Rounding up a posse − 25 June, 2008

Over the last several days I have assembled a team of people who will work with my employer to make sure that I can get my job done given my carpal tunnel syndrome and my inability to concentrate in a cube farm. What my employer has offered doesn’t seem like the best solution to me. Since my voice doesn’t carry much weight, I’m going to need my posse to help me out.

What my employer offered was a “quieter cube” (with my disability, there’s no such thing) and working at home three days per week. Anyone who develops software knows that it is much better to be on site at than off-site. Instant messaging cannot replace the ad hoc face-to-face conversations that occur on a daily basis at the office. And I’m not talking about water cooler talk; I’m talking about tech talk and talk about project work.

Last week, after talking to my employer, I felt pretty hopeless. Between then and today, when I realized that I have a posse to back me up, for the first time I felt like there might be hope. I have been dreading going back to the office. The thought of having to work in my cube makes me miserable, and the thought of being isolated from my team makes me feel irrelevant.

In some senses “posse” is not exactly the right word. These people aren’t “my” people; that is, they aren’t going to march into my workplace and demand that I be given an office or any such thing. However, they will work as a team with my employer to ensure that I am able to do my job effectively. That’s all I have ever wanted – to do a good job.

What amazes me, given my salary and the 30% overhead my employer pays on top of it, is that my employer does not seem to want to make more of an effort to ensure that I can perform optimally. Jim, my boss’ boss, kept insisting that I needed to do what I could to make this work – to make the department halfway. He said that my department has no further obligation to me under the Americans With Disabilities Act. I don’t buy it.

In a month or so, we are all going to have a better idea of what my employer’s actual obligation is to me. I am willing to be flexible, but I made it clear to my employer that a sub optimal situation would result in sub optimal performance on my part. It’s just that simple.

This is the kind of stuff I’ve been dealing with on my so-called “vacation”.