The Importance of Inclusive Workplaces: My Personal Journey

Author: Schneider Electric

Hello everyone! My name is David Fable and I’m currently the Offer and Project Quality Leader for the InRoom Cooling offer and I’m also proud and visible gay professional, and currently a member of the Global LGBT+ community at Schneider Electric. 

My journey of being me has been a long one, and it starts with not truly knowing who I was.

I was born in Verona, Italy, so I’ve spent most of my childhood in a big city. Even thought I was quite shy but from early on my love for Japanese anime and manga has enabled me to see a world that can be saved with not only power, but with love and friendship! I learned that these can help you to surpass your own limits (thank you Sailor Moon for this!).

Everything changed for me when I started high school. It hadn’t crossed my mind that I was homosexual, but I realized I had a crush on one of my classmates, a boy one year older than me. One day I confessed this to him, but it ended with a ‘no’ because he was not interested in men, but at the end we are still friends today.

After this experience I decided to not listen to my heart and really to who I am, until I was 22 years old.

I cannot be someone else only for their happiness, because I need to be happy too!

Volunteering abroad, I had taken the chance to start thinking about myself, my sexuality and who I really am, and that lead me to understand that I’m a gay man and I’m as everyone else. I came out to my closest friend from high school, because she is one of my precious and honest best friends to whom I could talk to about everything. 

After some discussions and fights with my family, they have understood that I’m happy of being me and that I cannot be someone else only for their happiness, because I need to be happy too!

Even once everything was okay at home, there was the problem of being myself outside, and for a lot of time I’ve lived my life in the closet. This was because my colleagues (in my previous job), or at university, or some friends thought that it was not good to be gay. So my previous relationship was with a girl, while he was a boy, because of the cultural pressure I was living with.

Living my life as an open gay man

Luckily, now I’m in a relationship with my boyfriend since 2013. Thanks to him I’ve started to be more active for other LGBT+ persons, starting with going to Pride events near my home: Bologna, Padova, Verona, Gorizia and even Munich; and going to LGBT+ associations as a volunteer. 

Thanks to him I’m living my life as an open gay man, without keeping it in the closet anymore, and I’m also helping other people, like me, to be who ever they are, because everyone needs to be happy for being themselves.

We are doing a lot of things together, like: 

• Leading a board games group for the LGBT+ community, creating safe places in which everyone can enjoy to play without the fear of judgment, harassment or be excluded.
• Creating a LGBT+ community with our volunteering association in Rovigo with support to people, create symbols in the city and a lot of moments.
• Participating to the national LGBT+ community of associations that there is here in Italy to be aligned and informed, spread the awareness of LGBT+ rights, that are not still a reality in my country, and connect people to each other.

Embracing Different at Schneider Electric

Since joining Schneider Electric in 2018, I have been able to grow as a person and as a professional employee – I’ve experienced different roles and connected with many colleagues around the world. For me it is fantastic to have the possibility to join the LGBT+ and Allies Global Squad, in which I’ve been in contact with new global colleagues that want to create a caring, safe and inclusive workplace. 

Being myself, every day, is still difficult in my country, but thanks to my friends, family, my colleagues, the LGBT+ Global Squad, and the culture of “Embrace Different” at Schneider Electric, I can live my life as I want to. I can share with the world that being openly homosexual is not a gap, but that I’m a professional person just like everyone else and that I can face any customer issue or project or problem as the true me. 

I am ME, I am UNIQUE, I am Schneider Electric.

Join our inclusive team by heading to www.se.com/careers and learn more about our commitment to be the most inclusive and caring company.

Tags: Inclusion, LGBT+, pride, pride month