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

Sorry that was to @broodybadger it didn’t quote.

unconcious bias as in I made assumption it was a man who was an arse or assumed law firm employee male?

Person B was a complete dick. Everyone knows a guide dog is a working animal and should be left alone if requested.
Personally I don't think it's that hard to say you are female, blonde with brown eyes or whatever. But if B wants to decline they should have done so politely and not germ such a fucking twat about it.
Your HR manager wants sacking imo.

Surely the big question here though is why OP (or someone dealing with it) hasn't got the facts from the other attendees? That way she'd know if A or B or A and B had been rude or if actually the guide dog had been shamelessly flirting with everyone in the room! That's basic. A complains - OP asks B for their side, clarifies with C & D, draws conclusions ands hands out advice / warnings etc. as appropriate. Job done, no discussion on Mumsnet.

She had

If you bothered to read her posts she has asked the other attendees

In any case “I’m not comfortable describing myself” would be the correct response, not “This is a load of woke PC bollocks” while messing with their guide dog.

The continuing to pat the guide dog after being asked not to is pretty outrageous and think does require action. It’s unsafe and undermines the efforts the VI person has made to be independent. I don’t think it matters who the VI person is - client, employee, contractor, someone’s aunt visiting - it reflects appallingly on the company.

The response to the trainer was rude, too, and that also reflects badly. But I’m with others that a VI person doesn’t have a “right” to have people describe themselves and it could be unsettling for some. Declining should be done politely but the request should also have a clear “out” - so maybe along the lines of “Would you be comfortable describing yourself quickly so I can build a mental picture?” In the absence of that I can see a blunt decline might seem rude but be difficult for someone who isn’t comfortable to avoid. Sounds like your employee went far beyond that though.

Like some others, I’m concerned that your HR lead thinks this is the trainer’s issue. I can see why they were struggling with D&I. However, just bringing you in isn’t enough. They seem to be paying lip service to the idea. I would be burnishing that CV and looking for better opportunities. If you have the confidence a 1:1 with her along the lines of - you brought me in to do this, but the issues start with leadership. If you aren’t prepared to support me and take action when something glaring happens, we aren’t going to get any better at D&I.

Personally I don't want to be put in a position of having.to say I don't want to describe myself and would avoid training if I thought I'd be put in that position. Also have an ED history. If they asked what colour is your clothing, personally I'd find that OK but not generic describe yourself.

No actually she said she'd got feedback which suggests on the content of the training and not on what had happened between A and B. If you'd bothered to read her posts you'd know that.

@NumberTheory

In a normal situation I'd tentatively agree that a blind or VI person doesn't have the right to have people describe themselves

But this was disability training

It will have been part of the training, as it highlights the differences many (as evidenced on here) just don't appreciate

My god the reactions on here are incredulous. So everyone else in the room could see what everyone looked like and what they were wearing so able to identify each other if unknown but because this trainer was blind she doesn't get the same chance.

As for petting the dog, a number of years ago there was a blind man with his guide dog on my bus 2 or 3 times a week and everyone from small kids to OAPS knew to not pet or disturb him and most days he would be offered a seat (always packed).

Do you describe yourself to people on the phone that you cant see and who you have never met?

If not why?

Person B should be disciplined. If they'd taken the blind trainers stick and baton twirled it? Or even just moved it to the side of the room. It's despicable. They distracted and misused an aid.

"Describe yourself" didn't need to be physical - "I'm Helen, I don't like ice breakers, I'm generally a nervous person".

@bellac11

If you're on the phone no one can see each other. F2F there is an imbalance

Why is this so bloody hard for some on here to understand

@FacebookPhotos

Buy she wasn't asking for people to disclose medical information
I would have said I'm short, blue eyes, short hair, wear glasses, favour dangly earrings and Doc Martens
I don't imagine the trainer was trying to extract any more than that

This post is a great reminder than half the population have below average levels of intelligence

It's mind boggling how so many are really not understanding why describing yourself is very much an act of inclusion when meeting and talking to those with VI or are fully blind

no she says she asked them for feedback not about the « incident »

Do you have a section on employment law. Maybe HR should educate themselves before really messing things up for the firm. Most people with disabilities know their rights because they have to deal with assholes like this regularly.

Well some people might do and some people might be having that help, lots of disabilities are hidden particularly MH disabilities. It would cause me anxiety and I understand why others would feel that

it might be more appropriate to say, tell me what colour top you have on as that is not personal. I quite often have my camera on during phone calls and the other person might not, I dont ask what someone looks like, it makes no odds to the conversation at all.

I think if person B had been asked (although surely its common sense not to distract a service dig) and they didn't they need speaking too about this as they weren't following a very basic instruction.
As far as not wanting to describe themselves I can see how person B could feel weird about doing this but a few basics of I'm so tall, blonde, blue eyes is not an unreasonable ask.
So perhaps person B needs reminding of why this training and participation in training is of importance and to apologise for distracting a service dog of a visitor to the firm.

Blind family member used to ask people to describe themselves as it helped them build a an image in their head of what the room looked like, who was sitting where, etc and the additional details helped them remember which voice was which by linking the information much like sighted people do with visual details. For example, hearing a specific voice and remembering that's the lady with the green tshirt and the glasses, her name is Carol.

That is appalling. A guide dog isn’t a pet, it’s the visually impaired person’s eyes. Would person B think it was fine to chuck someone out of a wheelchair so they could have a go?

I can’t believe your head of HR doesn’t see a problem.

There isn’t any need for her to ask people to describe themselves though so she could identify them. If she can’t identify them visually, I don’t see how them describing themselves is going to help. It’s not going to make any difference on her identifying them.

to be honest it sounds like something more was going on. We need at least both sides of the story here.

there is no issue of reasonable adjustments though.

People can see me when I have the camera on, I dont ask those who dont have their camera on to describe themselves.

Inclusivity works lots of ways and there seems to be little recognition that asking people to describe themselves is likely to result in people assuming they mean their physicality and feeling uncomfortable, anxious and that its intrusive and difficult for a number of reasons. Bear in mind that in this situation this is front of other people, not just one to one with someone.

It’s also mind-boggling that people can’t see that disliking something or being nervous about it doesn’t mean you have a free pass never to do it. Some people are anxious saying anything at all in a room full of people, but that doesn’t mean they have a free pass to remain silent in a situation where speaking up is necessary to be fair to everyone else in the room.

Being anxious about saying “I’m a woman with brown hair wearing a blue dress” is not a disability. It doesn’t exempt you from behaving fairly to someone who is.

If everyone else in the group thought the adjustments were reasonable then clearly B was in the wrong.

Your firm needs to make disability awareness training compulsory, not voluntary. It sounds as if the head of HR should get some very quickly indeed.