[NFBCS] The Fine Line Between Reasonable Versus Unreasonable Accommodations

Sat Sep 3 15:19:42 UTC 2022

I fully support the idea you're raising here. In mental health circles, 
this is called spoon theory. You start with x number of spoons and each 
issue you deal with through the day takes one away. as a blind person, 
your spoons seem to vanish at a rather alarming rate on normal days.

I'd be for making a resource that helps. The last time I suggested 
writing articles and offered to throw money in in an NFB call I was 
chastised for proposing solutions and the idea died. If there are plenty 
of like-minded people who want that kind of platform, we should do 
something; it doesn't have to be tied to NFBCS.

I am in full agreement that a central resource could be useful. I'm 
thinking something like a wiki though, and not the pay-for-tutorial 
service Peter is pushing here.

Not everyone has the money, and if the goal is to help people be 
employed by providing tips and tricks to issues, charging people already 
struggling feels like you're kicking them when they're already down.

On 9/3/2022 7:31 AM, Tracy Carcione via NFBCS wrote:
> Hi Curtis.
> I agree, and I've done the same, as I'm sure we all have.
> One improvement now is that, last time I got training a couple years ago, I
> was able to ask for the training material in an accessible format, like
> Word,  before the training started, so I was able to study it and work along
> with the class, instead of catching up later.
>
> But I firmly believe that it shouldn't take a huge effort for a blind person
> to figure out how to make things accessible.  They shouldn't have to
> reinvent the wheel.  They should at least be able to Google and find out if
> someone else has already figured out a solution.
> I've found this list to be an invaluable resource for solving some
> accessibility issues, and I've seen us discuss in-depth how to access
> software I don't know about.  I think it would be great if someone who does
> need to know could find the discussion, even if they're not part of the
> listserve.
> I suspect that struggling with accessibility, trying to find the answers you
> need, is part of why the unemployment rate is so high for blind people.
> People just get worn out by the struggle.
> Tracy
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: NFBCS [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Curtis Chong via
> NFBCS
> Sent: Friday, September 02, 2022 4:09 PM
> To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'
> Cc: Curtis Chong
> Subject: [NFBCS] The Fine Line Between Reasonable Versus Unreasonable
> Accommodations
>
> Greetings everyone:
>
>   
>
> I would like to second what Brian Buhrow said in his recent email.
>
>   
>
> "If one is going to hold a job as a blind person, whether it be in
> technology or something else, it is necessary to become an expert on how to
> make things accessible for yourself."
>
>   
>
> While some of you might assert that we cannot all be experts in making
> things accessible to ourselves, the reality is that as individual blind
> people working in an organization where we might be the only blind person
> employed, we must take responsibility for hunting down the solutions we need
> so that we can do our jobs in a way that encourages our employers to want to
> keep us. It is a rare thing indeed for technology training classes (not to
> mention other corporate training venues) to be nonvisually-accessible to us
> by default. In fact, I maintain that if we insist that these classes need to
> be 100% accessible nonvisually in order for us to keep our jobs, our value
> to the employer will be reduced to the point where we are no longer useful
> to have around. When email first became a reality in the large corporation
> for which I was working (this would have been back in the early 1990's), I
> took the same courses on how to use the email system that my sighted
> colleagues took. Then, when I needed to figure out how a mouse click could
> be activated from the keyboard, I spent extra time with the trainer to try
> to figure out if, indeed, there were keyboard equivalents to the mouse that
> would work for me. During my time in mainstream information technology, I
> was oftentimes required to travel to distant cities to attend week-long
> trainings where the material was presented for people who could see and
> where readers were nowhere to be found. Sometimes, I attended these classes
> with sighted colleagues who were willing and able to provide some
> assistance. At other times, I attended these classes by myself and figured
> out what I needed to know later when I got back to my office.
>
>   
>
> All of this is to make the point that there is a limit to how much we as
> blind employees can expect to receive in the way of "reasonable"
> accommodations. When the level of accommodation provided to us reaches a
> certain point (a point, by the way, which differs from one organization to
> another), the positive support we have garnered tends to wane as the effort
> required to provide that support increases.
>
>   
>
> I hope I am making some kind of logical sense here. If not, I appreciate
> hearing from folks to help to clarify my thinking on this issue.
>
>   
>
> Best wishes,
>
>   
>
> Curtis Chong
>
>   
>
>   
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Brian Buhrow via NFBCS
> Sent: Friday, September 02, 2022 1:32 PM
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Brian Buhrow <buhrow at nfbcal.org>
> Subject: Re: [NFBCS] Feedback Request
>
>   
>
>            hello peter.  As a long time IT person who has worked on networks,
> large computer
>
> installations, and a variety of technical projects, I am going to echo wha
> others have said
>
> here about on-line resources.  It is usually the case that when one is
> learning a new API or
>
> programming technique, or any new skill for that matter, what one needs to
> know about is the
>
> skill itself, not about the blindness adaptations necessary to become an
> expert at that skill.
>
> Because everyone's blindness skills are different, it makes the most sense
> for the individual
>
> learning the new thing to figure out the way that works best for them.
>
> So, for example, Bookshare.  Yes, the books in Bookshare may not discuss
> ways to peform the
>
> skills those books teach as they might be performed by a blind person, but
> the fact that the
>
> books are accessible on Bookshare makes them extremely useful to blind folks
> just by virtue of
>
> the fact that they're there.
>
>   
>
> Now, having read those books, one can then ask specific questions about how
> a specific API or
>
> development environment might be used in an accessible manner.
>
>   
>
>            If one is going to hold a job as a blind person, whether it be in
> technology or something
>
> else, it is necessary to become an expert on how to make things accessible
> for yourself.  As
>
> part of that, building a network, as exists on this list, becomes one of the
> tools you use to
>
> gain the knowledge you need to do the things you want.
>
>   
>
> Blindness specific training is wonderful, but it is mostly a general
> training in the sense that it
>
> teaches you how to teach yourself to use tools or create techniques which
> make things
>
> accessible to you.  Those tools and techniques might not work for anyone
> else in the world, but
>
> if they work for you, then you're good.  For example, for me, half the
> battle of learning to do
>
> something is just knowing another blind person has done that thing.  If I
> know they have, then
>
> I can turn the question of "can I do something?" to "How do I do something?"
> Once I've have
>
> how, then I can go about setting up the task of figuring it out.
>
>   
>
>            Part of the reason we've not set up an NFB CS web site is that it
> would be out of date
>
> before we finished building it.  If we said, for example, that something was
> inaccessible,
>
> someone would prove us wrong.  Or, if we said, if you follow these
> instructions for making
>
> something work, the thing would change and our instructions would be
> rendered inoperative.
>
> In other words, what we offer you here, and in our training centers, are a
> lot of fishing
>
> poles.  We leave it to you, the fisherman to go out and catch your fish.
>
>   
>
> -Brian
>
>   
>
>   
>
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