[NFBCS] CompTIA Certification

Fri Jan 27 21:11:27 UTC 2023

Hello Ed,
Thank you for speaking out as a blind person who is currently working in desktop support.
Your experience certainly supersedes  mine as you have information about working in the field.
I will bring up your name as an example when I am contacted by others who wish to work in this field.
I was inspired when I read about your success at your current position.

On a separate note, I do not believe my company's internal webpage or intranet is accessible.
A sighted colleague has been able to bring a web address into focus for me in Microsoft Edge and I have been able to add it to my favorites.
When we go through the webpage together and start tabbing through all the links, that web resource is often not what the screen reader ever lands on.
You will hear from me how I overcome this challenge and how I document others in the upcoming months.
Business needs seem to be driving solutions with haphazard accessibility or none at all.
It has always been my hope that there be a blind individual at each company selling a software solution or service and a department at that company dedicated to making the service of the company work well for the blind.
That means that each of us need to follow your footsteps and get in the trenches with current software products.
And when the software solution offered by a company is less accessible than it could be, we need to work with them to show them a direction that would resolve the matter.
Very best,
John

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Ed Barnes via NFBCS
Sent: Friday, January 27, 2023 12:16 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Ed Barnes <edbarnes7 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NFBCS] CompTIA Certification

Hi list.

I respectfully disagree with a couple of John's points as someone who has worked as a computer support specialist doing desktop support for approximately 20 years, the first couple of years in the private sector and the last 17 as an employee of Office Of The Chief Information Officer, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, located in St John's NL Canada where I live.

As far as I am concerned, the key point here is that Dr. Miller is speculating because he is a software developper so has no actual hands-on experience working in my field, just like I have no experience working in his.

Do I agree that some things take us longer as blind people to accomplish, of course I do, however, do I think we should receive modified work tasks taking this into account, I say no, do I end up spending a few extra hours a week working on items outside of my 35 hour work week because I want to meet the same targets as my sighted counterparts, yes. Do I have a problem with that, no.

When it comes to windows tech support, is there room for improving remote access, of course there is, on windows 7, 8 and 10 I have found nvda and narrator to be my best friend considering that both do not require that any components are installed on the machine which you are connecting too.

If you choose your career based upon the all-mighty dollar, I'd say do software development, there's greater demand and the pay across the board is likely greater in my opinion.

 Do I think windows tech support is doable by a blind person, of course I say yes. I think I my own success proves it can be done, in my 17 years with my current employer I have twice been nominated for the public service award of excellence which is the highest honor a government employee in my province can receive in recognition of his/her work.

Regards to all, happy Friday - Ed

On 1/27/23, John Miller via NFBCS <nfbcs at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hello Dan,
> I would love to hear from others on this question.
> Personally, I would encourage you to be a software developer before 
> being an IT support person.
> As part of my work I develop software.
> The longer the duration of the task I am assigned, the better I perform.
> I was just assigned a software developer task with a due date in two weeks.
> I know I will be successful in this task.
> The sighted IT workers who are remoting into my machine are completing 
> a task in roughly 15 minutes typically.
> I have seen the task take as long as an hour but that is when they are 
> trouble-shooting.
> So on the negative side, IT desk support jobs for Windows users often 
> ask you to complete a task in a quite small chunk of time.
>
> I do not believe that there exists many IT solutions for a blind 
> person to remote in to another computer and provide solutions.
> While there may be such solutions, I would like to hear which of these 
> solutions are being used by the fortune 500 companies, universities, 
> and so-on.
> The work-arounds that I use as a blind engineer take a little bit of 
> time to configure.
> I see the sighted IT workers using the tools provided them with all 
> the default settings.
>
> I observe the sighted IT workers that I interact with entering 
> information on each IT case using a homegrown web application, likely 
> in Microsoft Edge.
> There is a lot of copy-and-paste going on in complicated dialog boxes 
> or web forms.
> I am slower than my sighted peers in filling out these webpage dialog 
> boxes.
> But I am just as fast or faster than my sighted peers when working at 
> the command line to commit a piece of software into a software repo.
> So at the command line I would say the playing field is level between 
> sighted and blind computer users.
> For the webpage interface I believe the sighted computer user has an 
> advantage.
> This may be the typical reason of the sighted being able to take in at 
> a glance all the information displayed on the entire screen at once.
> It may be because the webpage was not designed with accessibility for 
> the blind in mind.
> As the blind community, I think we have to reimagine how to quickly 
> fill out and how to quickly reference information in web forms.
>
> I see many blind individuals working as system administrators and 
> providing support at work in Linux rather than Windows.
> I observe a number of blind individuals working as access technology 
> trainers helping other blind users.
> I know of a number of blind software developers who enjoy their jobs.
> In summary, I would love it if you personally were the IT tech person 
> providing me desktop support at my company. This would confirm that 
> the software applications used by my company are sufficiently 
> accessible. On the other hand, I believe that there are other roles at 
> work that may be easier to show case your talents at.
> However, many of these roles benefit from a strong foundational 
> knowledge of IT technology.
> So strengthening your IT technology knowledge can absolutely open up 
> doors at work.
> Very best,
> John
>
>
>
>
> From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of dan TeVelde via 
> NFBCS
> Sent: Friday, January 27, 2023 9:00 AM
> To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List' <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: dan.tevelde at comcast.net
> Subject: [NFBCS] CompTIA Certification
>
> My current contract position is not working out as expected. I haven't 
> had any contract work this year. National Industries for the Blind has 
> a short-term information assurance training program leading to CompTIA 
> certification. I don't know any blind people who have this 
> certification and use it in their jobs. Is the CompTIA exam 
> administered by Pearson accessible? Is support desk work realistic?
>
> Thanks,
> Dan
>

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