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October 29, 2008
Handling Over-protection While at Work
George has a workplace problem, one that maybe you can help him resolve.
As a customer service representative, George works for an IT company and spends most of his time on the phone helping buyers work through glitches in installing and using the company’s new software for medical recordkeeping.
George feels his team leader isn’t assured yet that he can handle his job, even though he has been on this particular assignment six months now and had five years of IT troubleshooting experience when he joined the company.
He believes his team leader’s lack of confidence in his work is due to one factor. George has been losing some of his central vision due to Stargardt's Disease for some time now. But his condition became noticeable to his co-workers only recently when he had to install JAWS for Windows on his computer to carry out his work.
Here’s how George describes his situation:
"I’d like to be able to call upon my mentor when I need assistance instead of having him tell me what to do as I progress through a call with a customer. He’ll sometimes hover over me to make sure I’m not missing something in helping a customer."Sometimes another technician has taken over a call for me because my team leader thinks I’m in trouble. That makes me feel frustrated and angry, and it doesn’t do anything to build confidence in myself.
"Instead of having some other technician take over the call for me, it would help if the mentors and team leaders would work on improving the knowledge bases we use in working with customers. I find them confusing and difficult to use.
"This could be done by including text-based instructions for each type of software instead of using screenshots. That would help me listen to the instructions and to handle more calls on my own.
"In addition, I need to be able to call for my own assistance instead of having someone listen to me all the time.
"It seems like we’re all always in a rush. There’s no time to talk about these things. My mentor and team leader are in and out in a jiffy, but one of them always seems to show up when I appear to spending too much time with one customer."
I believe George needs to consider these issues as he grapples with such paternalism in his work environment:
First, how does he help his co-workers feel comfortable with his visual impairment?
Second, how does he handle situations when he truly needs help from his co-workers (or when it appears he needs help and he actually doesn’t)?
Third, how does he avoid creating resentment and tension among his co-workers because they feel he is using his vulnerability as a way to get what he wants?
Fourth, how does he gain back his self-confidence on the job?
Fifth, how does he resume his journey in carving out a career niche for himself in today’s job market so he can reach his full potential?
Sixth, how does he project himself as an adult in an adult world that will bring adult responses from others?
See “Share the Load: You Don't Have to Be the Weakest Link Due to Your Disability.”
Read "How to Avoid Over-protecting an Employee With a Disability."
Check "Building Rapport With Your Supervisor."
Think about what those eSight articles tell you. Then,
reply to this question:
How does George re-establish his independence as an
adult and avoid being viewed as less than equal in the
eyes of his supervisor and co-workers?
Posted by Jim Hasse at 09:47 AM | Comments (4)
October 22, 2008
Learning From Judy's Journey
I'd like to tell you about Judy.
When she moved to San Francisco 15 years ago, Judy
started volunteering for a local computer non-profit,
Frisco PC, which had 4,000 members (all volunteers).
Her background was not in computers. She was a public relations officer for the Navy before she began losing her eyesight due to retinitis pigmentosa. She had a degree in journalism.
She started writing for the non-profit’s 64-page
monthly magazine, began an Internet Special Interest
Group (when the public Internet was just kicking off)
and volunteered to design the group's web site. She
also ended up giving talks about the group to local
civic organizations.
Judy managed to implement quite an extensive job
search campaign while she carried out her volunteer
assignments for Frisco PC. She added every new
volunteer task she completed for Frisco PC to her
resume.
She may not have realized it at first, but she was
gradually honing essential on-the-job skills and
gaining experience in the civilian job market. And she
was learning how to frame her civilian experiences so
prospective employers could easily evaluate them in
addition to her accomplishments in the Navy.
Judy admits that she felt discouraged because she
couldn’t seem to get beyond the first interview for
the open jobs she targeted in her job hunt. She found
her visual impairment was more of a barrier than she
at first thought it would be.
Yet, in the process, she also realized at least six
things about how to make her volunteer experience
meaningful in the civilian job market.
First, her work in the Navy was, in some cases, not as
important as what she had done as a volunteer in
showing that she had the necessary skills for the jobs
she targeted.
Second, it was important to show she was taking full
advantage of her volunteer opportunities to develop
these less "trainable" expectations of prospective
employers: reliability, cooperation, punctuality,
focus, organization and collaboration.
Third, she learned it’s the work -- not the industry
-- that counts on a resume. It didn’t matter where she
got her experience.
Fourth, by volunteering, she was showing prospective
employers that she was a self-starter and valued work
-- and that she was self-motivated and committed.
Fifth, it was important to identify job titles that
most closely reflect the work she did as a volunteer
and to describe the work as she would for a "real"
job.
Sixth, during a job interview, it must be apparent
through her narrative that her volunteer experience
had prepared her for the job at hand.
Two years after Judy first started volunteering for
Frisco PC, the non-profit’s public relations director
left for another job, and Judy applied for the
position.
Judy felt she was ready for the opportunity. And she
was right. She got the job.
For more about managing your career journey when you
have a visual impairment, see the following two eSight
articles.
"How I Dealt With my Sight Loss at 52" by Jeremiah
Taylor.
"You Don't Vision to Focus!" by Nan Hawthorne.
Please join this week's discussion by replying to this question:
Which step in Judy's career journey is most
instructive for you as you seek meaningful employment?
Posted by Jim Hasse at 10:44 AM | Comments (2)
October 14, 2008
Ross’s Disillusionment
Although visually impaired, Ross often finds he's recognized by strangers as a sighted person.
Yet, during the last six years, he has hopped from job to job in the information technology field, mostly in customer service. He says he just hasn't been able to stay in one place very long because "something always seems to happen and it doesn't work out."
He further writes:
"I don't expect my co-workers to accept me in the workplace. They have "no concern" about the disabled. None. State advocates tell me, "Tell them you are visually impaired." This statement is viewed as an admission of guilt that I have a problem -- a problem (blindness) that they fear. Other co-workers do not have a problem. Such an admission allows others to disregard my human qualities and make every attempt to disallow my right to be employed or even befriended... They can then view me as different -- and less -- than they are."
He says he can't stand "being treated like a fragile child" in a workplace where the common assumption is that "I'm unable to do anything without assistance from a sighted helper" -- even when walking a customer through a computer problem by telephone.
In short, Ross is disillusioned by today's work world. Ross's case study is a mixture of truth and fiction, but the quotes are from real people eSight has collected over the years.
His situation reminds me of Amy Ruel's statement during last week's discussion about the film, "Blindness." She wrote:
"I hope that (employers) will take every opportunity to challenge their own private fears and misconceptions and obtain accurate information about the range of capabilities that we blind people, like our sighted peers, possess."
I know it's difficult, but we, as job seekers with a disability, have a responsibility, too.
We need to savor what is going well in our lives and, at the same time, plug away at the work needed to accomplish a specific feat -- such as landing a meaningful job.
Focusing on one or more special needs not normally required of non-disabled folks and still achieving that internal balance can give someone who is disabled the resilience and confidence employers need in today's turbulent business environment.
And knowing how to craft solutions for disabled-based problems can be transferred to a work situation and help a work team develop the elasticity it needs today to compete on a global scale.
The bottom line: Our individual vulnerabilities are valuable -- to our society as well as to individual organizations and companies -- because they stretch our ability to be adaptable as human beings.
In the competitive business world, that kind of reasoning is often lost. An all able-bodied workforce, for instance, can become flabby in terms of creativity and problem-solving, precisely because it lacks diversity and does not include individuals who look at opportunities just a little bit differently than the rest of us.
With that larger view in mind, how would you respond to Ross's specific situation?
The following four eSight articles will give you some ideas.
Share the Load: You Don't Have to Be the Weakest Link Due to Your Disability
Creative Survivors Add Elasticity to Your Workforce
Hire People Who Resolve 'Easy Mark' Situations for Themselves
What to Expect From a Job Candidate Who Has Emotional Intelligence About Disability
What tips do you have for Ross which would help him find the right job situation?
Posted by Jim Hasse at 03:12 PM | Comments (4)
October 08, 2008
Take Advantage of This Teachable Moment
The other night I saw "Blindness," the film by director Fernando Meirelles.
Based on the 1995 novel by Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago, "Blindness" imagines a mysterious epidemic that causes people to see nothing but fuzzy white light resulting in a collapse of the social order in an unnamed city.
Julianne Moore stars as the wife of an eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who loses his sight; she feigns blindness to stay with her husband and eventually leads a revolt of the quarantined patients.
The book was praised for its use of blindness as a metaphor for the lack of clear communication and respect for human dignity in modern society.
But, the movie reinforces inaccurate stereotypes, including that the blind cannot care for themselves and are perpetually disoriented, according to the National Federation of the (NFB) and the American Council of the Blind (ACB).
Dr. Marc Maurer, NFB President, said:
"Blind people in this film are portrayed as incompetent, filthy, vicious, and depraved. They are unable to do even the simplest things like dressing, bathing, and finding the bathroom.
"The truth is that blind people regularly do all of the same things that sighted people do. Blind people are a cross-section of society, and, as such, we represent the broad range of human capacities and characteristics. We are not helpless children or immoral, degenerate monsters; we are teachers, lawyers, mechanics, plumbers, computer programmers, and social workers. We go to church, volunteer our time for worthy causes, raise children, operate businesses, and engage in recreational activities, just like everyone else.
"Portraying the blind on movie screens across America as little better than animals will reinforce the unfounded fears, misconceptions, and stereotypes in the general public about blindness. It will exacerbate the unemployment rate among the blind, which is already higher than 70 percent because of public misconceptions about the capabilities of blind people.
"It will reinforce false public notions that blind children (can’t be educated), that blind adults are unemployable, and that all blind people are socially undesirable."
ACB has similar concerns.
"The movie 'Blindness' is a demeaning depiction of people's reactions to losing their eyesight," stated Mitch Pomerantz, ACB president.
Dr. Ronald E. Milliman, a blind university professor and also a member of the ACB, says, "In a very mythical sense, something like what is being shown in the movie might have happened hundreds or thousands of years ago, but certainly not in any civilized society such as what we have in the United States today. The movie is at best totally misleading and, at worst, serves to frighten deeply those who see it."
Here is eSight member Albert J. Rizzi’s reaction:
"It is difficult enough walking into a room or a public forum and know that others perceive you as different and that you scare the hell out of them. But to understand that this film could further that fear and give others the impression that blindness could lead to an utter breakdown in our social system is disturbing to say the least.
"It only makes me angry about how much harder it will be for me to prove myself as I try to get my life back to as normal a life as I had before going blind.
"We can begin together to redefine deeply imbedded beliefs that have been nurtured and passed on generation after generation about people with challenges."
The New York Times says:
"When they stumble into the quarantine ward, these characters introduce themselves by number, according to order of arrival, and by profession, evidence that they have been stripped of their humanity not by sickness or the state, but rather by Mr. Saramago and by Don McKellar, the screenwriter...
"...(This film) does not, in the end, give you much to think about. But there is, nonetheless, a lot here to see."
My own take on this film is that there not much to see but a lot to think about. The film doesn’t work well overall because it tries to turn an obscure fable into a concrete narrative -- a narrative which reinforces commonly held misconceptions of blindness because the fable comes alive in our minds through flesh-and-blood characters on the screen. We identify with those characters, even if they don’t have a name.
The film uses this convenient but unfortunate allegory to address author’s perception of how humans react when there’s a breakdown in the social order. My impression is that the screen writer, in transferring the book to film, understands blindness only as a human condition to fear. That fear serves his purpose, for, by using fear, he perhaps taps into an emotional truth about the human condition. But it’s at the expense of realistic details. The details he includes in the film lack possibility and logic.
The notion that blindness can be contagious is just one example of the lapses in logic which occur when Saramago’s fable is transferred to the screen.
As a result, this film too easily leads to two conclusions: that a blind person is less than human and that a blind person cannot lead or function as a human being.
The dialogue (and the whole setting) reaffirms what some people already believe. Here are two examples.
"We need a leader with vision," a nameless, blind individual says after breaking out of the quarantine. He’s reaffirming the dominance of the sighted Julianne Moore as she leads a group of his fellow victims, hand by hand and helplessly, through the streets of the abandoned city.
"I’m not a man," an again nameless man with an eye patch suddenly inserts at the end of the film. He’s played by Danny Glover.
This could have been an art house film, if it were better produced. Instead, it’s strangely sensationalized to appeal to a mass audience and comes across as low-brow fiction.
As a result, it’s likely to quickly be forgotten in midst of our election and financial crisis because it hits too close to the vulnerability we all feel right now. It’s a statement of how government reacts to a crisis, and we again see how government can fail. Remember the Japanese interment camps during in WWII or when kids sick with measles were taken away and separated from their families or what happened to the residents of New Orleans during Katrina?
Film-goers with visual impairments may not miss much visually by going to this movie. I found the cinematography nothing exceptional, lacking color with stretches of white and black or darkened screen, leaving much to the imagination like old-time radio. Perhaps that was the intent, trying to simulate the common misconceptions of visual impairment.
Glover’s character, by the way, occasionally narrates the film, which makes it accessible.
Whether you choose to go see the movie or not, I encourage you to use your insight to help turn the film into a "teachable moment." I believe we can use the film's current high profile to raise awareness about visual impairments, especially among employers.
For background, read the eSight article for employers, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Blind Employees But Were Reluctant to Ask.
Raising awareness will benefit not only hiring managers but also individuals who have had a visual impairment all their lives as well as the baby boomers who are currently employed but will perhaps deal with a visual impairment during the years ahead.
You can make your voice heard right now about the film, "Blindness," by replying to this question on the eSight Networking Forum:
What do you want employers to learn about visual impairments during this teachable moment when the film, "Blindness," is in the public spotlight?
Posted by Jim Hasse at 11:54 AM | Comments (8)
October 01, 2008
Working Well With People
I had the opportunity to hear Rebecca Walker, author
of “Black, White and Jewish,” this week, and her main
message keeps churning around in my mind. She said:
“Diversity programs cover people who are different,
but the individuals within those programs sometimes
don’t gain the freedom they seek because they are
often stuck in personal grudges over discriminatory
actions from the past. That impedes the effectiveness
of diversity initiatives. Instead of focusing on past
wrongs, each of us who are considered different needs
to build a ‘pristine future’ which is free of outmoded
misconceptions about race, age, gender, sexual
preference, disability, etc.”
How do those of us with disabilities make our
"pristine futures" become real, particularly in the
work world?
Here are some suggestions I’ve gathered from the
observations individuals have submitted to eSight’s
various forums over the last several years. They come
down to two concepts: independence and maturity.
Independence means using our interpersonal skills to
effectively raise awareness and challenge assumptions
about disability as fully engaged members of society.
The Civil Rights movement taught us that laws alone
don't change attitudes. To reinforce current law, each
of us needs to help raise awareness and challenge
assumptions about disability employment issues.
Having the time, inclination and skill to effectively
reach out to our friends, colleagues, acquaintances,
and even strangers shows others that disability is no
longer the central core of our lives. We have
discovered that relating well to other people and
dealing with issues outside of our immediate concerns
are paths to independent living.
See “Share the Load: You Don't Have to Be the Weakest Link Due to Your Disability.”
Maturity means using our acquired discernment and
assertiveness skills to project ourselves as adults.
We want to develop effective interpersonal
relationships with diverse groups of people (disabled
and non-disabled). By doing so, perhaps the
psychological divide that sometimes separates us from
non-disabled people will not be so wide.
We no longer think of ourselves as victimized or
inferior due to our disability because disability
doesn’t define who we are as individuals. We do not
take ourselves too seriously and let others know that
it's OK to enjoy the amusing things that often happen
in life due to disability. That takes self-esteem and
self-confidence.
As a result, we take responsibility when we become
"easy marks" while at work and tend to resolve
interpersonal issues ourselves, if at all possible. We
assume that responsibility because we realize that the
experiences employers have with disabled folks today
can directly affect how they will perceive, rightly or
wrongly, other disabled people in similar situations
tomorrow.
See “The Importance of Business-like Behavior: An
Essay.”
Taking responsibility for ourselves and building
effective interpersonal relationships with others are
the hallmarks of independent, mature living. They show that we have grown beyond self-absorption -- that we can interact effectively with others, disabled or not.
The ability to apply those attributes in any situation
means we have “added value” as job candidates for any employer because we can have a positive effect on the teamwork, the morale, and the tone of any work group in any job sector.
Scott Treeman illustrates this independence and
maturity in these comments he submitted to the eSight
Networking Forum last week:
“When I walk into a prospective restaurant or lounge to demonstrate my skills as a jazz pianist, I go in with my cane and confident manner. Having my material together (a prepared resume and a program for performance) is a plus, too. Then, to address a concern the owner may have about my visual impairment, I explain that any assistance will be minimal. That should do the trick! Then, I just leave the owner and his clients wishing for more at the end of the evening!”
See “Using Humor in the Workplace to Break Down Disability Barriers.”
That brings us to this week’s discussion question.
Let’s focus on the added value of maturity that we see
in Scott.
How do you show prospective employers that you offer
the "added value" of maturity as a job candidate?
Posted by Jim Hasse at 11:48 AM | Comments (1)