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

I'd probably say something like "I'm fat but I could have got away without telling you that!"

But then I'm comfy around disability as my DS is disabled and competes at British disability level so spend a lot of time around people removing legs/arms/ hearing aids and being totally comfortable with who they are (they are swimmers) and I know disabled people have as great a sense of humour as the non disabled.

I just don't get why people don't treat disabled people as they'd treat anyone else or want to be treated themselves 🤷‍♀️

Reasonable adjustments are just (or should be) human nature as you want everyone to have the same access as you.

And if someone points out an adjustment they need it seems to odd to me why you wouldn't just do it?

I'm surprised how many people think they need to keep secret something everyone else in the room can see from someone because they are blind 🤦🏼‍♀️

Oh person B needs educating. I don't think what person A asked was unreasonable. The dog thing itself, I'd have had her removed. For the actual adjustment he was right to complain.

Embarrassing isn't it?

How does knowing what people look like if you can’t identify them visually fix an imbalance? I’m a mixed race woman and if someone in a similar position asked me to describe myself I might be suspicious that they were trying to use me to make a point.

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.

Not necessarily true. Being legally blind doesn't always mean you have no vision at all. The person might be able to distinguish between a red 'blur' and a blue 'blur' for example. And even if they have no vision at all, they might not have been born without sight, so might be able to picture 'a red jumper' for instance.

Asking for a description obviously helps the visually impaired trainer in some way and just as a reasonable human being people should just do it. Even if it's just I'm 6ft, short dark hair and blue eyes. It's not hard and not intrusive. Imagine being the visually impaired person and how hard day to day life would be and your dickhead employee is rallying against a bloody sentence about their physical appearance.

Yes. I think it's totally bizarre to feel "uncomfortable" describing what you look like. Why? Makes no sense.

I have a diagnosis of body dysmorphia as well as a few other things. The last time I described myself to a stranger I managed to offend the person I was talking to (cpn) so yes, I'd feel very uncomfortable. She was taking a physical description so the police knew what to look for in a worse case scenario and it was awful.

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.

Unless she was entirely blind from birth, which is quite rare (most visually impaired people have some form of vision or have been sighted at some point) she can form an image in her head from a description and attach it to the voice. It’s really helpful for a lot of visually impaired people.

Why would you think she would ask if she didn’t find it helpful? Maybe trust the person who is actually disabled to know what’s helpful for them, rather than arguing with them?

@MsPincher

Someone else who could do with some disability awareness training

Sheesh it's embarrassing at this point how many are outing themselves as very silly people on this thread

It sounds like you've not spoken to anyone one the course about their version of what happened.

Only the trainer and the written feedback. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Why would you ask on a forum without getting the other side of this first?

She is at a disadvantage as compared with a sighted trainer because the sighted trainer knows what everyone looks like. Likewise she was at a disadvantage compared with everyone else in the same room, for the same reason. Bear in mind that few people are 100% blind, it may well help her to know that John is the tall blur, Mary is the blur with dark hair, Fred is the one with a blurry red shirt, etc.

Frankly, if a blind person tells us that this will make their life easier, it's incredibly patronising for sighted people to tell them they don't need it.

@itsgettingweird

I'm shocked so many are willing to out themselves as such idiots on here with this tbh

How does knowing what people look like if you can’t identify them visually fix an imbalance? I’m a mixed race woman and if someone in a similar position asked me to describe myself I might be suspicious that they were trying to use me to make a point.

So the blind person who can't see you chooses you to make a point about describing yourself sue to your race?

Despite having no vision to even know your race unless you decide to use it as part of the description 🤦🏼‍♀️

The whole thing sounds complicated, but I don’t think it needs to go any further than the point where person b distracted the guide dog. That crosses a massive line IMO. It’s so personally intrusive and plain rude to continue if asked to stop that it hits a bottom line where any other unreasonableness in the situation disappears in comparison.

How would you react to a complaint about someone sticking stickers over someone’s glasses, damaging their wheelchair or moving their walking aid out of reach?

Neither are really adjustments though.

A working guide dog shouldn't be interfered with when they have their harness on. My children were taught that from being old enough to walk to the park. Nobody who struggles with that should be working in a law firm.

Describing yourself is up to the individual and not something that should be a rule or pressured over. Nobody knows what physical or mental health issues another person is going through. A reasonable adjustment for one person can't be something that oversteps others well-being.

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.

We don’t know that the VI trainer didn’t give explicit instructions on how to ‘describe yourself’ - I’d think it’s quite likely they prefaced the request with lots of ‘describe yourself in a way you’re comfortable, it would be helpful to me to know a bit about your height or hair colour or what you’re wearing today.’

In those circumstances it really is the person with a disability at a disadvantage, not you, so even if you find it an uncomfortable request to fulfil doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to do it.

In any case, this is an interesting thread and I hope it has given more people the opportunity to reflect on their knee-jerk reaction that it’s unreasonable and intrusive. And perhaps come up with a way they’d describe themselves that doesn’t make them feel vulnerable should they ever be in this situation.

Actually if an employee has an anxiety disability it could be a reasonable adjustment not to put them on the spot or ask them to speak in public.

Seriously? You don't see the point in giving a blind person a description so he can visualise you in his head, have you ever met a blind person?

OP you're firm has got big problems!! The fact it's law is more laughable. Please tell me its not employment law.

You said you struggled to get sign ups to the session, so it was voluntary? I would question the motive behind B’s attendance at this session. It seems like they attended to be purposely combative and make a “point”… anyone slinging around woke as an insult knows what they’re doing and they’re doing it to be offensive.

If it was physical appearance , the trainer wanted described, has anyone asked why that was wanted by the trainer?

Honestly, a lot of people are bloody weird about reasonable adjustments.

Someone today said another colleagues adjustment (which was a tiny tiny thing) was disadvantaging him. It doesn't affect him in any way and I told him that 😂. It's really hard sometimes to get people to understand you're not getting special treatment, I tend to not mention any non visible adjustments I have to avoid weird comments.

That’s the point though isn’t it. I can’t really describe myself without announcing to everyone that I’m a mixed race fat middle aged woman. I could make up that I’m a young Chinese man. Would that be better?

in either case it’s irrelevant how I look if she can’t identify me visually anyway. If she can, I don’t need to identify myself.

Good grief. Of course employees have to make reasonable adjustments, because ensuring that their conduct doesn't make their employer vicariously liable for unlawful conduct is an absolutely basic element of their duties. Do you imagine that, say, it would be OK for a shop assistant to refuse to clear obstructions from the path of someone in a wheelchair because "it's not for employees to make reasonable adjustments"?

Of course not petting a guide dog is a reasonable adjustment. They are incredibly carefully trained, they should not have idiots distracting them from their job by playing with them. And who are you to tell a blind person that it won't help them to have the people they are training describe themselves?

@MsPincher

You clearly have 0 idea about the wide severity ranges for visual impairment

It's actually quite impressive you're still banging on about this just making yourself look worse and worse as you go on

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.

So now it's the disabled persons fault that someone assumed they meant something they probably didn't.

Surely someone qualified enough and intelligent to be a lawyer can understand just ask for clarification?