Disability, access and perfection

It's strange what people worry about isn't it? Now some things, like some of the stuff in recent blogs, you can sort of understand. They're quite major, if not quite life threatening and so being worried about them seems quite natural and something most people can empathise with. But I got an email from someone today who was quite worried that somehow they'd 'missed a trick' and had unwittingly contributed to causing someone offence, or at least hacking them off.

Now he's a tolerant soul, not PC but he does try to treat everyone the same, irrespective of race, colour, creed, sex, sexual orientation, inside leg measurement. That doesn't mean he treats them all nicely, merely that if you get him on a bad day, he will shout at you irrespective of your race, colour, creed, sex, sexual orientation or, for that matter, inside leg measurement.

Now he's under a lot of pressure at work at the moment, long hours, seven days a weeks, you know the routine. The eighties mentality never really went away, they just call it something different now. He's having to advise people about what to do, which isn't included in his 'proper' job, which means an endless procession of questions, he's just filling in really, a substitute 'fount of all wisdom'. So he's asked a question. He gives a simple response to the question, ie the facts, he doesn't have time for more. Then a couple of hours later, he gets presented with what amounts to a complaint about insensitivity about someone's position. The 'subject', if you will, of the original enquiry.

So he finds a solution, presents it, it's accepted, grudgingly, and now feels bad about it because he should have spotted it first time around when he didn't have all the facts. Where's the sense in that?

In Britland, they have this thing called the Disability Discrimination Act. It means that you cannot discriminate, quite rightly, against someone just because they're disabled. Now it does lead to some strange potential situations like, "So, you want to be a fire fighter? Hm, the wheel chair might pose a bit of a problem when you have to climb a ladder" or "You're applying for the job of receptionist and switchboard operator....and you're totally deaf" but on the whole, it's a good thing. I'd hate to be disabled in a modern western society, it must be awful to be excluded from so many things!

Basically the person was bemoaning the fact that they couldn't do what they wanted to do because there was no online way of doing it and anything else was impractical. What wasn't clear, at the outset, was why. Their disability prevented them from following the normal route. Once that did become clear, a solution was found. So why feel bad about it?

And all you get is, "I should have spotted that it was a genuine complaint about access". "That the solution should have been provided at the point at which they first got involved". Why? The problem with dealing with minorities is that they are just that. 90% of the time, you deal with the average. OK, you try to keep everything in mind, but sometimes, you slip, you don't go the extra yard, because normally you don't have to. Is that so bad? So long as you make good in the end? Why feel bad about it? Especially when you are overworked, underpaid and most importantly, under appreciated!

And why do I always type 'becuase'instead of 'because'? Strange the way the brain/wing combination goes awry sometimes, or in my case, always!

We're none of us perfect, ay?