[nfbcs] Telling employers about disability and question about work expectations

Thu Oct 2 04:04:07 UTC 2014

JMHO, some of this may have to do with being blind but not all of it. There
are some employers who, regardless of if a person has a disability, treat
the people kind of like machines. Here is your work; get it done on time.
Oh, and by the way, if one of the other people machines is unable to work,
that work also has to get done somehow, even though there are fewer people
machines to do it. I think that, when looking for a job, regardless of if a
person has a disability, the person should try to gage if the employer just
wants another person machine or if the employer is actually going to value
that person for the skills and knowledge that that person has. Yes, I might
work a little slower than the rest of my coworkers, but the quality of my
work is high, and I have skills and knowledge about accessibility that most
of my coworkers do not have. My employer values me for who I am, not what I
am.
As far as disclosing, my vision loss is enough that I could not fake being
sighted if I wanted to. Some of my interviews involved working on a
computer, so just walking in without giving prior notice of what
accommodations I needed would have been a disaster. Finally, most of the
positions for which I applied were in accessibility, and disclosing my
blindness kind of filled in some of the blanks as to why I was interested
and how I had certain background knowledge.
Last but not least, I disclose my blindness in situations where there could
be problems because I would rather know ahead of time if there are going to
be problems than after the fact. In short, if someone is not going to
respect me for who I am, I'm not going to work for that person or company.
Everyone is going to have a different approach to this depending on a
million different factors, including level of blindness and comfort level
with being blind. I lost my sight when I was four, so, by the time it came
to apply for my first internship, the getting used to blindness and learning
blindness skills thing was way behind me.
And, yes, someone else earlier talked about employers discussing
disabilities. I usually tell people that I am comfortable answering
questions. I often find that this is better than just leaving this awkward
silence and assumptions floating around the room.
Just my thoughts.

Nicole

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Mike Jolls via
nfbcs
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2014 11:01 AM
To: nfbcs at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nfbcs] Telling employers about disability and question about work
expectations

I wanted to comment on the
post about disclosing your disability on an interview.  I have definite
mixed feelings.

On one hand, I fully
understand the risk you take when you disclose the fact that you're
disabled.  People have misconceptions that if you can't see as well as a
normally sighted person, or if you're blind, then you're going to have major
problems or maybe you can't do the job at all.  I know one time when I was
talking to my son's girlfriend about math, she asked . "blind people can't
do math, can they?  How do they see to do it?".  I had to inform her that
there were methods with Braille to do that, but I could tell she wasn't
convinced.  Now if she had these feelings (and she wasn't even a recruiter)
you know some others are going to have these feelings as well.  So I get the
whole idea of protecting yourself against getting locked out before you get
a chance to get out of the blocks.

On the other hand, the
employer does need to know what they're getting.  I know in my own
situation, my employer hired me not understanding fully what I was capable
of, or where my deficiency lay.  And let's be honest . a blind person might
not be as fast as a normally sighted person. 
An employer might want to be aware of the impact of hiring the person.  I
know in my own case, my eye doctor told me . based on my vision . "don't get
a job where you're constantly under deadline pressure . you probably will
have a hard time getting it done in the time they want it done because you
can't see as quickly as a normal person".  Yet I got a job as a computer
software developer and I have to say that the doctor was right.  I only read
130 words per minute whereas a normal person reads 250.  They can read it
faster, and they can do it faster.  And, this problem has killed my career.
So does an employer deserve to know the person has a disability so they can
decide whether such a deficiency is something they can deal with?  I can
definitely see where a person wouldn't want to divulge this since it could
mean the difference to getting the job.

I can see both sides of
the coin.  It's not an easy answer.

Now here's something I'm
curious about.

Does it usually take a
blind person longer to finish a job than a regularly sighted person?  And by
blind, I mean partially sighted or totally blind.  Should the expectation of
a blind person be that they'll have to work more hours a day or during the
week than a normally sighted person so they can produce at the same level as
a normally sighted person?  For me personally, this is something I've had to
come to terms with. 
It's not something I want to do, but I know how fast I read, and I only read
about half as fast as a normal person.  Doing Braille, I'm not even that
fast.  And around where I work, they don't care if you're disabled or
normal.  They just want the work done.  They set the deadline and expect a
certain work output level and if you can't do it in 40 hours, then their
mentality is . "you do what you have to do to get the job done".  If that
means work 60 hours because of your disability, then so be it".  And if you
can't satisfy that requirement, they just get someone else to do things and
you get what's left.

So, what expectation
should a low vision / blind person have when getting a job?  That they'll
have to work more and harder than a normally sighted person?  I'm curious
what your work experience is like. 
Of course, if you're really fast with Braille (for example) and you can read
200 words per minute with it and can get the same amount of work done as a
normal person, then great for you.  You don't necessarily have to work
longer and harder.  I know that hasn't been my luck.

And if this extra work is
true . that is if it's something that you eventually realize you have to do
as a blind person . I hope that's something that's being communicated to the
kids that are coming along.  It took me a long time to realize that and my
career suffered because I wasn't aware of it.  The sooner the person
realizes this the sooner they can accept it and move on. For me, that's
where blindness is not just a nuisance.  It's been a major roadblock.
Perhaps if I had learned Braille earlier than age 48 things would have been
different.

Any comments?

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