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

[John G. Heim]

I would agree that we don't assume blind people are slower than their 
sighted counterparts. But  human beings are designed to see. The world 
is designed for people who can see but beyond that, people themselves 
are designed to see. If humans didn't have sight, their hearing would be 
a lot better. This implies that we are, in fact, handicapped. There are 
going to be times when no amount of hard work and determination are 
going to make up for not being able to see.

I think that's a very important point because my experience has been 
that we, in the blind community, sometimes are less supportive than we 
should be toward people who are struggling. An admission that you can't 
keep up with your sighted counterparts is as likely to garner calls for 
you to get off your butt as it is to gather sympathy. But it's not right 
to judge someone for being unable to keep up with their sighted 
counterparts. For one thing, they might work in a very competitive 
industry. Maybe everyone in their company already works extraordinary 
long hours. It's not realistic to expect a blind person to outwork 
everyone everywhere. Second, there's no shame in not being the best of 
the best. Different people have different strengths and weaknesses. Some 
people just aren't inclined to work 70 hour weeks and for some people, 
it wouldn't matter much if they did.  So my policy has always been to 
just accept it at face value when someone says that they are working as 
hard as they can but just can't keep up.

Of course, I totally agree that if you can work 60 or 70 hour weeksand 
save your career by doing so, that's the way to go. This is the approach 
I took to success in my career. Mostly, this took the form of spending 3 
or 4 hours each night at home making sure I knew everything I needed to 
know to do my job. While my sighted counterparts  were thumbing through 
technical manuals, I was being productive.

Also, it does help to be in a job where quality matters more than pure 
speed.  Academic environments are good for this kind of thing.


On 09/30/14 13:24, Mike Freeman via nfbcs wrote:
> Yes. Generalizations are dangerous, not only because each blind person has
> his/her own capabilities, talents and interest but because the nature of the
> work may interact with these factors. For example, writing visually-pleasing
> web pages is different than coding scientific problems in FORTRAN or ALGOL
> or writing in pithon, ruby-on-rails and so on.
>
> But in general, we tend to believe that kids should be brought up expecting
> that they should do whatever it takes to obtain the same production
> standards as their sighted colleagues or if they cannot, that they bring
> other advantages to the job that will make it worth it for an employer to
> hire them.
>
> IN other words, we don't assume that blind people are ipso facto slower or
> less productive than sighted people.
>
> Cheers!
>
> Mike
>
>
> -----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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