Uncategorized

Employee of the Month!

by

I earned an employee of the month award for June! My purpose for posting it is not to boast but to show how blind people can excel on the job given the right accessible tools. I received a nice plack which I will hang somewhere in the Accessibility Command Center. The text of the certificate is shown below. Some details have been removed to eliminate proprietary information.

Employee of the Month

The Certificate is presented to

Darrell Shandrow

Darrell’s participation helped out the SBG during the month of June. Darrell quickly changed his schedule to provide coverage while others accomplished training. He has been instrumental in managing a very complex email migration to include authoring procedural documentation of the migration. Darrell also owns and manages metrics reports for the SBG customers, as well as performing CSAT surveys for one of our clients.
Darrell has shown commitment and motivation worthy of recognizing.

Adam, We Are Disappointed…

by

I wrote the following note to Adam Curry after discovering that registration for the new Podsafe Music Network is inaccessible to the blind due to the use of visual verification without a suitable nonvisual alternative. On several occasions during his Daily Source Code podcasts, Adam has indicated an interest in making sure that the blind are able to actively participate in podcasting. Inaccessible visual verification and a fairly inaccessible web site for the Podsafe Music Network certainly does not move us in this positive direction. We hope this oversight gets resolved in short order.

Hi Adam,

We in the blind community are disappointed and saddened at the choice to implement visual verification on the Podsafe Music Network without providing a properly accessible alternative. You already require e-mail address confirmation. Please consider doing the right thing by removing your inaccessible visual verification until an accessible alternative can be added. As it stands right now, we blind podcasters are being left out simply because we are unable to pass a visual verification test that provides no nonvisual alternative.

Regards,

Darrell

Adam responded as follows:

Darrell,

Your approach here isn’t very helpful. Instead of saying ‘you did it wrong’, perhaps you could explain in some relative detail how we can make it better.

I have just sent Adam a link to the W3C article entitled Inaccessibility of Visually-Oriented Anti-Robot Tests.

Homeward Adventure – Part 1

by

Check out my crazy adventure as I get myself back home from the office while sleep deprived after working an early 5:00 AM to 2:00 PM shift. I decided to transfer from Dial-A-Ride to the bus, took the wrong bus, ended up having to cross a busy street (thanks to the bus driver for helping me out of a potentially sticky situation) and, to top all that, ran into a telephone pole and dropped my cane and cell phone!

Download and Listen

Some Closure to Karen’s Dial-A-Ride Disaster

by

We have finally arrived at some closure to Karen’s Dial-A-Ride disaster in which she was made late to work twice in one week by our metro area’s paratransit service. The following actions were taken:

  • An overall emphasis will be placed on arrival times for appointments rather than on pick up times.

  • Karen’s appointment time to arrive at work has been changed from 7:50 to 7:40.

  • Dial-A-Ride tickets have just been mailed to Karen as a show of accountability and compensation for the hardships resulting from her being dropped off at work 15 minutes past the beginning of her scheduled shift.

While many might feel that our advocacy approaches are a bit extreme and “go overboard” at times, it has been our experience that, without insistent advocacy, the right things just don’t get done. Most people simply can’t be trusted to take proactive action to right a wrong, even when it is staring them directly in the face. We must strenuously do all we can to minimize the negative consequences piled upon us by the harmful actions or inactions of those who are in positions to care about what happens to us but choose not to take those responsibilities seriously. Karen and I asked that steps be taken to avoid future “late to work” incidents. System wide emphasis on arrival times and adjustment of Karen’s appointment time by ten minutes may represent positive progress. She hasn’t been late to work since the July 7 incident. We hope and expect this positive change to continue well into the future. We shouldn’t be made late to work more often than our sighted peers. The mailing of tickets to Karen should represent a sincere apology for the incidents, a show of accountability, recognition that placing a person with a disability in a harmful situation without taking prompt corrective action is wrong and compensation for the hardships caused by the hit on Karen’s work attendance record and the impression it may leave on her coworkers and management. We are quite confident that none of the positive results would have been achieved had we not taken quick, persistent action to absolutely insist on the right thing being done. Such extreme advocacy can be challenging, stressful and, perhaps, even hazardous to one’s health at times, but, it absolutely must be undertaken if we are to insure our ability to productively participate in society as full human beings and first class citizens. As the late Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, past departed leader of the National Federation of the Blind, has stated many times, “We want no strife or
confrontation, but we will do what we have to do.” We thank you, our families, friends, listeners and readers, for your moral support.

PAC Mate and Cell Phone Tutorial Concludes This Week on Main Menu

by

Don’t miss Main Menu on Tuesday, July 19, at 6:00 PM Pacific, 9:00 PM Eastern or 01:00 Universal Time Wednesday on ACB Radio MainStream as I conclude the tutorial on using the PAC Mate with a Nokia Symbian based cell phone to gain wireless connectivity through T-Mobile Internet. There will also be an update from Brian Hartgen on his new JAWS scripts for iTunes 4.9.