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Seeing Beyond Invisible Disabilities
Mark Swartz, M.B.A. M.Ed.
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Mark Swartz
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
She is leaning forward and speaking to you in that powerful voice of hers, gesturing deliberately to render her points. The two of you are face to face across the desk in her office. For your part, you find yourself mesmerized. She is laying out her plans convincingly: the upcoming global training program she has helped design will definitely give your mutual employer, Celestica, some better ways to engage its workforce more fully. My goodness, you think, how well she talks with conviction and enthusiasm.
But suddenly she halts mid-sentence. Her body goes limp and slumps against her high-back chair. That would be alarming enough if you didn't know what was happening. Then you catch sight of her eyes and gasp. Where normally her crystal clear gaze envelopes you in its warmth, there is, for the moment, a vacant look like that of someone struck by a high voltage line. Her arm even twitches slightly, involuntarily. It jangles the metal bracelet that she never takes off, an unremarkable chain link band with a dull silver plating, its familiar insignia there to remind you, to remind anyone who might be with her in such moments, that hers is not a life lived ordinarily.
The woman across from you is Michelle Buckland. That bracelet she is wearing is from Medic Alert. And what she is going through - with you in the room, and as casually as you or I might suffer an abrupt cramp or severe headache - is an epileptic seizure.
Remarkably, a few minutes later the electrical disruption in her brainwaves relents, and her eyes are once again focused directly on yours. If you haven't already gone ashen-faced or come unglued, as many people might in your situation, you escort her to the company's nursing station, where Michelle rests up for half an hour. And then returns to her normal duties.
This is a possible day in the life of Michelle and many more like her - not just those with epilepsy, but the thousands, possibly even millions, of others who live with ''hidden'' medical conditions. Hidden not in the sense that these conditions never surface, but more like they cannot generally be detected by the naked eye, until, that is, they burst through their biological bounds and force their sufferers to lose awareness for a few seconds, as with mild epilepsy, to convulsions in severe cases; or lose their focus and energy, for those with clinical depression; and even make people closet themselves away for hours in the washroom, should irritable bowel syndrome be the problem.
The list of these conditions goes on and on, like Fibromyalgia, Endometriosis, Hypothyroidism. Terms that are well known in the medical professions, yet little understood by the general public. In fact, you yourself may live with something in your physiology you would rather not have to share with your boss or the people who may report to you. The fear of being discriminated against is not unfounded.
In my own case, I developed a work-disrupting bout of clinical depression in the early 1990s. That's back when I had a corporate job, a just-starting-to-crumble marriage, two children under the age of four, the obligatory back breaking mortgage on our first home, plus a gravely ill father and brother.
So did I report my condition to my employer, so that I might be temporarily accommodated in some way? Yep. After all, I was a highly regarded employee there. Still, I waited until some additional family misfortunes made it nearly impossible to fulfill my work duties properly, seeing that my energy and concentration were also being depleted by my medical circumstances. And did the company I worked for make allowances for my immediate state of affairs? I guess so, though only if you consider being given an extra long period of severance when they turfed me not long after, to be a gracious gesture.
Michelle, and more and more like her, are faring far better. Numerous employers are realizing that their otherwise highly able contributors need not be excluded simply for having, or developing while employed there, some special needs. Celestica is a good example. Michelle is considered an integral part of her Training and Development team. Her job involves all training competency categories from program design right through to evaluations and measurements. The only part she doesn't do is facilitation, which would mean being in front of a live audience.
''I come in a little later, and work a bit longer into the evening, because if I do have a seizure, it tends to occur in the morning,'' says Michelle, who is a Regional Training Specialist. Not that this means her hours spent at home amount to downtime. While there she is typing away on her laptop and dialing in to calls where her expertise is required.
''When I first started at Celestica,'' adds Michelle, they would have someone sit in for me when I wasn't at the office. But soon they said that because of my extensive knowledge and experience, people were actually asking for me specifically to be included, by phone, in their meetings.''
This makes Michelle feel like a champion, so much so, in fact, that she now devotes a portion of her time teaching others with hidden infirmities to speak out confidently and leave the world of shadows. ''I would like to inspire and educate the next generation,'' she says, ''so that they will hopefully have an easier time, and be proud of who they are.''
Now consider this next time it comes to choosing which candidate to hire for a given position, or to promote upward. Wouldn't it be nice to know you're getting someone who has proven time and time again that they have the courage, and creativity, to overcome major obstacles? Someone who persists in the face of constant challenge. Who's resourceful and fiercely determined.
If so, try to keep in mind something Michelle said to me as our interview wound down. ''You know Mark, I do have a serious condition, but does that make me any less valuable as an employee?'' And with that confident gaze of hers, she adds ''Only in the minds of those who choose not to see beyond their own, often exaggerated, misconceptions.''
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