[NFBCS] The Fine Line Between Reasonable Versus Unreasonable Accommodations

Sun Sep 4 21:25:30 UTC 2022

William and everybody,

Rather than either complaining about the state of assistive technology or about William's approach, I would like to try to pull something useful out of this discussion.  I think that Susie Stanzel made some good points in this regard in her note as well.

First, William, I am sorry that you had the experience that you had.  Part of me feels that there is likely something that could have been done to help you deal with some of the barriers you encountered, but I know too little about your situation to know how likely that would have been.  Let me add quickly that I am not saying you are not capable of figuring out alternatives yourself because you clearly are knowledgeable, but more than once I have benefited from other blind people suggesting something I had not thought of.  I am glad that you have the financial resources to have the option to not work.  

To paraphrase what Susie said to some degree, most of us are in a position where we really need to work to get what we want out of life.  This means figuring out how to use the tools that are available to us and also the job that fits our strengths.  I think it is generally very unlikely that most of us would be doing the exact jobs as sighted people as we are doing as blind people.  For me, had everything else been the same, perhaps I would have been more successful had I had vision.  However, having vision would have changed many things.  I likely would have spent some time in Vietnam, for one thing, and who knows what changes that could have caused.  Therefore, I do not spend a lot of time thinking about what I could have had if I had normal vision.

The fact is that our assistive technology could use improvement.  Whether it is truly buggy or simply can't convey the necessary information doesn't matter.  I recall about six years ago it was my job to prepare a daily report that involved getting some information from the web and from an excel spreadsheet and paste results into a second spreadsheet.  Every time I pasted the data, Excel crashed, but it didn't crash without a screen reader.  I figured out a way around the problem, though, but it took extra time.  Nobody could tell me why I was experiencing the crash, and either a later version of the screen reader or Excel corrected the problem.  My point is that we do have to deal with bugs sometimes.  I can admit now that when this would happen to me at 5:30 in the morning, I probably exclaimed that this just was not fair.  It certainly wasn't fair, and it is a case where I needed one of those extra spoons that were discussed earlier.  The point, though, isn't whether I would be a better employee if I were sighted.  Even if it could be shown that I would be a better employee if I had vision, my concern is with being a good enough employee to be worth what I am paid.

William, you and some others here have a valuable perspective that many of us do not have.  You have accessed computers visually and you have worked through assistive technology.  Have you considered donating time to the NVDA project or perhaps tried to get a paid position at Vispero to influence development in a positive way?  I have ideas of how assistive technology could be better, but I do not have your perspective.  

The bottom line here is that most of us do not have the option of not working.  We have to take our talents and our assistive technology and do the best we can.  Many of us have managed to be successful doing that and we will continue trying to do our best for ourselves and for those who come after us.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of William Grussenmeyer via NFBCS
Sent: Saturday, September 3, 2022 1:59 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: William Grussenmeyer <wdg31415 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NFBCS] The Fine Line Between Reasonable Versus Unreasonable Accommodations

I have a much different perspective on all of this.
I was sighted with perfect 20/20 vision when I started programming and using a computer in general when I was 12 years old in 1992.  I played video games competitively, and ranked in the top 10 of many games.  I also was the best programmer in my A.P. Computer Science course in senior year in high school, and I scored perfect on the A.P. computer science test.  I started programming classes in my first year in college.  But at the end of my first year my trouble with vision began.
It is a long story after that point but suffice to say that I am fully blind now and I had to relearn how to use a computer and learn assistive technology, and how to program a computer without any vision.
And I can tell you even with the best accessibility solutions, that assistive technology is slow, laggy, unreliable, and fucking crap compared to when I could see and use vision.
When I could see and use vision I was a 100 times faster at learning, programming and working.
At this point, you are rolling your eyes and saying I did not try hard enough and just could not adapt.
But there is  one little problem with that theory.
After I became completely blind, I relearned the computer and went on to do a phd in computer science, with top journal and conference publications around the world in Italy, Australia, and Canada among other places.
Also, I received an NSF Fellow Ship that paid tuition, living expenses and travel expenses for my phd.
On top of that, I received a Google scholarship, a California NFB scholarship and many others.
But I also succeeded in top private tech companies.
I did an internship at Google and passed their online interview loop.
I then worked full time at Microsoft after my phd.  I went through their 5 hour technical interview loop.
After I was bored at Microsoft, I went through the Amazon 5 hour interview loop and recieved a strong yes from all interviewers even the bar raiser.
I worked at Microsoft 2 years and worked for Amazon 3 years.
I finally just quit out of disgust.  Despite only working full time for 5 years I have plenty of  stock and savings to  live off for the forseeable future.
The fact that the fucking accommodations portal was not accessible at Amazon may have been the straw that broke the back.  Or maybe it was the diversity and inclusion training which was not accessible and they just marked it completed for me even though I did not take it.
Or maybe it was promoting the 20 year old college kid who has been only 1 year out of college above me.
I do not know, but I do know that I cannot compete at the level I want to with all this worthless assistive technology crap that you guys think is all so great.
Screen readers are slow, unreliable, and too complicated.  They take
too long to learn and they are too cognitively heavy.    Braille
output is a pain also.  The government guidelines for accessibility are the stupidest things I  have ever read in my life.
You guys are clueless on how fast, easy, and stress less technology can be with vision.
  I quit my job and now I am thinking of starting my own non-profit accessibility and research company.  With a phd, I can apply for federal grants for research and non-profit funding.
The point is not accessibility though.
The goal I would want to aim for is making super high performance (for the user) software and interfaces to speed up productivity, lessen stress and lessen cognitive load, and let disabled people compete even better in the workplace.
Most people in the world find using computers difficult and stressful, whether they have a disability or not.
I have my eye on building some easy to use, high HCI performance interfaces for cloud computing and data analytics for  disabled people  to use.
There are many people out there who are not software engineers and cannot roll their own command line, scripting solutions for the shitty cloud computing and data analytics interfaces that non-disabled people use.
Even as a SWE, I find the Cloud command line interfaces a slow pain in the ass to use.  And the ones for data analytics are even worse.
I do not know when I will try to start my non-profit.  Right now, I am just winding down from an 8 year phd and 5 year sprint in the top tech companies.  I am trying to relax and not give myself a stroke.

On 9/3/22, tyler Littlefield via NFBCS <nfbcs at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 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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