Posted by Bob on October 9, 1999, at 23:38:04
In reply to First, a few replies (and thanks!! =^), posted by Bob on October 9, 1999, at 21:21:41
Lesson 1:
Go to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill's website at www.nami.org. I guess the tradition behin their name keeps them from changing it, but they refer to what we have as brain disorders, and that helped me to a subtle but meaningful shift in how I view myself. They have lots of information there, including fact sheets to help educate the unenlightened (whatever their mental status). They have a very good fact sheet on the ADA, for you Yanks like me. For others, maybe that guide could help with some activism in your own country -- then again, maybe your country is more enlightened than ours. I have PDF versions of the materials I gave to my Boss and HR at http://idt.net/~raboyle/babble/. If you want to download them instead of view them in your browser (since most of you will have the Acrobat Reader plug-in installed): Mac Navigator-- option-click on the link and you will get a save dialog. Mac Explorer, try a control-click or a click-and-hold to get a pop-up menu with Save choices. Windows folks, you should know the drill -- right click on those links. Or, failing that, let them load into the browser then, from the Acrobat menubar, save it to your hard drive.NAMI also has local affiliates all over the place. They cannot give you legal or medical advice, but they can calm you down and put you on the right path. My contact was a nurse at a hospital nearby -- she listened, she confirmed that I wasn't being paranoid and that something wrong was probably happening, and she gave me the phone numbers for several services I would need to fight this. She put me on the right road from the start.
Lesson 2:
Whatever your legal protection, learn in backwards and forewards, inside out and upside down BEFORE you have a problem. There is still one issue about the ADA that I don't have an answer for, so maybe some legal-type person out there in Babbleland may know the answer. In order to ask that reasonable accommodations be made by your employer, you have to inform your employer of your disability. My question here is whether you need to inform your employer (1) that you have a disability, or (2) what your disability is as well. The reasonable accommodations listed in NAMI's guide to the ADA are generic enough as not to point directly towards a brain disorder. Having either your GP or pdoc write a letter stating what reasonable accommodations should be made is a good thing to have in hand when you go to ask for them -- make sure, tho, that the stationary refers to your doc as an MD and not a Psychiatrist. My reason for questioning the need to specify the disability comes from my meeting with the EEOC and what they told me not to disclose in my upcoming complaint. So, it may be that from the start, you need not identify your disability; you may only need to verify through your doctor that you have a disability in need of accommodation.If no one answers this issue, I will make sure to ask the next time I speak with the investigator on my case about this issue.
Above all, tho, make sure you know how the ADA protects you, in what aspects of employment you are covered. The NAMI ADA statement spells this out clearly. For me, the protected areas are promotion, pay raise, and dismissal. All three are protected aspects of the workplace.
Lesson 3:
Document EVERYTHING.
Make sure all official communications are written up, if they are first delivered orally. Ask supervisors for meeting memos or minutes, if they don't provide them themselves (and they probably will, because they will want what they think is their just evidence put into YOUR file). Make sure you see what's in your file, by the way. Make sure you have copies of everything. I you file a protest or make a complaint, do it in writing. Stick to demonstrable facts. Remove inflamatory language. I have yet to find out the true test of this theory, but I made sure that none of my complaints were made with respect to my disability -- I focused on aspects of job performance and on company policy, and I made reference to existing documents. But I did my best to avoid making excuses for myself. I made no apologies, but I made no accusations. I stated what was, and presented a documented argument as to why these things were mistakes in need of correction. In contrast, my "supervisors", HR in particular, kept bringing up my disability and what measures had been taken to address it. It just so happens that she talks about it so much, my disability also comes up as a reason for why they would feel justified in firing me.Lesson 4:
(a la Mary Katherine Gallagher from SNL)
I think my thoughts on this lesson would best be expressed as a solo performance from the musical, West Side Story:"Boy, boy, crazy boy
Stay cool, boy!
Bizz it, buzz it,
But easy does it
Stay cooly-cool boy!
Go man go,
but not like
some yo-yo schoolboy
Just play it cool boy
Real cool."Vent your anger elsewhere. Work within the system. Don't try to short circuit the process. That doesn't mean don't speak up for your rights -- at the appropriate times and in the appropriate ways, I lodged my protests against the actions against me, but I went along with those actions all the same. I stayed congenial. I worked hard. I didn't stonewall. I did everything I could not to precipitate a crisis. Now that we're coming to the endgame, I am looking rational, my hands are clean, and I have tried to get them to realize their mistake, pursuing every internal venue I had to redress these wrongs.
Hey Adam! Listen up!
When I got those letters in mid-July, one of the first things I did was contact a lawyer referral service run by the Bar Association here in NYC. I got this voice that sounded like the crass, cynical wife of some retired bigwhig lawyer who volunteers at answering the phones because it makes her husband look good or something. Anyway, when I started telling my story, she cut me off and said, "Wait a minute. Have you exhausted all non-legal avenues?" "Um, uh, nn-no." "THEN WHY ARE YOU CALLING FOR A LAWYER?!" She hung up.
After a second, I thought, "B*tch" ... but it was probably some of the best advice I received.
Lesson 5:
Before you can sue on a workplace discrimination claim based on the ADA, you MUST go thru the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Time for the story of Friday Afternoon:Okay, try to picture this in your head. The US Federal Government. The EEOC. Those letters are ubiquitous in the workplace and in the want ads. Every employer (that is, other than the US Federal Government and its affiliates, like the US Postal Service) has to conform to their rules. And here I am, in the elevator lobby of 7 World Trade Center on my way to their offices on the 18th floor. One of the things that almost made me turn around was the thought of the 18th floor being Cubicleland, staffed by overworked, underpaid people in blue (or black) suits, men with their ties loosened and their top button undone ... a waiting room just off the elevator with chairs from 1981, too few of them for the number of people waiting, and forms -- geeee-yahd how the Feds love forms with (close your eyes, dj!) ACRONYMS!
I felt like I was about to vanish into The System.
I got to the 18th floor. The elevator lobby was carpeted, the walls papered, but no sign of any signs or arrows or, thankfully, cubes. I turned right and went to the adjoining hallway, and there it was -- nice big gold lettering on the glass doors with their seal and all. Inside, it was more like some small public clinic or something -- that nasty cushioned block-o-chairs, receptionist behind bullet-proof glass (the Feds sure have learned their lesson!). Only three other people in front of me. Of course, when I checked in with the receptionist there was a form to fill out, but only four pages, not that dense, and only enough information to give whoever I'd talk to a heads-up as to my situation. Oh, contact numbers, demographic stats, that sort of stuff, too.
There I am, sitting on this foam block, when the door to the Other Side opens an one of their investigators steps out. MIB? Nope. He was about 6' tall, 280 pounds, wild gray hair and beard (kinda had the Jerry Garcia look going), and wearing this denim shirt with Looney Tunes characters embroidered up the right side on his chest, the words "Stretched to the Max" embroidered on his shirt pocket to the left.
Big sigh of relief ... if he was typical of their investigators.
And he was. The other two people waiting had two other investigators come out and take them into a meeting room on Our Side. And then Mr. Looney Tunes (AKA Mr. Tunes) comes out and calls my name.
As a friend of my would say, "Too cool for school!"
He sat me down, asked me to fill him in on what had happened, and he listened actively and intently. Sticking with my lessons, I did try to be as unbiased as I could be in telling what happened, sticking only to "facts" that I could back up with the documents I had in The Folder.
His reaction was one of growing astonishment through the story, and when I told him about the second review process imposed AFTER I asked for accommodations, a look of utter disbelief. When I was done, and when he had filled me in on what to do, he had the same reaction as (I think it was) dj above -- how in our supposedly enlightened society could those people be so out of touch with reality?
Okay, WAKE UP OUT THERE!! ... here's some important information:
My investigator told me this is the process in which things will unfold:
(1) Wait until my final review meeting, scheduled for 10/18. If I filed now, any action taken at that meeting would just cause the process to start all over, and there would be a good chance that my company would be "served" prior to it anyway. In other words, don't tip my hand.
(2) If they choose to fire me on the 18th, file. If they choose not to fire me, I can still file to seek redress of their offenses up to that point, including the original review, the lack of a pay review, and the imposed 2nd review.
And you can be DAMN sure I will file my complaint no matter what!
(3) The complaint consists of a single page form, stating the employer and contact info, the people implicated in the discriminatory actions, the employee (that's me), the nature of the discrimination charge (here is where he told me NOT to mention it being a mental disability, but simply a disability). I have to sign it and have it notarized, and I need to turn in or mail in four copies. This will be the complaint charge that my company receives.
(4) With those four copies, I can include any corroborative documentation I choose. Furthermore, I am to clearly mark it as "FOR EEOC USE ONLY" -- my employer does NOT get to see it (at this stage).
(5) My employer is served with the charge. At this point, the EEOC imposes strict guidelines by which I or my employer may act -- so, if I am still an employee, the EEOC has put safeguards into place against any retalliation.
(6) The EEOC investigates the charge, carrying out a fact-finding search prior to any action taken toward resolution of the charge.
(7) Step one in settling the charge is mediation. I can't remember if my investigator is the mediator as well, but that would be cool by me! My company sends a representative; I can bring an advocate with me. Mr. Tunes suggested someone from a professional organization to which I belong who understands the nature of my work and can provide support ... tho he never said "NO LAWYERS", I read it between the lines. The EEOC handles the law at this stage, and the effort is put behind a settlement that both sides can agree to.
(I might as well tip my hand to my friends. HR said she was going to revise the review process in such a way so that the arguments I was making against it would be removed. I am, among other things, trained in program (and, somewhat, personnel) evaluation. There are national standards that exist for the field of my work, and there are people trained in developing evaluation processes and documents from them. I will not be satisfied until my employer agrees to hire such qualified consultants to produce a standards-based review process that will give due protection to people with disabilities. Yes, Noa, I *am* sticking out my neck -- but I am not going to leave behind people who may be like me without gaining what protection I can for them. I actually have some other "service" oriented stuff up my sleeve, but that's only if they refuse to play nice.)
(8) If neither side agrees to a mediated settlement, several things can happen. If the EEOC feels my claim is warranted, they can issue me a "Right to Sue" letter, clearing my path for taking private legal action. The EEOC can also decide to pursue the claim on their own.
If my read on Mr. Tunes was anywhere near correct, they will pursue if my company balks at mediation. He was asking me to give him all the documentation and information on people who could corroborate my side of the story as I could. I showed him some of the documentation, including the second review letter, and after pointing out that I received it AFTER asking for accommodations, all he could do was shake his head in disbelief.
He did his best to reassure me that I wasn't imagining things, that this case had merit, and that I should feel secure in following it through. And that was that.
Well, we DID finish in time for me to catch an express train up to my therapist, making my appointment with one minute to spare.
Like I said (okay, someone else said it first): it ain't over til its over. Next update will be nearly a week after the NYC Babblefest, so stay tuned kiddies ... same Bat place, same Bat time, same Bat channel (... same Bat URL?)
Lesson Last, for now:
Like my GP said to me ... do NOT allow yourself to be victimized.Phew!
Bob
poster:Bob
thread:12703
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991001/msgs/12927.html