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

[Mike Jolls]

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?