Hamha:

Week 2 into the ‘Return To Work’ process has brought up some additional concerns that I need to just get out. Opinions are welcome but this journal is more to add to my 11+ year diary here on FA.


Yesterday, I finally got to talk to someone at my company about my return to work. Unfortunately the doctor’s letter to help me return was not written properly and needs redone and faxed back to Leave management so it can get back to HR.


I also cannot get in touch with my social security coordinator. I ended up calling the main line and learning that, in order to get things on track to pay off my debt while updating my current work status, I have to physically go into the building and show them my FMLA and STD documents. There is no possibility of making an appointment as Social Security pointed out there are no open meeting times to schedule until March and, well, I need this situation nipped in the bud ASAP in order to not wind up in dire straits come next month.


Yesterday was also my scheduled appointment with my therapist. We talked about all the goings on and how my doctor had genuinely asked me, “Do you really want to go back into that environment?”. This spawned conversation on what has been along with what may be. It is at this point my therapist advised that, given everything, it is not ideal for me to return to such an environment where moral is low, turnover is high, and accessibility continues to take a back seat. This saddened me but it does feel like the way to go if I don’t want to keep having panic attacks over my inability to perform. I’m already coming off as an employee incapable of advancement thanks to 3rd party technology. It also is notable how, despite my efforts over the past 18 months, I have been told I was not eligible for advancement because I lacked ‘Leadership Skills’ and ‘Did not know about store troubleshooting’. The leadership rejection was a real burn but the store troubleshooting hasn’t happened as I had been promised to be trained in that area since August of 2018 as a way to grant me additional responsibilities. I’ve had, at most, 10 hours of training between August 2018 and present while finding accessibility issues with store support systems.


I am not a quitter. However I feel totally defeated. My therapist is currently reaching out the Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor from my STD to discuss if it is possible to just offer me a severance and part ways to save both myself and the company additional grief.


What really scares me is the thought of turning 40 this March and having not established any sort of career. Low vision and total blindness lead from me being an asset to a liability. Software updates by organizations that fail to properly test their software for even just ‘non-mouse compliance’ continue to make performing a job very difficult. I’ve talked to a number of people and have come to the conclusion that many organizations, including government, are more interested in speed-to-market over verifying their software is usable by the widest possible employee and end user.


This brings me back to when I met with my Manager and Supervisor over the two weeks prior to needing to go on FMLA… again. I raised more concerns on accessibility when an e-mail arrived to say we were utilizing ‘Augmented Reality’ in some stores to test if AR could benefit our brands. The letter was quite vague outside of saying you needed a Smart Phone to scan the tags in the stores that would cause the AR to display something. Well, I haven’t been able to use any sort of camera well inover 5 years. I had no clue on how to describe this feature to a customer and, upon bringing this up, I was told something in the realm of…

“We’re all in the same boat in having to adapt quickly as corporate pushes out new ways to get our customers engaged in our brands.”

I countered this by stating that we were all not in the same situation as anyone else could use on-screen pictures to get an idea of how to make it work. I, on the other hand, cannot.


The other profound line that truly brought me sorrow was something along the lines of…

“We no longer live in a business climate where time can be taken to properly ensure maximum quality of software.”

This is a very hard truth I had seen coming ever since my son told me about the numerous glitches in the release of Fallout 76 along with other video game makers seeing it as better to release a glitch-laden product and continuously having gamers load their console hard drives with ‘patches’ over allowing for a delay to get it right the first time.


Adding to this harsh reality is my experiences with Microsoft since 2013. I wanted to avoid using Windows 8 as it did not have an active [Start] button. I called technical support to ask how I could set Windows 8 back to ‘Classic Mode’ and was told…

“This is the way Windows will continue to be going from this point on.”

This prompted me to ask the guy if he had any sort of visual impairment. He didn’t apologize but, perhaps, I rattled him a little.


Since the 2013 ‘Office 2010’ fiasco, Windows 8 ordeal, and diminishing ADA compliance of Microsoft business products, I have watched MS Office grow increasingly difficult to work with a screen reader. Office 2013 was ‘okay’ but Office 2016 / Office 365 is a nightmare! Opening and saving files is like entering cheat codes into a classic NES game. For example, to open an Excel file, you need to do the following…

[CTRL + O] – [Right Arrow] – Right Arrow] – [Tab] – Select spreadsheet to open from the list

Microsoft Word isn’t much better in how opening and saving files is a nightmare! Also, for some odd reason, I cannot reply to e-mails from within an open e-mail in MS Outlook. I have to find the letter I want to read, select ‘Reply’ from the ‘Applications’ / ‘Right Click’ drop-down, and read the letter. Not doing this would result in, if I needed to reply, me having to close the open e-mail, doing the ‘Reply’ steps previously listed, and then answering the letter.


Windows 10 is also a fantastic example of taking away accessibility. It starts with their discontinuation of ‘Internet Explorer, which was extremely screen-reader friendly, to ‘Microsoft Edge’, which had zero accessibility at launch and even causes sighted people trouble. Currently, the discontinued ‘Internet Explorer’ and ‘Google Chrome’ are the most accessible. Though why they dropped all that working code from IE to bring out Edge is beyond me.


This all leaves me wondering if I will ever have a career. Are those of us with limitations seen as ‘acceptable losses’? I brought something like this up with my manager over a year ago when we were starting to eliminate direct mail to get customers to become ‘digitally engaged’. The answer was around the lines of…

“Those who are upset are the ones who don’t want to learn / accept change in which the growing market wants. The losses as a result of these customers has been calculated and the company is set to do better in its current direction.”


So, now, I’m at the age where ‘age discrimination’ can pile on with my ‘blindness’. It is illegal but there is no way to prove such discrimination as no hiring manager in their right mind would ever put on paper, “IndYosh is far too old to join our organization along with his total blindness proving a potential liability to the department.”.


Well, that’s it. I feel better in writing it. This doesn’t fix the problem. However, if you read this and are able-bodied, please try to not forget those of us who, by no fault of our own, can’t do everything like ‘normal’ people do. Moreover ‘Think Outside The Box’ only happens if you look beyond your immediate self. So, when making major decisions, think of how it will impact the Long Term / Temporarily Abled’ over trying to maximize profits for a Short Term gain that will result in ‘kick-the-can’ mentality that further alienates more-and-more people as both employees and customers.



Your Pal:

---Yosh E. O’ducky ; )