Do you have disabilities (deaf,blind,learning,etc) have successful employment?

Question

I would like to hear your success stories about your job and overcoming your challenges and tell me about your responsibilities are.

Answer 1

I have been working for 6 years half-time for a city government. I am charged with assuring that the city complies with the ADA. I work mostly from home via email and phone. My office has a Uniphone which is a combined TTY and an increased volume phone. I use special software so I can have the repercussions for my dyslexia minimized and have my output transcribed into Braille for one of my colleagues. I have personal and room assistive listening as required. My son comes with me to work when I need a PA.

I also work half-time for a center for independent living as a consultant on ADA issues. My biggest problem in this job is that the people I work with have a hard time keeping in touch with me and don't ask me to do very much.

I also support my son in his micro enterprise. I go to conferences with him where he sells tshirts. I help him manage money and just supervise overall operations.

Here are the names of some successful people with disabilities:

Grace Andrews, CEO of Training by Design. She has MS

John T. Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems He has LD.

Ingvar Kamprad, chairman of IKEA. He has Dyslexia.

Richard Branson, CEO, Virgin. He has ADHD.

Don Johnston, CEO of Don Johnston, Inc. He has ADD.

Sam Sullivan, Mayor of Vancouver, BC. He has a spinal cord injury.

Roman Emperor Claudius, Cerebral Palsy

Here are a bunch of people that are considered to have had Autism based on experts in Autism evaluations:
Hans Christian Andersen, Herman Melville, Lewis Carroll, William Butler Yeats, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Orwell, Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Erik Satie, Vincent van Gogh, and Andy Warhol.

Here are successful people who have lost some or all of their sight: Helen Keller, Louis Braille, Eduard Degas (painter), Claude Monet (painter), British Admiral Horatio Nelson, Joseph Pulitzer ( of the Pulitzer Prize fame), Eamon de Valera- President of Ireland

Answer 2

I have fibromyalgia, I'm dyslexic, I have 3 mental disorders (SPD, OCD, sometimes depression) and I'm slightly hearing impaired. I have found ways to live with all of those and how to function despite my conditions.

I have a successful employment. I work at an office. I have medium responsibilities. I don't supervise anyone, but I handle money and help develop processes within the company to improve things for both staff and customers and I take care of daily business. My supervisors are happy with the way I work and what I contribute to the business. I haven't worked for this company for very long, but I think I have a good chance of promotion sometime in the future.

I know a woman who is in a wheelchair and she is a lawyer. I know a deaf woman who successfully runs a small company.

Disabled people can succeed too. Some may have to work harder than others, but we can still succeed.

Answer 3

I have about 3 mental disabilities and I am holding a part time job and just got a new job so that I can change jobs as I feel that I'm being discriminated against in my current job that I am leaving in two weeks.

As for the responsibilities I wipe tables, sweep the floor, fill the sauces, fill all of the other stuff on the sauce station, mix the coleslaw, put it in and put lid on the little to go cups of it, put in into pans for serving it in the dine in orders, ring up the orders handle the money, get the sodas for the customers, take out the trash, dish the food handle the drive-thru orders as well. In other words I do basically everything short of cooking there.

Answer 4

I have had coworkers who are blind or visually impaired and also those who are hearing impaired. This is in a professional office setting full of over educated, over paid people. In other words, we sit on our buts and work with our brains. No big deal. We do most everything on the computer anyway. The only difficulty ever was conference calls. The quality of a person's work is far more important than the tools they used to do that work.

I've never worked with anyone with no hearing. I don't know why. Coincidence, I think. I've also never worked with anyone with learning disabilities, because the work could not be done by those with learning disabilities.

Answer 5

Yes disabled people can have any number of careers. You might try going over to www.eSight.org to talk to the content editors there .

There are blind teachers, there's even been a few doctors who are blind or have other disabilities. One who comes to mind is Dr. Stephen Hawking, the father of Quantam Physics.

I'm sure you've heard of Helen Keller, Stevie Wonder , Jose Feliciano, Ray Charles , Tom Sullivan, actor and tv host. Then in Canada there is the new Lieutenant General David Onley, who has polio and was a tv anchor person, author and environmental specialist before becoming Lieutentant Governor of Ontario.

I am a freelance journalist and have been a special education teacher.

Answer 6

Up until five weeks ago I worked for a private agency that allocated state funds for services for the developmentally disabled which included supported employment. This (and other services) are accomplished by 'vendorizing' agencies charged with providing the services.

Now I work with the owner of one of the agencies 'vendorized' by the above - she's dyslexic and has ADD. The only two 'issues' are that she doesn't always finish her sentences and she tends to multitask herself into frustration. But she's so good at what she does, she has creativity and vision and I believe her business is going to flourish. We're currently on the verge of implementing Phase I of her expansion plan.

Answer 7

Given the small, economically depressed town I live in (in Virginia) I consider it successful to have had the jobs I have had in food service and childcare. Even though my longest job was 6 months. I'm about to sign up for a vocational rehab worksite and yet I have huge dreams and expectations.

And I do have some college education.

Answer 8

There are lots of people with disabilities all around you who lead successful lives. Look around you and find some everyday person and ask them if you can interview them for your presentation. That would be a much stronger and more realistic message than someone famous. P.S. Remember that not all disabillities are visible.

Answer 9

Did full time work for a university for over almost 7 years till eyesight starting changing. Went back on to get full disability again and and another 7 r trail work period started.

The downturn you have to be unemployed for at least 6 months. The upturn I can go back to work, get retrained or head back to school and get a trade.

Answer 10

I have an artifical leg from a birth defect.

I am now an Automation Engineer at a world wide company and get paid well and travel quite a bit.