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

Just imagine if Person A had gone into Tesco and asked a shelf-stacker to describe something and to stop petting their guide dog, and then been insulted by them.

What do you think Tesco would have done to the shelf-stacker, both on discriminatory behaviour, rudeness and bringing the company into disrepute?

I suspect they would probably have deemed it gross misconduct and sacked them. Employment law is no different for Tesco than it is for a law firm; this requires a disciplinary investigation and whatever HR consequences that leads to. Without a full and proper investigation, the firm is supporting the behaviour, and leaving itself open to accusations of discrimination against the firm, rather than perceiving the issue as a rogue employee.

Even if you put aside the discrimination and have a scenario where a staff member is disruptive, refuses to follow requests, and rude to someone brought in for training, that's at the lower end of the disciplinary scale in itself.

Surely you have some sort of an equality and diversity policy? Does Person B's behaviour not breech this? I would face disciplinary action if I behaved in such a discriminatory way at work.

Yes, same here and rightfully so.

B is an absolute bellend.

@Violettaa thank you for sharing your story, that's very interesting and an example of where an adjustment for one person can be difficult for others.

There are some good suggestions up thread that I will take on board.

We do have disabled people in the organisation but a very small number and we need more. There's a lack of awareness on adjustments etc hence why I wanted this training but getting people to attend, and even getting my manager to let ME attend was near impossible.

Why is it ‘inclusive’ to describe your appearance? Would you describe what you look like to someone on the end of a phone?

YANBU. Wow, telling someone not to distract a guide dog isn't an adjustment to consider, it's a hard boundary.

The guide dog is working to keep the trainer safe, if it's distracted there could be serious consequences. In the immediate they might trip and hurt themselves but in the long term it can impact on the dog's concentration for that day or affect their relationship. It's also stressful for the dog - they're trying to do their job like they're trained and someone is interfering with them. It's incredibly disrespectful and undermines the autonomy of the visually impaired trainer.

Beyond the obvious issues, this is also a reputational risk for your organisation. The trainer probably won't go to the papers but if she did the fact that an employee went on disability awareness training and then behaved like that is pretty poor optics. I'd also question their willingness to learn given the comments they made to the trainer.

Person B sounds like a Tory.

so I voted YANBU.

Then of course B is being rude selfish twat. Any other place would of sacked them.

Agree @Soontobe60 I don't get it.

B is a knob, it is a reasonable request and helps the partially sighted individual to feel on an even level to the sighted individuals.
I dont understand how saying something like “I’m 5’3, I have brown hair, and I’m wearing a black dress and black shoes” is harder than causing a disagreement and being a massive twat?!

Well no, but neither of you can see each other over the phone can you? Whereas in person the sighted person can see and the visually impaired person can’t and in this scenario they would like to gather an image in their mind of who they are talking to.

The thing is, you can respectfully decline to take part in an activity or part of a bit of training, without insulting the other person. Are they going to tell a judge they won't be dictated to, for instance?

"I'm uncomfortable describing my appearance" would have been enough.
Not distracting the guide dog is a dick move though.

Training should have been mandatory for all staff not voluntary.

Touching a service animal without permission is just as bad as touching their person, or touching someone's wheelchair without consent. I'd be taking that as high as possible

A lot of my work is around accessibility and I often speak at online conferences on this topic. Presenters are often asked to describe themselves so that visually impaired members of the audience have as much information as others. My description would include hair colour and length, whether or not I wear glasses, the colour of my clothing and my skin colour. My clothing colour helps a partially sighted person to distinguish me from others. Details about my skin colour or race or religion might help them to understand if I'm speaking from a particular perspective that would be obvious to people who can see me.

Whatever they are paying you is too much if you need to post this scenario on mn

Looks like many on here could do with some inclusivity training if they can't understand the describing yourself exercise

OP it's odd you feel the need to ask this

Person B is incredibly unreasonable, in most organisations this would be gross misconduct as it's bringing the company into disrepute with external services and clients.

Have any of the other attendees described what happened?! Because I'm guessing that there's a third side to this story that's midway between the two. The dog petting and the describe yourself / you can tell I'm a woman bit are very different issues. The first is common sense and if it was more than once and not down to the dog being friendly when not actively working then obviously then it's a big attitude problem. But if the trainer wouldn't let it go when B declined to describe themselves then they're at fault for that, and if B is saying that it's obvious they're a woman I'm wondering if there's a bit of veering down the 'you could be gender fluid etc.' route and B is fed up with the questions and feels that it's obvious from their voice that they're a woman and doesn't feel the need to go further? (I'm not explaining this well) Maybe A is sick of struggling with their disability and people not giving a toss, and B is sick of the erasure of the word woman, and they're just having a clash of personalities. Both out of line but on different things.

Person B has behaved badly. It’s about not respecting the trainer and common decency. He’s shown himself and the firm in a bad light. If he was in court and he petted counsel’s guide dog or refused to use microphone when magistrate has a hearing difficultly it would be unacceptable conduct. Just because training was internal doesn’t mean you can behave in that way. I’d use normal discipline process if I was hr.

Interesting you jump straight to B being a man

When the OP has made it clear B is a woman

Unconscious bias in action on here

The dog petting was completely wrong and person B could have politely declined to describe herself. I can see why a visually impaired person would ask, but also why some people would feel uncomfortable and decline, especially in a group situation.

'You can tell I'm a woman' needs context - if it was in response to a pronoun/gender question I think it's a fair response.

B is saying that it's obvious they're a woman I'm wondering if there's a bit of veering down the 'you could be gender fluid etc.' route

But describing appearance isn't necessarily going to help there. You would expect someone going down that route to ask for people's pronouns (I'm not trying to open a can of worms about whether that's acceptable or not, just stating that someone wanting specifically to rule out gender fluidity would probably approach it like that).

Person B was rude and should apologise for the way they expressed themselves and for petting the dog.

Asking people to describe themselves was odd, I wouldn't have liked that.

Sounds like you have an uphill battle OP, good luck!

B was a dick about the dog.

You should have been involved in the session if you organised it and have only been in role for 6 months to see how others responded to the session.

What do the other attendees think of B's behaviour? Did nobody tell her to shut up?