Category: Jobs and Employment
My friend applied for a job at a bible camp. At the interview they told him that he had a passion for being a counselor. Today they called him back and said he didn't get the job. They told him that they didn't have enough money to have someone be in the cabin to help him. I think they discriminated against him for being blind. Has this ever happened to you. If so could you give my friend some advice that i could pass along to him?
Why did he need an assistant at the camp, couldn't he do his things without help?
It's not like they're a multi national super rich corporation so I understand their perspective too, sometimes we get jobs, sometimes we don't, discrimination doesn't mean that we should always get jobs when we apply for them.
I think if he can show that he needs little or no assistance at the camp and can do things by imself he might have a case, but if he needs that much help doing the thing he might not be ideal for this kind of job.
cheers
-B
Wildebrew is right. A business' goal is to make money. If they hire your friend, and that person requires an assistance, that is money that comes out of their pocket, not to mention the dollars they'd be paying your friend. Thats 2 person to fill that one position. So they can get one person to fill one position, which is much more cost affective for them. If your friend is able to do without the assistant, or find ways around his "limitation", then he'll have a much better chance at being hired.
Same goes with those who needs adaptive equipment in order that they perform their duties. While its the law that a company makes reasonable accomedations, it would cost them less to hire someone who doesn't require "reasonable accomedations". Again, thats extra from their pockets. However, if a person has their own accessible tech and equipment, not having to have the company fork out money, then that is a much better chance to be hired.
The goal here is to market yourself as someone who can help the company make money, not the company hiring you so you can get money.
Agreed with #3 above but, ultimately, the law's the law. First message sounds like it is discrimination as it was based on an assumption rather than a fact that assistance would be required. But, you know what might be most effective here? If this Bible Camp is reasonably local, maybe the guy should simply discuss the matter with the pastor of his church and they should figure out what to do about the situation. Christians are supposed to "give a light" to the blind. I take that as treating us respectfully, without discrimination.
If it's a religious institution the law doesn't apply.
I had a similar experience at his age but it was trying to work the kitchen in a camp and I's spent the previous month as a mothers helper for a counselor who didn't need that much help hanging out in the very kitchen, knew it like the back of my hand, and knew I could do the work. Someone who didn't know me at all was the one to make the decision that a blind person couldnt' work safely in a kitchen. In case anyone reading this feels the same way, know that working in a large-scale kitchen is actually easier than in your own as the jobs are bigger, more routine, and everything really has a place that everyone is expected to keep things in. Like, try to figure out what's hard about a blind person standing there peeling 200 eggs for egg salad. I faced the same thing when I was in college and lived in a house where we ate dinner together and you could make money cooking dinner. I traned to do it and then a similar person who was into being patronizing without any evidence of a problem decided I wouldn't be allowed.
Ironically, the one time I ever got employment help from the blindness agency was a summer when I was stuck somewhere with no work and was able to get a job workng in a randolf shepherd cafeteria for a couple of months on some kind of work-training grant. the blind guy who owned the cafeteria didnt' actually put in time with the food while I was there and as a high partial he made a decision that confounded me about not having me use the food processor to slice meat (although I used it to slice different sorts of vegetables). But it didn't matter to me as I waas earning the same money slicer or not and there was plenty of work to do without it. The only thing I had trouble doing was making ice cream cones and with no way to practice without wasting a lot of ice cream it was decided I wouldn't work that area. I am pretty sure I could have learned but not without a good deal of waste. However, if the only job I could have gotten was in an ice cream store I'd have done anything to learn that job - like pay for a load of ice cream.the
the same would go for workng as a camp counselor. I can't thin of anythign in particular that workng eyeballs would make possible that would require assistance. someone could say "well, the kids coudl do things to get in trouble that he couldn't see" and the answer is that if he can see they just do it behind his back. Nobody has 350 degree eyesight with the ability to see through walls thrown in. I wonder if there isn't a gender related issue involved also. that as a girl I had no trouble getting myself put in charge of younger kids while I was seen as not able to do the kitchen work that was primarily a male province and that a male person might find just the opposite.
The laws weren't then what they are now, but in genearl, the laws don't help a lot unless you have a lot of backbone and time and energy and money to get them enforced. I'd say the same about doing the education bit. you have to be very confident and have a good support system to go that route. If he sets out to educate a local priest and the priest is unable to learn, the response could feel pretty belittling. Like, the priest could jsut as easily pat him on the head and give a lecture about learning to live with the limitations God gave him. Then he gets to feel twice as lousy.