Shownotes

Persistence really does pay off. The lesson here is the importance of taking action. A choice is made whether or not you decide to be proactive. Learn about how my job has been saved, take the Pessimist Optimist or Realist quiz and listen to Natalie Brown perform her inspirational song Wind At My Back. The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) will be giving away free short stacks between 7:00 AM and 2:00 PM nationwide. All who take advantage of this free offer are asked to donate to a non-profit organization supporting greater literacy for low income children. Let’s all go out there, eat some breakfast and support an important cause.

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Shownotes

Great news. Tomorrow is not my last day of employment. I await further details with anticipation. Thank God It’s Monday! Check out Good Day by Natives of the new Dawn on the Podsafe Music Network.

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Shownotes

88 is the amateur radio code for love and kisses. Karen and I chat about her birthday, the Bishops’ visit, the marriage proposal show, our wedding plans, my impending unemployment and more. Thanks, Tina, for the flute rendition of Happy Birthday greetings to Karen at the beginning of the show. Please, everyone, tell us your thoughts on our audio quality. We were using the Giant Squid omnidirectional stereo binaural microphones clipped to our shirts and connected to the Edirol R1.

• Live Marriage Proposal on ACB Radio Interactive
• Darrell and Karen’s Wedding Journal
• Odyssey

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Christopher Danielson, editor of Voice of the Nation’s Blind, the online magazine of the National Federation of the Blind covers the struggle of the blind community to get Google to pay serious attention to accessibility issues in his article Google Struggles with Accessibility as Services Expand in the January – February issue. Despite the promise of an implementation of audio CAPTCHA by the end of April 2006, the petition effort continues. Google will be held to its July 2005 and January 2006 promises of equal access to its word verification scheme.

We thank Lance Heath for covering the Google Word Verification Accessibility Petition on show #108 of the Digital Experience Podcast.

We thank John Gatch of WMKV for allowing me to discuss the Google Word Verification Accessibility Petition on his February 21 Senior Computer Talk radio show.

A friend and supporter makes the following commentary concerning the needless loss of my job.

Hey Darrell,

God I’m sorry for the bad news I just heard in your Show #86! This has
really got to blow big time. Quite unbelievable that such a simple
change that someone is unwilling to make should cost you your bread and
butter. Nothing else matters when it can affect the food you put on the table. I wonder why the unwillingness to make that adjustment to the software? What does the client lose by using the “standard mode” instead of the other “enhanced” or whatever mode the default is. Can’t this mode be enabled just for your point of access and everyone else use the other mode? Just grasping at straws.

Check out this correspondence from one of the people involved in my job loss. I strongly feel this particular person could play a much more positive and significant role in making things right had she the will and desire to do so. Company names, product references and the names of people have all been changed to protect both the good and the bad guys in this situation.

Hello Darrell,

I do sympathize with this situation and really hate to lose you from the XYZ account. You have been a valuable member of the team.

We continue to investigate what it will take from a Siebel standpoint. It’s not as simple or inexpensive as it appears. We are still investigating options with our Siebel contacts and await their input. Further, we have a very small Siebel development team (two people). There work is 100% prioritized right now in bringing up functionality
for our new X and Y product lines as well as rolling out
the Siebel sales solution through Africa. It’s unfortunate, however we
have to look at our resources and our pressing business needs and
prioritize them accordingly.

I know John is working hard to possibly engage you on other projects. You can count on us for a positive referral.

Once again, as a blind person needing reasonable accomodations, I am at the very bottom of the list of priorities. It appears dedicated, loyal service is not good enough. We are all just “resources”, to be thrown away once it has been decided we are no longer useful. I am a person who also has “business needs” to continue putting food on the table. Does that count for anything, especially given my solid job performance over the years? Is it right to throw me away rather than spending an hour or two of programming time to make Siebel accessible? The answers to these questions are apparent in the letter I received. They should speak loudly and clearly to the character of the corporation involved in this problem, who will have to remain nameless for the time being. Does anyone out there have a copy of the book or the movie “The Cold Equations”? It seems quite appropriate right about now.

I am taking a break from my job search activities to watch an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. This episode is the one where an injured Borg is recovered from his crashed scout ship. An evil plan is initially devised to return him to the Borg Collective with an invasive computer virus that would eventually destroy the Borg completely. As the crew gets to know him as an individual, he is given the name Hugh and given the opportunity to seek asylum on the Enterprise. In the end, Hugh decides to return to the Collective in order to avoid the possible capture and assimilation of the entire Enterprise crew.

As this episode comes to an end, I am reminded of the circumstances surrounding my job loss. Most people hope that they will achieve success, that their “ship will come in” so to speak. Sadly, my ship has crashed. It got coldly and callously shot down by people who say they are sorry but the accessibility accomodations needed to allow me to keep my job are not reasonable and there are no other positions available at this time. It seems I am not deserving of a serious, detailed, well-considered discussion of the matter. I am a disposable “resource”, good to have around when it was convenient for everyone, but easily thrown away at the least sign of a burden or need to make a reasonable accomodation. There is no chivalry, honor or morality applied to my situation. There is no grant of asylum, no reprieve and possibly no compensation of any kind. I am the sole loser out of this deal, the only one facing negative consequences for artificially imposed circumstances completely out of my control. I may be reassimilated once more into the dark, doom filled, gloomy world of unemployment, from which it is orders of magnitude harder for me to recover as a blind person than it is for someone fortunate enough to be sighted. I am thus unceremoneously torn from the collective I once knew as my job and thrown to the wind to fend for myself. I must seek new opportunities, persist, with all my will and prove that, once and for all, resistance is not futile!

It is time for brave blindcasters to download and try beta 60 of the CastBlaster podcast creation and publication software. Feel free to access the direct download, then visit the CastBlaster home page for additional details. The direct download link is intended only to insure you get beta 60 rather than an older, less accessible, copy of the software. It will become invalid upon the release of an update. CastBlaster Mike has also enabled forum registration without inaccessible visual verification, but you had better get in fast as he says he will have to reinstate visual verification should spam rear its ugly head. We thank CastBlaster Mike for his willingness to work with us. Stay tuned for future great things on the CastBlaster front.