Bad Attitudes

Today I went into the city for a meeting with the boss of web design firm who had advertised for for staff. I ambled down into the town to the old Lace Market area down Broadway. Which for those that don’t know its the part of the city where all the old Lace mills and factories were once located. So, you can imagine it’s an area full of rather run down smoke stained constructions that should had been pulled down years ago. Even my mum who never swears said Broadway is a ’shite-hole’.

I wasn’t impressed by the location of a supposedly fresh web design agency. Inside, it looked like there were 4 or 5 rooms; two of which were offices where the nobs work, a small kitchen and an open plan office area where the workers were cramped together like pigs in a shed. As for the computer equipment there looked to be a dozen quite elderly looking machines with standard CRT monitors. Only one of grunt/worker machines had a flat panel display and the rest were using cheap low grade equipment. The Boss’s PC on the other hand seemed to be of a much higher end with a large panel display.

I met the director who was a very direct chap, which isn’t always a bad thing but in this case it was. He was a typical Marketing person who doesn’t seem have much of clue with dealing with people. He certainly wasn’t a technology person, but nothing more than a one dimensional double glazing salesman that made me feel uncomfortable.

Just as abit of background. I have suffered with RSI for a number of years, but its only been these last 2 or 3 where its a much larger problem where I have had to finally bury my pride and seek medical intervention. I used to be a freelancer, but 2005 I had to give this up because the flare-ups and associated pain because so much more regular and severe that it left me with little choice.

Anyway, as the meeting progressed it became apparent that there current member of staff for the post they were advertising for had also got a repetitive strain condition.  This is where the Interviewer became defensive, vocally aggressive and frankly made many discriminatory remarks. Such when he asked he said “why haven’t you got a job delivering Pizza’s or something instead” – This statement in itself clearly shows he doesn’t have any understanding whatsoever of repetitive strain injury which is surprising since one of his own employees has the condition. The fact he hadn’t even bothered to do any research was a clear warning to me that this person doesn’t look after his employees very well.

I asked him whether the company has tried to help their current employee and he said “oooh yeah, we’ve done allot. We moved adjusted her chair, desktop and setup about”; Which is absolutely nothing. Every member of staff should have an ergonomic desktop before they get injured, providing it after the fact is too late.

Anyone who has actually bothered to look into the condition or has suffered from it knows full well that ergonomics is more of a preventative measure. If you already have symtoms  changing the ergonomics will have little effect though it could slow down the deterioration of the overall condition. What it won’t ever do, is reverse the damage as you are still using your hands for the same task that caused it. The prognosis remains the same unless you remove those tasks or change them. 

Companies are not forced to employ the disabled or injured. What they have to do is treat all application in the same way and not to make snydy discriminatory remarks with the objective of undermining certain applicants who are perceived by a narrow minded individual as ‘disabled’.

What I always try to remember is that “One Persons weakness is another’s great strength.”