[nfbcs] Inaccessiable Training - again

Sat Feb 16 22:12:39 UTC 2013

I don't mean to question the value of the advice given below. It's all true, of course. But lets not start blaming blind people for accessibility problems. The truth is that to compete against sighted people, you often have to be even more mentally tough and work harder than they do. But lets face it, that's not really fair. 
And there is another side to this, you can do everything right and still fail. You might work your tail off establishing a career and then if the vendors of technology products you use make them inaccessible, well you are screwed. 

I would never question the value of tips on how a blind person can be the perfect employee. That is one necessary ingredient in building a successful career. You can't succeed without doing the thngs listed below. But they don't guarantee success.

On Feb 15, 2013, at 8:07 PM, Gabe Vega Via Iphone4S wrote:

> Hell yeah! This post states everything I think. And I believe this is what blind people forget all the time. Maybe you all should read this over and over and over again. Thank you for this post.
> 
> Gabe Vega 
> Sent from my iPhone
> (623) 565-9357
> 
> On Feb 15, 2013, at 6:45 PM, "david hertweck" <david.hertweck at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
>> As a blind engineer and now a manager working for a large company I found the best approach is:
>> 1. Try and find a way to do your job, be creative, think out of the box, make it work.
>> 2. Put in extra hours.  I know a lot of sighted engineers if they are not as effective as other people they put in the extra time so we should be willing to do this.
>> 3. Remember everyone has tasks to complete and completing yours can not interfere with others.
>> 4. Before asking for help have an exact plan for how can that person help you.  What does not work is to ask someone to make "X" accessible for you.
>> 5. Never "complain" find answers. It is super to "complain" in this forum but not at work.
>> 6. Always remember your manager most likely has more work and certainly more responsibilities than you do, so you should never add to them for accessibility problems.
>> 7. Always remember you are there for the company not the company for you.
>> 
>> thanks
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> through out my work life
>> and now as a manager of course they are not overwellming
>> 
>> -----Original Message----- From: majolls at cox.net
>> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 10:50 AM
>> To: nfbcs at nfbnet.org
>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Inaccessiable Training - again
>> 
>> Gary and all
>> 
>> I think you hit the nail on the head.  To what end do you "complain"?  If you don't, you don't get anywhere.  And if you do (too much) you are perceived as a burden ... and managers would rather not deal with you and get someone else that doesn't have the requirement that you do.  I work for a large corporation.  I found that while managers can be sympathetic, others just don't care.  it really depends on your luck of the draw regarding what manager you do get.
>> 
>> I can remember voicing concern about sitting in a large room for a presentation where they had big monitors up on the wall.  A presenter would be running his demo, and the display was up on the "big screen". Unfortunately, I couldn't read the big screen.  I was just too far away and I'm just too blind.  When I voiced concern, what I mostly got was "just do your best" ... which was absolutely no help.  I finally came up with the idea ... "just run a data feed to a separate monitor that can be placed on a table that I can sit close to".  That idea really worked, but it took me ... not them ... to come up with the idea.  The managers ... who are supposed to help you ... didn't have a clue what I needed, or what might work.  And, if I complained too much, they just said ... "do your best" and sort of turned a deaf ear.
>> 
>> And as far as going to bat for you ... trying to get the application changed so it's accessible ... I think most managers have priorities on what they have to get done.  When you require someone to sit with you (meaning time and money) or when you ask your manager to help you ... they'll do it as long as it isn't excessive ... meaning as long as it doesn't take a lot of time and money.  If it does, you're kind of on your own.  And as far as them modifying software to be accessible ... that's only an option if your company doesn't have a lot of other "business requirements" they have to get done first.  Where I'm at, that's always the case.
>> 
>> I guess we all just need to be experts on Accessibility programming so we can do it ourselves.  Wish I had better things to say, but I've only had 35 years of experience in dealing with this.  And it doesn't sound like the federal government is any better than private industry.  People (managers) are people no matter where you go I suppose.
>> 
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