[nfb-talk] issue with job and philosophy

[Kathleen A. Millhoff]

Hi,
I'm not a very technically adept person, so I cannot answer questions
specifically involved with technology.  But I have had lots of jobs where
situations similar to those you describe occur almost daily.  That is, if I
understood your question, sudden, unplanned, projects are thrown your way,
and there's no system in place to access them.
If this is how you perceive it, I have some ideas that may help and that may
change the perception of you at the work place (I'm referring here to your
comment about being given less difficult or involved projects.)
1.   Not knowing your work situation, my comments are general, but involve
taking time to learn in advance the kinds of things expected and make plans
accordingly.
2.   Prepare to spent lots more time in preparing accessible materials.
3.   Make knowledge of all peripherals and accommodations your second job.
4.   Find out what alternatives other people are using(this is why you wrote
in the first place).
i.e., I remember at a CSUN conference almost ten years ago now, a competent
computer user telling me to have more than one screen reader available to me
and to have all technology from work available at home for practice.  After
all this time, I'm still amazed and overwhelmed by the ideas he proposed; in
fact these must have worked for him.  I've never had the money or time for
all that, and yet, I know he was quite correct in his assersions about what
it would take.

One more comment about your friend/boss's statements about treating you
differently.  People get this one so confused.  Being treated differently
does not mean that no changes are made to get things done.  You use a dog or
cane, which is different from sighted friends; you use a screen reader or
braille; your friend misunderstands as people often do.  There's no schism
between practice and philosophy here.  When someone hands me a print
document to read, they're treating me the same as others here at work.  When
I feed it to Kurzweil, I'm behaving different but adhering to the same
expectations.
I think it's great you asked these things and I think it's a question worth
revisiting frequently.
best of luck
kat

-----Original Message-----
From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]On
Behalf Of Chris Westbrook
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 2:39 PM
To: NFB Talk Mailing List
Subject: [nfb-talk] issue with job and philosophy


I am having an issue with my new job and I was wondering if any of you had
suggestions.  There are a lot of things I can do well, but sometimes I am
put on lower priority projects because of my inability to affectively create
reports in Microsoft access.  I find Jaws and Window Eye' support for Access
sorely lacking for anyone who wants to do anything useful with it.  I know
some of you are saying well use a reader, and I have certainly thought about
that, but I do not have enough work to keep a reader busy for eight or even
four hours a day, and many times these projects come up suddenly and need to
be done yesterday so I can't just recruit a reader whenever I need one or
push my work to a certain time when a reader could be scheduled.  Other
coworkers can't be of much help either because they are working on other
tasks.  I think this issue brings up two points.  One, have you found any
techniques for dealing with this problem, but I think this also raises a
philosophical question which I think is probably more appropriate for this
list.  I have always grown up with the idea that blindness can really be
reduced to the level of a physical nuisance given the proper training and
opportunity.  I feel that I have pretty decent blindness skills, especially
related to computers, and I am given all the opportunity in the world.  I
have the latest version of Jaws and Window Eyes at my disposal as well as a
70 cell Braille display and good Braille literacy  skills.  Yet there are
certain things I just can't do not because of my lack of intelligence but
due to accessibility.  Sometimes I fear Federationists don't really
understand how important accessibility is.  It's easy to say "use a reader"
when you're dealing with reading the occasional mail or using the occasional
visual verification or identifying the occasional bit of paper money, etc.
but if Jaws went away tomorrow and you were told to just use a reader to
access your computer would you do it?  I know some of you will probably say
"oh well we could make our own solutions if Jaws were to disappear" but I'm
not sure if you realize how much cooperation is required from Microsoft and
other companies to have what little accessibility we do have and how easily
it could be taken away.  I've been thinking of this issue a lot because it
really frustrates me when I am not able to help with a problem at work due
to inaccessible Microsoft software that probably cannot be scripted for.
What is sometimes even more frustrating is when I mention my concerns to my
friend who is also pretty much my boss and the one who brought me to the
company, he turns my  Federationist philosophy right back on me by
commenting that I have said repeatedly that I don't want to be treated
differently from other people, which is of course true.  I don't really have
a good response for that one.  While there is still plenty of stuff I can do
and I am not in danger of losing my job, and I realize I might not have been
able to do all those things fully sighted, it really bugs me that I can't
contribute as much as I feel I could.  IF I were sighted I would be expected
to learn to do these things if I had a gap in my skill set.  Frankly I
consider that more than just a nuisance.  I'm curious to hear what you guys
think.