Disabled engineers make great contributors—if they can get past the interview
[...] People with disabilities are under represented in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) jobs compared with their numbers in the overall population, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. But those who succeed share qualities of acceptance, tenacity, and resilience. By necessity, these engineers and coders have well-honed problem-solving skills.
There are three examples quoted in the article. I am sure some of you have had similar experiences. What are your views on this?
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Why Hire Engineers With Disabilities? They're Practised Problem Solvers
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(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @07:12AM
Disabled engineers are cheap hires because they don't take time off, they don't start families, and they focus on their work because they live in their mothers' basements out of necessity but they want to spend as much time as they can at work to get away from their overbearing mothers. I've seen it happen.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @07:33AM
But my disability is suicidal depression after failing a job interview, and I need at least a year to recover after each failed interview. Cut me a disability check, Mr Trump!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @08:19AM
(Score:-1, Flamebait)
OWWW GAWWD. The rejection! I need ice cream and gay porn to cope with the rejection!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @05:58PM
OWWW GAWWD. The rejection! I need ice cream and gay porn to cope with the rejection!!
Don't get it all over your face now.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @07:50AM
in 1992, information technology work was mostly solitary. “You went and coded it all in your cube,” says the applied computer science major, who is hearing impaired and reads sign language. “It made communication easier.”
Solitary jobs are long gone, and anyone who doesn't enjoy socializing on conference calls will never find work. Introversion is worse than a disability. Introversion is an inability.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:51AM
Solitary jobs are long gone, and anyone who doesn't enjoy socializing on conference calls will never find work. Introversion is worse than a disability. Introversion is an inability.
As a pretty serious introvert, I disagree. The trick is a bit of self-discipline, a bit of acting, and choosing your battles.
Our organization has a huge annual "optionally mandatory" social event - a gala with hundreds of people. I have never gone, and probably never will. However, it's a bad idea to skip all social events, so I go to small events like our departmental Christmas party. I am already acquainted with most of the people, and get along pretty well with a few of them because we work together. So I interact with them, and pretty much ignore everyone else. You face has been seen at a social event, mission accomplished. That's picking your battles.
If you find yourself in an unavoidable social situation where you have to interact with strangers, remember rule number one: People love to talk about themselves. Ask about their kids, their pets, their hobbies, what they did on vacation. Not just the surface level - find out the details. "Oh, you have teenaged daughter - what are her hobbies?". "She does martial arts? What kind? What belt does she have? Are there many girls in her dojo?". Asking these questions beyond the surface level makes it appear that you are actually interested in them (even though you probably aren't). You can entertain yourself internally by putting the answers into a data structure: The person is the root, the daughter is a level-one node, her martial arts are a level-two node.
If the person you're talking to isn't totally self-absorbed (though a shocking number of people are), they will eventually reflect questions back to you. Answer them with sentences, not just single words. "How many kids do you have?" Don't say "two", instead offer unasked for details: "I have a son who's thirteen and a daughter who's eleven".
It takes practice, it involves some acting skills, but it works.
To the non-introverts reading this: Yes, we really do find it that difficult. When you see us struggling to hold up our end of a conversation, please feel free to jump in and take over the conversational burden!
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @12:00PM
"Oh, you have teenaged daughter - what are her hobbies?". "She does martial arts? What kind? What belt does she have? Are there many girls in her dojo?". Asking these questions beyond the surface level makes it appear that you are
It makes you appear you are a bit too interested in their teenage daughter.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday December 27 2016, @11:11PM
It's ok, though -- he's only asking for information regarding how thoroughly he could get his ass kicked.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by art guerrilla on Tuesday December 27 2016, @11:14PM
modded insightful, and would a dozen times more if i could...
many normies might find the idea a little off-putting, but it REALLY is good advice for introverts to deal with the (so-called) normies...
i, too, avoid the quasi-social events known as office parties (an oxymoron to start with) for ALL KINDS of reasons, NOT just for personal asocial reasons...
for example, i think it is an ethical mess to invite people to a supposedly informal gathering (perhaps with alcohol), where the whole purpose is to chat (which i don't do), BUT, you damn well better avoid any/all controversial subjects, WHICH ARE THE ONLY SUBJECTS WORTH TALKING ABOUT, as far as i'm concerned... what is the point otherwise ? ? ? to enforce a strict set of social norms outside of which you dare not stray for fear of affecting your stupid fucking job ? ? ?
another thing, i have worked for a number of small firms where the owners/principals were damn decent people and treated you well; i have worked for more firms where they do not... and this total and unmitigated bullshit that nearly all companies push that they are 'your family', is insulting on too many levels to count... Joe Boss would fire me tomorrow if it suited the company's purposes, REGARDLESS of my performance, so i don't want to hear 'you are family' lies... if one of my family doesn't work out, we don't show them the door, we show them some more sympathy... so, i don't want to hear this 'family' bullshit, just shut up and let it be what it is, don't insult me with lies like that...
and then -like the poster said- they have these stilted optional-but-mandatory company gatherings that annoy (and NOT just stupid asocial assholes such as myself, a LOT of employees dread these functions) rather than make a real increase in morale... heh, i got an idea, company greedtards: why don't you pay your people a decent wage and not treat them like criminals, maybe that will help with morale...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:03AM
bradley13 your strategies are almost exactly what I employ.
I also take to heart the saying "some people talk about people, some about things, some about ideas."
So here's something to consider. "How many girls are in her dojo?" is a great segue to sexism and challenges for women and for that generation. Steering conversations towards ideas that *interest* you is the trick, so that you're not wasting your time (you're learning or considering ideas you care about) nor theirs (they're talking about themselves or their opinions, which as an extrovert they love).
Also:
> Answer them with sentences, not just single words.
This! Answering with no extra details attached is, socially, begging to be asked more. I would go one step further: answer with a compound sentence, where the second portion redirects to them. Eg. "How many kids do you have?" / "I have a son who's thirteen and a daughter who's eleven, and they tussle a bit; maybe we should put her into martial arts, so she could hold her own and maybe learn enough self control to not lash out unprovoked. Do you think your daughter has found the training helpful for self-restraint?" It's way harder - that's like, 5 times as many words! - but that short reply can probably get you 4-5 minutes of them talking, requiring only very short "uh huh" and "really?" and "does it work that way in practice?" type stuff from you.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:42PM
Definitions:
Social: You are invited and you go to the party
Asocial (like asynchronous or asymmetrical): You are invited to the party but you don't go
Anti-social: You are NOT invited to the party but you go anyway
Really Anti-social: You go to the party and try to kill everyone there
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:16AM
Serious answer? I'm not in a hiring position, but it seems to me that it depends a lot on the disability. Just as I would say in case of gender, hair color, race or fingernail length: Any personal attributes not relevant to the job should not figure into the hiring process. However, when we talk about disabilities, we have a huge spectrum. To take two extreme examples:
- Spinal injury in the back, wheelchair bound. Doesn't impact their capabilities as an engineer. No problem.
- Blind. Limited ability to participate in normal meetings, cannot read documents or diagrams, requires special software on the computer in order to work at a fraction of the pace of anyone else. Actual team productivity will be negative, because of the impact on everyone else's work required to accommodate them. Big problem.
- Deaf. In the gray zone. Some minor accommodations necessary. It may be necessary to have a signing translator available for things like phone conferences, but this will probably be subsidized. Depends on the company, the situation and the person.
This situation is so individual, because disabilities are individual. To add to the confusion, many disabled workers will have their salaries and some special requirements funded by national disability insurance, or other organizations.
It's also worth pointing out the huge difference between small companies and large ones. Let me do this in the context of one disabled person I am aware of: most of the time, he has no real problems, but then come the bad phases where he cannot work at all. In a small company, he might be the only person hired for a particular role - coming and going at random intervals would be intolerable. In a big company, where he would be part of a larger team, this might be completely ok. So company size also plays a big role in what kinds of disabilities the company can accept.
tl;dr: The disability itself is (or should be) irrelevant - it's the person's capabilities that matter. If the person can do the work, hire them. If they cannot, or if accommodating their disability would disproportionately impact other employees, then don't.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @12:58PM
Blind. Limited ability to participate in normal meetings, cannot read documents or diagrams, requires special software on the computer in order to work at a fraction of the pace of anyone else.
Maybe if you ever interfaced with a blind person you'd find out that many of your prejudices are laughably wrong... Blind simply means that a person can't see (well). It does not mean they are dumb or slow. In fact for example some of the best phreakers were blind. So a blind person can make a good employee or a bad one, much like a seeing one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:09AM
He clearly meant completely blind, not legally blind. He's also 100% correct in that spatial data is almost impossible to represent nonvisually at a decent pace. Show me a for-the-blind plugin for Eagle and prove me wrong, but in my experience, one cannot do PCB layouts easily without some sight. He never implied blind meant dumb (which means "cannot speak" fyi, not "mentally incompetent") or slow.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 27 2016, @02:08PM
I thought the article was lame in that all the disabilities were outside the skull. Not surprisingly some fraction of disabilities are inside the skull and brain-grindy STEM jobs are not going to be a good match to someone with some severe brain trauma symptoms. On the other hand (oh the pun) missing a hand isn't going to matter for most STEM ish jobs. In that way the click bait headline is pretty lame. Someone with severe brain damage such that their IQ is under 60 is probably not going to be a VLSI designer or MechEng any time soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:44AM
Well then, have you tried breaking some legs?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @12:08PM
Well then, have you tried breaking some legs?
Only when they're late with their payments. Don't judge me - I still live in an analog world.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Snotnose on Tuesday December 27 2016, @02:49PM
He was legally blind. This was mid-90s, we ran Linux. He had his font so large I could read it from across the room, and he used a magnifying glass to read it.
Know what? He wrote some damned fine code. Not only that, you could ask him something and he had the entire code base memorized. He also had the relevant parts of the Linux kernel memorized. This was when Linux was young and it wasn't unusual to find bugs in device drivers.
Wonder what ever happened to him?
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @04:29PM
Yes, I DO wonder what ever happened to him...
Why don't you fill us in?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @04:12AM
Leonard Euler, arguably one of the top four mathematicians who ever lived (you can guess who the other three are), was completely blind in one eye for most of his adult life, and blind in both eyes for the last two decades. It didn't seem to slow him down at all. The man was a machine at churning out brilliant mathematics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @04:46PM
Are they competent or not? I don't care about other people's hypocritical moralizing. Do that on your own dime.
Should I start hiring white people because they are statistically less likely to engage in criminal activity? Men because they tend to be willing to work harder, longer hours, and in harsher conditions? You know, because I want honest, hard working employees? No? All right then.
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:14PM
Great article. Another area that IT tends to fall down on is with age. There is an assumption that only younger workers can handle new technology. This year, my company started developing some mobile apps. They began with one young guy doing almost all the work. He decided to leave the company just as they were starting an important project. This put managment in a pickle because they had an aggressive development schedule, no one else availble with experience in the chosen mobile platform, and no time to hire someone from the outside. One of the managers suggested giving the project to me, because I had expressed an interest in mobile development. The director was skeptical because I was practically the oldest guy in the department, but he had little choice. He took a gamble and gave me the project. I dove right in, working nights and weekends in order to learn the new platform. I managed to meet every deadline and everything worked.
I recently got the director to admit that he was skeptical because of my age. The truth is that age is not a determining factor. There are a lot of talented people in IT at all ages. There are also a lot of blockheads at all ages. Just because someone is young does not mean they are a whiz at everything. Just because someone is older does not mean that they can't take on a challenge.
There is a tremendous amount of prejudice in IT management, whether the issue is age, disability, or whatever.