[nfbcs] Helping a software engineer keep his job

Wed Nov 12 23:35:20 UTC 2014

Hi Graham

Have you contacted any blindness organizations in your area that may have
people to teach you the technology. For example I am in Phoenix and we have
Foundation for blind Children and they do tech assessments and training. I
would think some formal training on jaws would get you up to speed faster
than learning on your own.

Good luck!

Suzanne

On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 4:05 PM, Graham Mehl via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
wrote:

> Hi Fellow NFBCS listers,
>
> As Gary Wunder indicated I was monitoring the various posts in this thread.
> There has been a lot of good information discussed. I would have posted
> sooner, but I had a couple personal matters to drew my attention like
> trying
> to find a new job position before getting laid off.  Now that I have
> secured
> employment I can provide my post.  Thank you for your patience and
> understanding.
>
> I have been trying to rack my brain on what is performance and how I can
> change or improve my performance at work.
>
>
>
> Medical background:
>
> - anaridia since birth; causes extreme sensitivity to light (think bright
> white computer screens)
>
> - functional sight until 2006
>
> - right eye has light perception only due to retina detachments
>
> - left eye has 20/200 vision on good days; averages 20/400
>
> - left eye has a k-pro (artificial cornea)
>
> - high contrast screen needed to read; 10x handheld magnifier sometimes but
> barely helps
>
> - I can see some shades of colors but am not color blind
>
> Personality background:
>
> - strong willed,
>
> - hard worker,
>
> - perfectionist,
>
> - detail oriented,
>
> - meticulous,
>
> - relentless in activities I am passionate about,
>
> - have perseverance,
>
> - analytical,
>
> - strong faith in God,
>
> - does not like [major] change,
>
> - enjoys performing community service,
>
> - received the Boy Scout Eagle Scout award,
>
> - earned a masters degree in computer science specializing in software
> engineering,
>
> - was an avid hiker when I had more time, enjoy doing genealogy,
>
> - am married and have two young (kindergarten and preschool) children,
>
> - have been employed by the same company for the last 17 years.
>
>
>
> My Technological environment and challenges:
>
> I am primarily a java application developer, and have done 5 years of C
> programming. I feel my area of expertise is in J2EE applications
> development, a variety of databases, and a mastery of shell scripting. And
> as a means to an end, I have done some web development. I also have
> maintained, configured, deployed apache and tomcat web servers. For a short
> period of time I developed Weblogic applications too. I have programmed on
> Solaris, Linux (Typically Red Hat or CentOS), and windows platforms where
> the applications were deployed to the same set of platforms.
>
>
>
> What tools do I use?
>
> - With doing java development the preferred tool by peers is the IDE
> Eclipse. Eclipse has a few plug-ins that help with coding standards and
> software build and CM tools.
>
> - text editors vi and emacs - both not very screen reader friendly.
>
> - notepad as a scratch pad for things usually with performing email tasks
> and status reports and not necessarily for coding.
>
> - build tools ANT and Maven and the old fashion manual way with java
> commands.
>
> - CM tools are SCCS, CVS, subversion (SVN), git.
>
> - Software ticket tracking tools include Track, VersionOne, and Jira. I
> have
> used HTML, wiki and confluence for documentation .
>
> - IE and Firefox web browsers depending on what platform I was developing
> on
> and application restrictions.
>
> - Some projects have used IM chat tools, like Microsoft Lync, heavily for
> team communication and user support.
>
> - Pageant to load my PKI certificates for single sign in.
>
> - Putty and SSH and remote desktop Console (to connect with RFPs and VDIs)
> tools to remote connect to remote VMs.
>
> - Some experimentation with cygwin.
>
>
>
> My job position requires me to use Microsoft Office products like Outlook,
> Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, and to be able to read PDF files usually with
> Adobe Reader. These tools, except for cygwin, are tools my peers and I use
> on a regular basis if not daily.
>
>
>
> I more often then not use my vision and a mouse with a magnified screen.
>
>
>
> More and more development is being done in VM (virtual Machines). The
> machine on my desk is a windows machine and I have to remote to a Linux
> machine. In order to connect to remote systems, a secure connection is
> required, typically using SSH technology and PKI certificates.
>
>
>
> A number of projects I have worked on are moving to a thin client
> environment. The IT group providing the VMs in the thin client environment
> do not want to put the JAWS software on the image load due to the increased
> size of the image load. JAWS supports the ability to have two JAWS
> instances
> to communicate between each other such that screen on the remote system can
> have its screen read to an individual. Unfortunately, the remote system
> needs to be persistent with JAWS running. Having a persistent VM sort of
> defeats the purpose of a thin client environment. So the IT group does not
> want to support VMs that are persistent.
>
>
>
> Because of what I work with and where I work, closed networks and can only
> be connected to at work locations. Work / files cannot be taken home and
> worked on and brought back. Any work performed for the purposes of the
> contract has to be billed to the customer. I mention this only because
> there
> were a few posts that indicated putting in a few extra hours to compensate
> for our disability accommodations. There was a sub-thread about how much
> time should a person with a disability put in. I too find myself falling
> back to my limited vision.
>
>
>
> I am a salary employee and get paid for my 40 hour work week, and any time
> I
> put in above the 40 hours I personally do not get paid for, but customer
> gets billed all the hours. The customer wants the task / job done and does
> not care if the person working the task is disabled or not. At some point
> the customer will care how much they are paying for stuff.
>
>
>
> Earlier I mentioned closed network systems, which supports general users,
> developers,  and operational teams. More often than not I also have a
> second
> system at my desk that allows me to access  the Internet which, to be
> clear,
> this system does not have connectivity to the closed network.
>
> To date my company has purchased or provided
>
> - a 30 inch Dell monitor,
>
> - a CCTV for reading hardcopy material,
>
> - Zoomtext 9.1 Magnifier / Reader software,
>
> - 3 user licenses of JAWS software (which I am not very proficient at
> using),
>
> - Kurzweil 1000,
>
> - a Cannon flat bed scanner that will eventually replace the CCTV when my
> vision is completely gone
>
> - a company owned laptop, so I can go home and do other company required
> activities and still get company IT support when needed,
>
> - a second scanner to use with the laptop,
>
> -a  standard keyboard with a smart card reader to connect with the laptop.
>
> My company uses RSA id tokens to authenticate, which of course is digital.
> The only alternative solution for this is to use a company issued smart
> card, hence the card reader keyboard.
>
>
>
> There is no training mentioned for these tools, so I have had to figure it
> out on my own. To my knowledge there is no organization within my company
> that solely supports disabilities. The customer does have such a
> organization, but due to legal and contractual reasons as a contractor I
> have limited access and support from them. Generally I am on my own unless
> I
> I can personally find someone else that is disabled that can help me.
>
> So now I circle back to how do I perform better and remain competitive with
> my sighted peers? I am struggling to keep up with peers because of the time
> I spend figuring out things on my own, using systems that are not
> completely
> compatible with accessibility tools, and time needed to learn accessible
> tools and shortcuts.  I just don't seem to have enough hours in a day on
> the
> job or at home.
>
>
>
> --
>
> Graham Mehl
>
> blind at trailstone.com
>
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