[IL-Talk] Contract terminated because of accommodations

[Ayoub Zurikat]

My dear Illinois family greetings,
It's been a while, but I wanna share this with you so that no one is forced to endure what I had to endure for the past six months. About six months ago, exactly on the 29th of April, a recruiter/headhunter from ERC path light reached out to me and told me that the company was impressed with my resume and that they would love to add me to their team. I was hesitant, but they made me a good offer, so I left the job that I had and joined their team. During the interview process, I made it abundantly clear that I was a blind person, and that if the company wants to recruit me, they need to make sure that there are reasonable and sufficient accommodations For me. The recruiter told me that the company prides itself on being all inclusive. To make a very long story short. It became very clear that the software/platform they use to plug in all client related info simply does not work with any screen reader. Even at that stage, I told the accommodation coordinator to be honest with me and let me know if they would be able to make the accommodations. Six months, six months of emails back and forth, promises, more emails, complete isolation, even striking down different ideas that I had, and then the company contacted me last week to let me know that they will be terminating my contract because they cannot provide me any accommodations. For six months I used to go to an empty office at 9 am, sit and do nothing until 4:30 pm and then leave. Not only that, but during that contract termination call the coordinator informed me that the platform simply do not accommodate for blind people. In other words, no blind person can work at ERC pathlight.. I'm sending this out because I know that there are a lot of therapists on this list, and I just wanted to save you the pain of having to go through this. The company did not even give me a severance package. They are just going to pay the last two weeks of my employment and that is it. 
Maybe I am naive, I don't know,but I simply did not think that a company devoted to the mental health and well-being of humans can behave in such a manner.
Anyways, I hope that all of you have a blessed Monday.
Best regards