postr/StutterOctober 15, 2023

ADA letter finally acknowledged by employer at almost a year in, meeting Tuesday what do I do??

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ADA letter finally acknowledged by employer at almost a year in, meeting Tuesday what do I do?? \[This is a throwaway account that includes a TL;DR toward the end but I need to get this out. If anyone thinks the discord would be good for this let me know because I'm just about riled up enough to go TeamSpeak on this. go team stutter.\] \[This is not a request for fluency tips. My fluency is not even a concern about this meeting because my stutter is highly resistant to treatment and I no longer can even worry if I'm going to stutter. This is about ADA compliance and tips for the content I should bring with me, what notes I might take in to prepare me for the conversation.\] So, I took part in almost a year of training to re-certify for a job I already held. My training was gov subsidized but I was not paid. I trained and shadowed in every area of the sprawling department. I learned how to do basically any of the jobs. I was ready to get a full time job I had already been working with them full time. I made it clear I was versatile and ready to work. I was confident. Somehow I got hired in the most hectic 2nd most phone heavy area of the department. I also was expected to learn medical billing which I neither had training for nor was there any material to learn this. I asked. I was told I was taking it personally and that there are no codes to study. my manager really runs it like this there. people are learning as they go off of a post it note and I feel like I have coped pretty well under the circumstances folks!!!! Even though they claim the program is not run by the employer and that it doesn't lead to employment.... for most students who complete it the program leads to a job at this employer. the employer employs the teachers who teach to an online curriculum in a classroom setting. we take a national cert course pursuant to a state cert. I was doing all of this for the second time. I already had experience and did really well even when not paid. Everyone gets an interview they said, opportunity they said! before we even finished the program the recruiter snakes interviewed us and were so nice and it turned out so fake! I should not have even asked about if the environment is inclusive to me even though that's legit their job to tell me and also to not be shitheads about me being disabled. I ASKED IF THEY EVER do in person interviews when it came up that the interviews would be online. I never got a reply. when I got the interview the talent guy asked if I still wanted an in person interview. I asked what would be different about it but he didn't reply he just sent me the email invite without much info. We were told these people were here to help find us the spot we had trained for. the interviews people normally get are with multiple dept heads who basically pick them. the interview I got was with two people with no charm whatsoever who weren't even on the shift I was applying for. the interview went badly because I walked in for a PM job and the AM people were like oh ok nvm. Then they tell me I can't interview for that department again for SIX MONTHS?! I spoke to the one talent guy's boss about how the interview went and she didn't really respond to my concern that he had not given me a proper interview. She instead asked if I wold be willing to accept that full time spot at ANOTHER LOCATION AN HOUR AWAY. I trained 30min from my home because I think that's as far as I can drive to avoid tardiness. I said no and said I would wait for something in the area. She extended a per diem no benefit job to me in my city. I asked if it would become full time. she said oh yes very soon. I asked "6mo?" she laughed warmly and said it wouldn't be that long. interview weand the managernt well seemed to be on the same page about the position becoming full time once "HR gives her the openings" so I started the job. I didn't have an ADA letter. I refuse to see an SLP ever again and don't want any SLP or speech therapy input on this post. I at least will not respond. I asked if I could observe the phone portion of the job for more than two days before jumping in. I explained well that I'm not afraid of the phone i just want to be prepared for the kind of calls I will take by watching others handle them. If I know what I have to say I won't have such a hard time creating different ways to say those things. you all know the struggle. manager had a confrontation with me when I asked for this extra time. the day after that they implemented a brand new payment system that required us to instruct customers to enter their payment into the phone. this is much harder than it sounds because people panic when they have to put a card into a phone themselves. I had legit not even become comfortable with the calls yet and entering payment info I'm given verbally was much easier than leading someone through the phone instructions. I got emotional because I asked to watch my coworkers do this, none of them were really getting it either!!!! I told her it's clear we all need a little more time for this and could she personally show us all how to do it? clearly I flapped her with that because she cut to some bullshit like "THIS CHANGE ISN"T JUST AGAINST YOU WHY ARE YOU TAKING THIS PERSONALLY?" and walked out. she COULD NOT show us because she DID NOT know how it worked. it took one of the supervising employees to figure it out and we all huddled around her and only then did we all understand. even i understood. after that she seemingly took me off phone duties. did not really speak to me, did not give answers about when the full time would open up. then one day she hired someone else full time benefits. he had benefits from day one and I had been working full time without. She would not meet with me. When she did she was really awful and told me she "never saw me as anything other than a per diem candidate". aren't liars cute?? now I'm 10mos in and she has hired a total of THREE full time people all younger than me and clearly none of them require accommodation. that doesn't mean they do parts of the job as well as I do! I have found a function where I do the work no one else really wants to do. When I come in after not being there a day or so I have a mess to clean up, they do not do as well as I do. toot toot. She gave me my 6mo review at the 8mo mark which already is a shitty waste of two months of my progress. she gave me a 2/5 with a smile on her face and I had to take it what was I going to do throw things? the two main points she led with were that I am LOUD and I "don't take constructive criticism" because whenever she comes to me talking like I'm not doing my job I meet her with a conversation. when I say anything other than "OK I'll do better next time" she stands there practically checking her watch and asks me things like "did this even have to be a conversation?" even if I'm rather fluent. I truly think the sound of my voice or my blocks make her think I'm a bad person or a liar. I can't comprehend any other reason why she is like that. even bad managers I have had in the past will give me more than that. I'm here to do the job and do it right so if you tell me I'm not doing it right I want to understand FULLY what the problem is. also some problems require an explanation. she never wants any explanation from me not even when I really should have the right to explain. Her problem with me being loud was met with support from my supervisors. the environment borders on just having enough room to be safe let alone provide adequate privacy. We are not working with much and I am honestly rubbing up against my coworkers all day long in addition to phone ringing off the hook and helping customers and doing my legit job. because it's hard to get things done and everyone is running in the red stressed it's hard to get help. it hard for me not to help others get the overall work done that my work may be rushed at the end of the day. I have to stop my work every two seconds to help a customer. the customers are angry in addition to being too close to oneanother. manager told me that i should just practice "not saying sorry at all most days" said it's "her kind of feminist thing" she talks down to me as she does and then tries to disarm me. expects me to have angry people waiting on my team but looking at me like I'm not working... and not say sorry? that's almost 100% of the customer service skills I have. I hear my manager speaking about customers information from across the room. There is no room to not hear it. One of the points I held to that got me to finally get this letter to any doctor and get it filled out is that the loud thing made me sound unprofessional when really it's a matter of design. Every other office of this type has privacy features like physical barriers or little bank queue barriers, lines on the floor SOMETHING I can point to so people don't immediately take it personally that I am calling them out for being annoyingly close to people who may not even be aware until they turn and walk into them. It's encouraging that every one of my supervisors was like that is a total no brainer why is she putting this on me instead of just getting some means to help me get people to back up. It shouldn't be on my job that she isn't getting these things installed in general with the room as it is. Immediately after she notified me of the meeting she told me she was contacting some other department to get "signage" and her tone about it was very positive. she previously had told me in front of two supervisors and the work messaging chat that such a thing would not be necessary. Last week one of the supervisors went to her office to personally ask what the deal was and why she was not providing me with such a simple thing. my supervisor acknowledged it seems like bullying to essentially write me up for not having the equipment to do my job. this isn't something I should need to fight for based on my disability. ​ TL ; DR: I got the letter filled out and they got it last week. manager sent me an email letting me know I have a meeting Tuesday with her and someone she called an "HR business partner". I asked her if, since I now have a letter on file and the ADA COMPLIANCE HAS NOT SPOKEN TO ME could I have an advocate in the room. I justified this with how long it's taken to just get the form in the hands of the compliance dept. she did not say NO or YES. but instead said "I think you had issues with the TALENT part of HR and she is a SENIOR MEMBER of HR" (caps mine) I need to prepare for this meeting and I do not know how. the supervisor who got us through the phone thing is really in my corner and says she'll be in that day but thinks i can do it myself if I just bring notes. my mom said I should have one set of notes if the meeting seems to go in my favor and one if the meeting seems to be not going so well and I need to defend myself. I have so much to be defensive of from this manager but I know it would be a bad look to bring any of that up esp if she's sitting pretty thinking I'm not holding her partly responsible for the place talent put me. Do you have any tips and even if not do you think this meeting is going to be a. Me interviewing to keep my job by defending my ability to do the job I've not only done full time w/o benefits but also done without much accommodation. like I already have done "with or without reasonable accommodation" b. Me being offered a lateral transfer as a cover-their-ass now that HR has to compare my ADA letter to my underhanded performance review. c. Me being offered that job an hour away because HR doesn't know it's ass from it's elbow OR d. This person with a complex title might actually be checking in on my manager's performance and trying to get on the same page with why someone with so much training and willingness to work isn't being given a chance to fill openings that need filling Additional context: they can't hire PM/3rd shift staff for anything. it's so bad they have to offer people already working full time $30+/hr on top of their regular wage just to cover a shift at a time. Whenever I can I try to run into the supervisors I shadowed under and tell them they know where to find me they know who has my number. I even say things like "If you call tonight I'll start TONIGHT!" because every day I see the emails seeking coverage in that part of the dept on that shift. wouldn't it be cheaper to just hire the stutterer and let me do my job? rather than othering me so hard and acting like I can't do the job I have for real totally actually been doing pretty well toot toot. It's illegal to record people without their consent in my state: do you think I should request to record the meeting for my protection or is that starting out on the wrong foot? I really do not trust them and I'm sure they don't want to know that. Unless this lady is here to police my boss. My supervisor also provided me with my manager's boss so I guess failing all of this I have her info.

Themes

Anticipation & AvoidanceCoping & AdvocacySchool & Work

Subthemes

Hiding & ConcealmentSelf-Advocacy & BoundariesEmployment & CareerAccess & Rights

Codes (3)

ordering_service_encounterlistener_reactiontime_pressure