Free to be me. That was the theme for South Asian heritage month 2024. I remember asking the guests on our webinar at the time what it meant but only now has that phrase come back to me that I’m truly thinking about it. My name is Tyler Jamal Simmonite-Scott (Tyler Simmonite professionally), born in the late 90s, the eldest child, a son, and a brother. I grew up on a council estate in Sheffield with teenage parents, surrounded by family and friends. My mum is of British and Irish descent, my dad British and Jamaican. My grandad was of the Windrush generation and came here at 16, following some of his older siblings to make a new life in the UK. That is just some of my background. The reason I share this is because this is a fundamental part of who I am, how I see the world and how I experience it.
I now work as a Project Engineer, delivering projects to install customer onsite plants using air separation. I also act as co-lead for the REACH (Race, Ethnicity and Cultural Heritage) network at EqualEngineers. I started both roles towards the end of 2023 and they have both impacted my life and view of the engineering sector massively. At university, I studied Chemical Engineering where I undertook a placement year before leaving with a Master’s degree to join a Project Management Consultancy in the Food and Beverage industry. I had previously done an internship with the company, however, had been rejected twice from them since. I loved the company and the industry from that first experience. In my university application I recall writing about how passionate I was to study chemical engineering so that I could have an impact on the future of our world, from energy generation and environmental protection, to pharmaceutical for life-changing treatment and food production to feed an ever-growing population (big aspirations for an 18-year-old, I know.)
I’ve always been a passionate individual, but I haven’t always been understood by others, particularly in the workplace. As a man of mixed heritage from a working-class background in the north of England, joining the workforce was the first time I interacted with people of more privileged background than I, as peers. One of the qualities that I’d say most defines me is being respectful. That’s something that was instilled in me by my parents and although something that I stand by, it has not always supported me in the working world. The issue is that where I am respectful towards others who are different than I, many people are not. I remember starting my placement year on a manufacturing site in Chesterfield and hearing the word f****t (a slur used against gay people) used openly in the office. I was completely shocked and from that moment on, despite coming to be openly queer at university and in a relationship with a man, became a very different person at work to who I am outside. I could not take part in the Monday morning chatter about how I spent my weekend because often I had been with the boyfriend that I didn’t feel comfortable talking about in the workplace. So instead, I would reply “not much” and listen to them share intimate parts of their lives and build relationships with their peers in a way that I couldn’t. I was too scared to do anything otherwise.
My next experience of the working world was not as shocking as the first. People were nice and friendly, and I could generally talk to them about my life although, having been scarred from the last job, still didn’t feel comfortable to be out at work. At that point, I’d just accepted that I never would be because it wasn’t accepted in our industry. However, a new challenge soon arose for me. As part of my role, I chaired meetings for our clients with Senior Leadership Teams. I recall one particularly occasion, sat around a table onsite in Norfolk, looking around the room and realising nobody was like me. To be precise, they were all white men of a certain age. All of a sudden, I began to feel completely out of place. It had been a particularly difficult meeting due to mounting pressure on the project and I was completely spoken down to by the site manager. I had stepped in to chair a meeting as my boss was stuck travelling down to site. It was such a negative experience for me but when I eventually had a de-brief with my boss, he told me it wasn’t that bad, he’d had much worse in his time. So again, I accepted how others made me feel in the workplace because they didn’t respect me.
Thankfully, things changed for me when I arrived at my new company. I finally joined a large organisation and discovered Employee Resource Groups, wow! An initiative in the workplace to bring together people of minority backgrounds. I quickly reached out to Izzy Okusun (who spoke at our Black History Month event last year) and until recently lead our Racial Diversity group. I finally had a space to share my experiences and although things aren’t perfect in the wider workplace, we have a supportive group of people who are willing to make a change for the better. EqualEngineers has been much the same experience for me. I have had the opportunity to connect with such a wide variety of people across our industry who have such vast experience, both personally and professionally. Many of them are people I really value as role models and informal mentors. As part of this, I have even come to learn more about neurodiversity and recognised traits in myself to be able to seek support for an assessment. In particular, I have undiagnosed ADHD which has affected me since childhood but has not been recognised until now. Again, a part of my life where my identity has given me a disadvantage compared to white people and those of a higher social class who got a diagnosis and support in early childhood. So at 27 years old, I am only just now discovering what it means – Free to be me.
I still have a lot of progress to make in overcoming these early experiences but I have faith that with the support of many who embrace people who are different to themselves, who are inclusive and truly believe in every aspect of DEI (like those of you reading this), that things will get better.
