretty severe dyslexia and he was like “interesting that you chose this job then”.
I feel like an idiot. I know I’m a great teacher and a great public speaker, and a great performer so you’d think I’d be the perfect candidate for a trivia host.
Theatre and performing used to be my whole world but I dropped it because of my dyslexia. I actually dropped out of a BFA acting program in college because I convinced myself I wouldn’t be a successful actor because I couldn’t cold read scripts for auditions. I could memorize monologues and lines fine but if someone asked me to read a script I hadn’t gotten to look at before hand I was fucked and directors weren’t very understanding. Everyone always told me how talented I was… I won awards and got into a super exclusive BFA program but reading just felt like it held me back… I just recently started doing Theatre again after a 10 year hiatus and I’ve fallen back in love with it. Trivia seemed like another great way to get back into performing… but now I feel so defeated. I am back to feeling the way I felt when I dropped out of acting school over 10 years ago.
I’m 30 and I still can’t read well enough to preform. I’m feeling so low and I think I’m just gonna quit.