How Close is Too
Close
I have not written much about prejudice, in so far as when it concerned me. I am, though, saddened that I have been judged harshly. Is it because of my eyes... and a minor hearing deficiency? In response to a debate I had with a short sited social worker, last year I wrote an essay describing my vision condition. I call this bit of words Living On The Line. I understand that the word PREJ'UDICE, noun. [L. prejudicium; proe and judico.] Means a prejudgment; an opinion or decision of mind, formed without due examination of the facts or arguments which are necessary to a just and impartial determination. Innumerable are the prejudices of education; we are accustomed to believe what we are taught, and to receive opinions from others without examining the grounds by which they can be supported. A man has strong prejudices in favor of his team or his friends, or the school in which he has been educated; and often our prejudices are unreasonable. A judge should disabuse himself of prejudice in favor of either party in a suit. One's only comfort is that their manifest prejudice will render a judgment of less authority. But, that is not a real comfort when it comes to a livelihood. I feel sad that I am severely judged. Is it because of my posture while sitting in front of a computer screen? Every time I started to work at a new place, there were comments and jokes. I believe that it is their questioning of why I must sit so close to see that casts doubt towards their ultimate judgment. This is known because it is after the discovery of my limited vision that they render a less than favorable verdict as to my performance, even after striving extraordinarily to please them. Am I imagining this? First of all, I understand that the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title 1: deals with employment. This part of the ADA makes it illegal to discriminate against any “qualified individual with a disability” in decisions about hiring, firing, promotion or retention. (Note: Only companies with 25 or more employees have to follow the employment requirements of the ADA.) Under the ADA, employers are not allowed to fire someone, or refuse to hire someone, simply because of a disability, if the worker can perform the job with or without accommodations. The problem is, organizations have been known to create or amplify numerous charges or allegations that state: this person (with a disability) created a situation which hurts the business concerns, that they are not an asset, rather a liability, and therefore they must be let go. Secondly, I have never discussed my visual acuity with a prospective employer for fear of bias. In the past, when I did, I never got the job. While interviewing me, a potential employer cannot tell that anything is wrong with me. Most of the time after I am hired, my work is praised and I receive high marks. But, when some time passes and I am seen looking at my terminal, discussions and interoffice communications are increasingly encountered. Then it is the brazen ones that come to me and make caustic comments and ask questions about why must I “sit so close.” Then thereafter, my performance appraisals or evaluations inevitably fall short of the minimum requirements to keep the job. And, I am then tolerated, laid off, or fired. The accusations range from not being a team player to shoddy workmanship. A predominantly favorite one is: an inability to get along with others. Supporting the allegations is the testimonies of co-workers that enable the formation of these negative opinions. Honestly what causes this? In order to understand, one must weigh in on all of the facts. There are those among me who tout that I am the one, not my eyes. So, what about me? Is there anything that might suggest that I am different? Well, after pondering for some time, I came up with a list if things that might indicate something. · My outlook on professional culture is such that I sense there is a kind of “polite” narrowness in these work places. But, I never openly discuss this and I am not critical of anyone I work with. In fact, I say things that are only positive. The problem may be that I do not discuss this culture with them and as such I may appear to them as being aloof or superior. · I have little interest in sports. The predominant talk among other male workers is sports. But, I am sure that there are other people who don't like sports. Does every man on the planet love sports? · I have a pronounced inability to carry on a lengthy conversation of meaningless chitchat. Water cooler talk. I do carry on conversations with others, not too political, not too deep and not too lengthy. · I don’t walk in the kind of lives that most people of my income strata often lead. They work hard at one thing and then enjoy being entertained. I applaud them for this. But, it is often difficult to discuss with them what they want to talk about? Be it TV shows, movies, the pop commercial music scene, sports, shopping, or pop culture, I am naive about these things and… I have a stated right not to have to discuss these things. · I have a family of my own, a wife and two children. But my children are homeschooled and we are strongly Christian. This could be another possible point of difference. Let’s face it. I am polite, courteous, caring of my fellow humans and I mean no harm or disrespect to anyone. As a free American, I enjoy life in the ways I do. I do not put anyone down for his or her ways of getting pleasure from life. And, I never discuss my opinions about life or religion. I think that my difficulties have more to do with the following: · I do have to hold things very close to see them. · Inevitably, there is someone who wants to pick on me for my vision difficulty. · I have to get within three feet of someone to see their eyes. · I cannot drive a car after dark and so there for, I often do not take part in after-work activities. People’s prejudice, how real is it? Does it really exist in this society? Are “Blacks” really oppressed? What percentage of the vision impaired are in the mainstream of society? In any business, the perception of the client is everything and dictates whether they will or won’t do business with a provider. If the client is turned off by a lack of near perfect vision, which makes a person with limited vision appear abnormal, then a service provider will be twice as doubtful of this person because of this perceived problem. Then in order to attempt to break a service contract, the client may justify this by allegations. The allegations: On November 26th 2000, the account representative of the account temps agency I work for, Doug Wurley, read the charges that were asserted by the client company’s manager Dianna Kennedy. INTERACTIONS · Customer perceives, “self-centered or motivated attitude, and negative and counter-productive views about job.” · Customer states, “He does not get along with his co-workers.” COMMUNICATION · Customer states, “Reporting is adequate; however, communication within the group is considered arrogant.” · Customer says, “Offhand statements are inappropriate.” · Customer describes, “He assumes correctness in every topic. He thinks he’s right all of the time.” PROFESSIONALISM · Customer states “His behavior is unprofessional.” · Customer reports, “He arrives late and leaves early.” · Customer says, “He is not willing to listen and is not a diligent worker.” PROFICIENCY · Customer believes, “He is capable of doing the work and his output is good, but is not eager to take on more responsibility.” OTHER · Customer reports, “He needs larger monitor to see his work.” · Customer says, “He scratches himself in inappropriate places and freaks out team members.” There are those in the professional arena who might read these charges and feel a form of empathy towards the manager who made them. The weighing factor for many is the added expense for a larger monitor coupled with the last statement. The seed of doubt about me comes with the belief that a manager would not have relayed these charges without backing from the other workers. Most would question why someone in a high position would risk her career much less legal entanglements by creating such charges. The client manager does state several positives to give credibility, such as “He is capable” and “His output is good”. If all comments were bad it might be less credible. But, there is one problem. My age might suggest that if I were this bad and did these things out of habit, I would not have progressed professionally as far as I have. I would not even have a career. Also, my contract was for two three month increments with the option of not renewing the second three months. The client did renew my contract for a second three month period. So, who are the players in this drama? The management structure of the division of the client company is: Dianna Kennedy is the manager of the division. Below her is the manager of the department, John Douglas. The project team lead is Terry Wallis. Below him are three regular employees: Bob Jones, Janet Bell, and Todd Raine. The temp agency contractors are Virgie Fae from another company and from my company, Tom Power, Howard Stein, Bart Willis, Jerry Pfeiffer, and myself. Dianna, I have seen only twice, once briefly when I first started and a little while later into the project when I went to her office to ask her about Christmas break. I knocked on her door and she hardly greeted me. I felt compelled to introduce myself feeling that I was not sure if she knew who I was. She said in an unenthusiastic irritated tone, “I know who you are.” She did not ask me to sit down, so I stood there. I felt nervous because she was being really distant and cold. I slowly paced back and then forth by the door to her office as I asked her questions about working during Christmas week. I felt that I should have not been there that something was wrong. That was the first and last time I talked to her. A year or so before, this woman was the manager of the data entry people, a group of women who were paid $12.00 an hour to methodically enter data. She herself started as a data entry clerk and rose through the ranks to the position she now holds. She is probably in her early fifties and is short, stocky and motherly. Other than that, I know little about her. John was a federal government employee for many years and his main claim to fame was that he was a procurement officer for the Army. John is a short slender gray haired 69 year old fellow who has been married 4 or 5 times. Most say that he is not an easy person to get along with. I personally did not have any problems with him, but I am not sure what he says behind my back. In front of me, he appears to really like me. Terry is a skinny six foot one 23-year-old alternative music lover who has a burr haircut and must weigh only about 115 lbs. He is still attending the university and is working on his accounting degree. This job is his first professional position and he does let people know about his superiority. He did this to me in a meeting by responding to a question I had. He spoke of my supposed amateurish status in regards to the auditing computer system we were using. Even though I had been using it for some time, he said, “I know that you don’t know this system all that well, …” Terry sits at the other end of the room with his back to me listening on headphones to music which is turned up very loud because it is hard for anyone to get his attention. Janet is a much over weight woman in her late 20s or early thirties. Her political leaning is definitely hard left. She does get into political discussions with the others. She has not voluntarily said much to me though. I did ask her a question once and she did kind of bark at me for unknowingly probing into the company’s "forbidden territory." I asked her why invoices were missing from the customer’s billing data. Her response was gruff, as she said that it was in a different area, inferring that I was up to no good. Bob is a tall man about 6’ 7” and is totally bald. His voice is a constant moment-by-moment event ranging from his obsession with sports to yelling at his terminal or, while gritting his teeth, saying something angrily because the system went down or a balance sheet didn't balance. Bob is the one that makes fun of me because of how close I have to sit at my terminal. It seems to be a daily occurrence. An example is: the client company encourages its employees to volunteer in the community. This can occasionally be done during working hours, which is an added incentive. Janet volunteers at a nursing home teaching the elderly how to use a computer. Upon returning from one of the classes she was teaching, she described to the others in the group that a lot of these elderly people had trouble understanding or seeing the mouse pointer or cursor on the screen. Then Bob who sits across the aisle from her responded with a question, “Are they as blind as Dave is?” I have discussed with him about his comments several times, and says that he is just "joshing" me and apologizes. Later, when the opportunities arise or he gets an impulse, he starts in again. Todd is a young African American male and works in another part of the building and I have only seen him twice. Then there are the temps. Virgil is as quiet as a church mouse. This slim fellow is 5’ 5” and is probably in his late 20s. He is here from another temp agency. When one speaks to him, he smiles and is quite cordiale. I don’t hear him typing very much and I hardly hear of him finishing an audit. I suspect that he takes a long time to do the work. He also works evenings and Saturdays, time of which he does put on his time sheet. And the client is billed for that time. Never-the-less, they do like him a lot. People from my company: Tom sits very close to me with his back to me. He is a very large person with most of his weight around the middle. Because of this girth, he has some severe back problems and every ten minutes or so stands up, twists, and cracks his back. It sounds like ten pairs of hands cracking their knuckles and it quietly drives me nuts. I have mentioned to him to forewarn me when he does this so I can cover my ears. But, he does not, feeling that it is a joke that I am disturbed. I don’t complain about it to others because “he’s on my team.” Tom also had a propensity to burp a lot. It is a 5 to 10 decibel thronging sound inside of himself. It’s as if he burps inside and expels the air. Bmmmp then ffff. I have not said anything to him or anyone else about this. Bart and Howard, two quiet fellows who work in another part of the building where I seldom see them. I have talked to both of these fellows, maybe a total of five minutes. Jerry... His hobbies are bodybuilding and computer games. It is said that he is quite attractive. He is a 26-year-old tall blond never married guy who grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. He is definitely an egotist and without a doubt, “Assumes correctness in every topic.” His political affiliation is the Libertarian Party and he makes no bones about telling everyone how he feels. Janet seems to tolerate his comments about “Liberals” and “government storm troopers.” I did kind of get into it with him once with him walking away hurt. We had been discussing a problem I was having and he stated what he thought was the obvious scenario but was off base quite a bit. I argued with him only to have him walk away. Several minutes later, I went and apologize to him and he seemed to accept it. Then there is me. And, you know my problem. The small office is in a large room of cubicles on the twenty-fifth floor of the Trent Tower. Ours is a space about 14 by 17 feet surrounded on one side with high walled cubicles and two sides by windows. My desk is about 18 inches deep and 4 feet long and is half of a space that I share with Tom who in turn has the same sized desk cattycorner to mine. There are seven of us crammed into this space. Everyone knows the others business. I cannot speak for the others on how proficient they are. I can tell you that I work very hard to complete the assignments. I usually meet or exceed the deadlines, and my first assignment did surprisingly passed the audit review process. I have never turned away work and I have balanced every set of accounts given to me. It is said that there are accounts that just can’t be audited, either because of poor entries in the ledger or it would take too long. But, I have managed to reconcile every assignment. I work so hard that my head aches when I get home. I strived to prove myself to the client and my company that I can do the job. I did what I thought the client wanted, and that was, balance and audit the accounts of small businesses in a timely manner. But after the November 26th performance review, I found out that must not be what the client really wanted. Instead, they think the world of Jerry, one who can spend an hour or so a day gossiping like one of the data entry clerks. He has put down everyone in the department including John Douglas. He can eloquently verbalize in a hushed tone the horrible thing that someone in the next cube did. “Did you hear that?’ he would exclaim. It’s like being at the beauty shop listening to all of the old women weaving rumors. Yet, he believes himself to be quite virile. John and Terry really like him and they have expressed it through their conversations with him and emails sent to my agency. Terry will say, enthusiastically, something like, “That’s sweet” to something that Jerry has said or found. In their eyes, he is the ultimate and they were fearful of losing him. Me on the other hand… If we look at the charges closer... · The word arrogant means conceited, egotistical, bigheaded, superior, overconfident, supercilious, self-important, condescending, and proud. Anyone who knows me knows that this is far from the truth. · “Offhand statements are inappropriate” can describe many things. This can denote using the “N” word or other derogatory or sexist words. · “Assuming correctness in every topic.” It says that when I say something I believe I am right all of the time. Do I have that strong of opinions? I certainly don't express them at work; not like Jerry does anyway.
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“Self-motivated” attitude: A perception
or is it something I did or said. · “… does not get along with co-workers.” Signifies that there is strife between me and the others. · “behavior is unprofessional...” The bad negative in a professional environment. Can signify a variety of bad areas. · “He arrives late and leaves early.” One can easily look at my work, the time sheets and the entry door card-key logs. I knew that when I started to work there. · “is not willing to listen and is not a diligent worker.” Diligent means hard-working, industrious, meticulous, conscientious, thorough, attentive, careful, painstaking. Are they inferring that I am lazy? Couple that with not willing to listen to advice, instructions, and information pertaining to the completion of the work I did. · “…is capable of doing the work and his output is good, but is not eager to take on more responsibility.” This first part contradicts, “is not a diligent worker.” The second part signifies that when they ask me to do something that while attempting to prove myself, I am not joyfully enthused about more, more hard work? · “He needs larger monitor to see his work.” This is what destroys the credibility of everything else that was said. I do not need a larger monitor. They strongly felt that I did and they voluntarily went and retrieved an older derelict monitor from a conference room. It was not an added expense. · “He scratches himself in inappropriate places and freaks out team members.” I did? I mean…I do this? What about biting my nails, or farting, or even burping? Do I refute these charges? I did with the account representative Doug Wurley but he would not listen. Instead, he gave me a lecture on having a lot of areas that needed significant improvement. Then he said he presented these allegations to his manager and the manager said that I would be fired when I came off assignment on December 31st. So, if I am so bad, why are they telling me to stay at the client site till then? And, if I am staying and am billable, why am I being fired afterwards? By the way, with God is my witness; these charges are outright lies... Mike 2/2001
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