who is being unreasonable? disabled person 'over sensitive'

[amazeandastonish]

Person A has multiple disabilities and asks if everyone in a group can do something as a reasonable adjustment.
Person B refuses to do so. Person A asks again and explains why adjustment is needed. Person B tells person A they are 'woke', 'over sensitive' and that they (person B) will not be 'dictated to' by someone who doesn't even work here.
Person A complains to me (D&I advisor) and head of HR (my manager).
Neither me, nor manager were present.
Person A is an external disability awareness trainer and the group are a group of staff we had asked them to train on disabilitiy awareness as we had identified a need for it (as you can see!).
We struggled to get sign ups - expecting 30 but only 10 signed up. All other 9 people were positive about the session content.
Head of HR thinks Person A should 'let it go' because we are paying them, they are meant to be teaching us right from wrong, so should have expected that reaction and just dealt with it.
Head of HR thinks Person A was rude to 'single someone out' although neither of us were there to witness it (cause we had 'other things to do' - I did protest!)
I think we should action this but as you can see, my job isn't an easy one!

YABU - the trainer should have expected this / dealt with it themselves
YANBU - the trainer was right to complain and we should do something

D&I ought to be compulsory for everyone in your law firm - including HR!

Apparently the other participant thinks B may have felt singled out because A told her several times to stop petting the dog.

And yes I have found in previous jobs as well that heads of and directors are least likely to take D&I seriously. They don't think the rules apply to them too.

And I'm thinking of changing jobs. I'm not happy with this organisation.

See, after your update OP, I feel rather differently about the description. You have now stated that Person A said that it would help her if people said what their hair colour or clothing colour was. That's a reasonable request and most people would be happy to help. It's certainly not the 'describe yourself' scenario we were led to believe. Accurate information is everything.

Not RTFT but this has be a windup?? Don't you have better things to do?

By reading this thread it's clear some selfish dicks wouldn't be happy to describe themselves even with the reason why being presented

@Whatiswrongwithmyknee

Well as you can see from the OPs latest update you were 100% incorrect

And I and other posters were correct in how this would have been presented

Enjoy that humble pie

Thanks licken I've been in my job 15 years so am out of touch with applications - except internal ones!

Person B was disrespectful and rude. This definitely needs actioning because if they’re like that over relatively little things, goodness knows how offensive they might be over bigger things. Can’t believe that an adult in a professional scenario would actually carry on patting a dog after being asked not to!

People are turning this into a neurotic drama which it simply doesn’t need to be. It’s like some people just cannot bear that another person’s needs are greater than theirs, they always have to find a way to play the victim.

👏👏👏

My ds has a neurological muscular condition and autism.

You'd be surprised how many dismiss it with "well we all get right muscles" or "everyone's a bit autistic".

Yes, people do get tight muscles. Most aren't destined for a wheelchair because their spinal nerves are deteriorating and no - you aren't a bit autistic. You are are or you aren't.

YANBU. Not distracting a guide dog is one of the most basic rules. I know visually impaired people with guide dogs, who have worked in primary schools, and the children are always told by their teachers that the dog is there to work, and should not be disturbed. And these young children generally accept and follow the rule. So why can't B, as an adult, do so? I was at first a little puzzled by the need for people to describe their appearance, especially since visually impaired people would mostly use non-visual cues; but when you say that it's about mentioning the colour of your hair and clothes, that doesn't sound U at all, B sounds very ignorant!

Given OPs most recent update, B felt singled out because they were repeatedly asked not to pet the guide dog. Forgetting all the 'describe yourself' side of it, the guide dog thing alone is completely disrespectful. How on earth does a grown adult in a professional work place need asking more than once to not pet a guide dog, and then ignorantly carry on doing it despite being asked multiple times not to? The trainer even explained why it was an issue (a safety issue, not a personal preference) and B still carried on. OP, I'd be well shot of that place if I were you.

How the hell is it 'woke' for a disabled person to want to be on an equal setting as a fully able person? B needs a disciplinary and a lot of training! Sounds like HR do too. An apology to the trainer wouldn't go amiss either.

I think you’ll need to make sure you’re reporting back with accuracy and clarity about exactly what was said by which party. It’s astonishing that a law firm is so slipshod regarding the laws around protected characteristics, and surprising that employees would post such a recognisable scenario on a public forum .

Distracting any kind of assistance dog is clearly totally unacceptable.

Asking people to ‘describe their appearance’ - I can see why many would be uncomfortable with that , if the request had been framed that way. There may have been other participants with disabilities or physical characteristics that they would have been distressed about drawing attention to. However, it seems from your later posts that the trainer actually said that they had some colour vision, so describing e.g. the colour of a speaker’s clothing would be helpful- that seems reasonable.

No, I hope you are as OP has recognised the need to provide further - and more accurate information. If you were assuming this from the start then you were reading into things not me. You can apologise if you want to or you can continue to conclude that you are right here despite there being absolutely nothing to back it up. I don't really care which tbh as I know that you are projecting here.

"Asking people to ‘describe their appearance’ - I can see why many would be uncomfortable with that"

Have you seen OP's update? She has now stated that the initial report was wrong - the trainer did not ask that, the trainer actually asked the to tell them the colour of their clothing, which is a much more appropriate question.

I say make the dufus do a presentation, with powerpoint and everything, about how caring about disabled people makes you woke and give the audience eggs & mouldy veg to pelt them with.

Twat.

Having RTFT, one of the interesting things that it has thrown up is how little understanding many people have of visual impairments.

My aunt is registered blind due to sight degradation as a result of glaucoma and has a guide dog to assist her, but she can still see (limited) shapes and colours and, as she lived most of her life with full sight, has a 'visual memory'.

'Dark' blindness (total loss of sight) from birth or as a result of sight degradation is fairly uncommon: most VI people will have some degree of vision.

Exactly. 93% of people (including myself) with a visual impairment can see something.

Apparently the other participant thinks B may have felt singled out because A told her several times to stop petting the dog.

Well B wouldn't have been 'singled out' if she wasn't acting like a twat in the first place then

@Whatiswrongwithmyknee

I and others posters weren't assuming anything

We have been to these types of training courses and understand the requests made and information being taught

You have no idea and decided to make shit up to be annoyed about

Enjoy being shown to be a fool

Well asking someone what colour they're wearing, if they don't mind saying, is very, different to a blind person demanding others describe themselves, which many posters on here seem to think have an absolute right to be complied with. It seems the trainer understood that wouldn't be ok to make demands like that.

Frankly I can't believe some posters think a man can demand a shop assistant give him a physical description of herself and that she should be sacked if she refused. It's like 'me too' has completely passed them by.

You can br as nasty as you want but it's not me that looks the fool. You can't havr been on many training courses if you think they all look the same. The questions you were asked on your course are not necessarily the questions this trainer asked. Erhaps I'm longer in the tooth than you but I've been on a number of courses with renegade trainers and know to assume nothing The fact that you guessed correctly does not mean it wasn't a guess. People sticking to the facts given are not fools. Anyway, I'm going to stop responding to you know as you clearly want to belief you assumption was not an assumption and dont care care examine that warped belief.

Unfortunately you just seem to lack the understanding of that's what is meant when a VI or even fully blind person asks someone to describe themselves

In this case the trainer was explicit, even if they weren't it's quite a 'known' thing to describe basics such as colour of clothing and hair length to those who are VI and have asked for a description

Your ignorance is the issue here and has been throughout this thread

Well the trainer seemed to understand that asking people to 'describe themselves' was not ok because that isn't what they did. They asked people to say what colour they were wearing or hair colour, and only if they wanted to.

Do you really genuinely think it's ok for a blind man to demand a female shop assistant describe themselves to him and she should be sacked for refusing as some others do?