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

Not petting the dog and being rude to the trainer are completely unacceptable. The "describe yourself" thing is much more difficult. I suffer from bouts of anxiety (diagnosed, but not normally medicated). Being asked to do something like describe myself could easily tip me over the edge when I'm having a bad MH day. I shouldn't have to disclose my medical condition to my colleagues so I'm not sure what I would have done in that situation tbh.

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

No.

Why is it odd

It's very normal when having F2F or video interactions with strangers who are blind or partially sighted to describe yourself so you're on a more even playing field - it's called inclusivity

Maybe you could do with some training like B clearly requires it

We should never distract a guide dog . We should not Pat them without asking first . Standard stuff and once said once should be respected.

Describing yourself as an ice breaker with helpfulness for the visually impaired person is a reasonable request, maybe a bit of humour could be been thrown in , like a funny story about something your wearing? All reasonable . Sounds like your employee has a lot to learn starting with some humility. Yes you should be doing something imo.
good luck

A funny story about what you're wearing? You're kidding, surely?

1. the dog thing completely out of order, but the trainer should have (maybe did) explain why its so important not to do this- and then the person should have stopped
2. describe yourself is a reasonable adjustment- I'm a middle aged white woman would be enough I think- Knowing that would allow the trainer to make some fair guesses about me- true they may not be accurate but they would have the same information a sighted person would have so I think it's fair

I'd be a bit worried that HR don't think it's important. And just because someone is being paid doesn't mean you should discriminate against them

Describing yourself is a perfectly reasonable request from a person with VI. It gives them time to listen to someone’s voice to link it to their name. They also may have some functional vision and knowing Joan has brown hair or Sarah has a red top on will help them differentiate them even if they can’t see finer details about their appearance.

Describing yourself isn’t a reasonable adjustment. Petting guide dog when asked not to is rude but not sure if it’s really a reasonable adjustment. Also it’s not for the employee to make reasonable adjustments - you’ve got bit the wrong way round.

what qualifies you as a D& I advisor?

Clearly you do

If it's so hard for you to understand why in a F2F situation (or video calls etc.) for blind people or those visually impaired it's common place for people to describe themselves - especially strangers you could do with some disability awareness training.

Or some common sense training

Either one

Does your firm work in a particularly competitive area of the law?

I’ve often observed that people pursuing careers in competitive fields are more than usually resistant to the messages promoted by EDI enthusiasts, presumably because in such a sharp-elbowed environment every advantage must be capitalised upon.

Interfering with the dog was unforgivable though

Wearing a hijab doesn't mean you don't have long hair or blue eyes

They may not want to describe their hair underneath but surely they could say "I have blue eyes and I'm 5"5"

They have a protected characteristic too so if asked to describe their hair could respond "for religious reasons I keep it covered and I'm not happy with disclosing that info"

Someone with disability training would (should) be totally accepting of that.

Yup, visual impairment is not necessarily without sight. Ds appreciates a quick “I have orange hair” “I’m wearing a green jacket” or “I’ll stay to your left” so that when there’s more than 1 other he can have a stab at who is who. Obviously this is unusual and obviously the first time it’s weird to say “I’m phlew, I have brown hair and a white shirt” but quickly you adapt, very similar to when someone is using an interpreter you speak to the person not the interpreter, unusual initially but necessary.

Person B is a twat and your Head of HR is colossally incompetent. Person A is 100% correct to complain. Being paid as a contractor doesn’t mean it’s OK for people to treat you like that and refuse to make even the tiniest accommodations for your disability.

It’s not the same. In the tesco example the shelf stacker is being rude to a customer. In ops example the law firm is the customer. Also neither are gross misconduct.

The issue with person B's behaviour was about them patting the dog, you should never stroke and pat a guide dog while they're working its really distracting and ultimately that can be dangerous for the owner

They shouldnt need or be asked to describe themselves, unless you meant for person B to give an overview of their role, experience and qualifications in terms of the job, but if they were asked to give a physical description thats not acceptable and quite intrusive. I wouldnt want to do that and I dont see the relevance

They shouldnt have name called Person A but the issue is patting the dog, nothing else

Obviously person B is a knob. That being said, I would panic at the describing question and probably end up shouting “my name’s Sandra and I’m from Essex!” in full Take Me Out style - jazz hands and everything.

It's very common to describe yourself when first meeting someone who is visually impaired or fully blind

It's odd you can't understand why

They have a protected characteristic too so if asked to describe their hair could respond "for religious reasons I keep it covered and I'm not happy with disclosing that info"
So why should they have to?

Reading and typing quickly. Having worked in law firms I think my mind jumped to some previous male colleagues that I can imagine behaving like prats if made to attend this type of training.
One of my colleagues had a guide dog. Dog used to be delighted on a Monday morning to see everyone running laps of office whilst we were all omg I can’t believe it’s Monday already. She left and I moved in her office - everyone was disappointed when they came in. Where’s the dog? Miss S has left I’m dealing now. Yes but where’s the dog.

Well anyone with sight can see that.

It's not a secret that they are being asked to disclose. It's someone every sighted person in the room can see and also will (hopefully) respond respectfully to.

Non sighted people are asking for descriptions so they can access what sighted people can already see.

On the phone you are in an equal position in that neither person can see each other.

It is a request to level the playing field.

Sorry that was to jonnysgirl - I forgot to quote.

It's odd that people can't understand why asking someone to describe their physical self is anxiety provoking for many. They should not have touched the dog and this should be taken forwards.

But what if the obvious things to say are ‘I wear a hijab and have a very prominent birthmark’, for instance.

It doesn’t matter what the ‘obvious’ things to say are. You would simply describe yourself in a way that you personally felt comfortable with. I’d say “I’m pale with short dark hair and green eyes and I’m wearing black.” I wouldn’t say “I’ve got a broken nose and massive tits”, even those things are also true.

Also, re hijab, if you are happy for a sighted person to know you wear hijab, then why would you not want a blind person to know?

If you're riddled with anxiety from saying

I have brown hair, green eyes and am wearing a blue top, you need serious help