Sunday, October 25, 2009

Disabled workers

This past week I had the interesting experience of having two disabled people assist me in professional situations. The first was when I had some blood drawn at my doctor's office. The tech who came and got me and drew the blood probably had spina bifida. She had a cool walker she used and made a little joke about her "go cart." In her case, I thought having this disability did not have any impact on her ability to do her job.

The second disabled person I encountered was later that day. I went into Walgreen's to see if they had any seasonal flu shots available. I asked the clerk behind the counter near the door and he looked at me and gave an unintelligible answer. I thought he just didn't hear me so I kind of pantomimed getting a shot. Turned out that was just the right thing to do as he just pointed toward the pharmacy section. In the end there were no innoculations available, but I came back to the counter with a couple of small purchases and realized the man was wearing a badge that said, "I AM DEAF AND BLIND." He really was deaf and seemed to have very limited vision. Everything went fine until there was a coupon that didn't ring properly. Then he had to call for a back up. It seemed like he was able to handle routine things all right but not when complications arose.

I have mixed feelings. People with disabilities have the same right to work as people without disabilities. Do I have the right to have someone help me in a quick, efficient manner? Whose rights prevail? The rights of people to work and the rights of businesses to hire whomever they wish? Or my rights to the best service? Or something in between? I'm a compassionate woman and I wasn't bothered by the slow-down in service by the second employee, but I wonder if other people would have been?

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