1.
Suffering in Silence
Despite a law designed to protect them, many people with disabling conditions are unaware of their rights. Carole Concha-Bell tells of her experience.
A) Being diagnosed with a disabling condition is always a shock. Learning to live without the guarantee of health is like having to unlearn a previous life. The implications for your working life may seem intimidating. There is the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), of course. But does it really provide the protection in the workplace that parliament intended? Are employers merely paying lip service to the DDA? Or are they even aware of an employer's legal duties and responsibilities? In my experience, it is the latter. I have received little support from employers to whom I have revealed my condition. This has often left me feeling at a disadvantage and wondering why I bothered doing so in the first place.
B) I had been struggling with illness long before I was diagnosed. In practical terms the diagnosis did little to aid me. Of course, it enabled me to understand my body, my limitations and set me on a course to stabilise my symptoms. But it brought a new dilemma. Where I had previously struggled to work while ill, ignorant of why my body was misbehaving, I now had a name for my daily struggle: Lupus (狼疮)．This is a chronic(慢性的) auto-immune disorder that can affect virtually any system in the body. It also leaves a huge, dark question hanging over my head when seeking employment: should I tell my employers I have a condition? It is a dilemma that continues to be a root cause of anxiety both for myself and for thousands of other UK employees.
C) The rocky road to my unfortunate enlightenment about work and disability began just after graduation when I'd set my sights on a career in communications and landed my dream job with a respected public relations consultancy (咨询公司) in Bristol. But while I was learning the art of media relations, my body wasn't quite making it in health terms. I often went to work with swollen limbs and fevers. At my first and last performance review, my boss was amazed that, despite my many capabilities, I hadn't quite taken control of my responsibilities. A few months later, my contract wasn't renewed and I plunged further into new depths of ill health.
D) However, I was determined not to be beaten and returned to the interview trail. My next job was in publishing. But despite a shining performance at the interview, I felt like a fraud. How long would it be before I sank into ill health and depression again? The job was to end with a monumental bang when I became so poorly I could no longer function. A few feverish weeks in bed ended in specialist appointment, where I was diagnosed with Lupus and rushed into hospital for fear that it may have attacked my internal organs. The next 12 months were filled with confusion. I had no idea about benefits, felt alienated (被视为另类) by the medical establishment and lived off my savings until I was broke. I realised I needed help from my family and moved to London.
E) As soon as I felt better, I marched into a marketing recruitment consultancy and, within 10 minutes, I had impressed the interviewer enough to be offered a job with the agency. We agreed on a decent salary and I told him I had arthritis (关节炎) and would need to work a four-day week. Things went well at the start but soon the client meetings began to fall on my day off, and I rarely left the office on time. I began to slip both in health and professional terms. The l0-hour days crashed around my head; no amount of make-up could disguise my ill health as I battled against the odds to prove to myself that I could still make it in the business world. I often cried on the bus from work.
F) Not long before my contract was due to be made permanent, I was called to the boss's office and given the "talk" about how my performance was slipping, how awful I looked. I felt too weak to fight back and agreed to leave. No attempts to offer adjustments to my job, such as being able to work from home, were ever made. I had a case for unfair dismissal under the DDA, but was ignorant of this at the time. An estimated 10 million people in the UK, or 17% of the population, qualify for disability status under the DDA. I have encountered a number of them: the liver-diseased boss; the co-worker with a heart condition; my asthmatic (哮喘的) trainee-teacher friend. None had disclosed (透露) their conditions to employers, and all were feeling the strain of not doing so.
G) To access your rights under the DDA and to request "reasonable adjustments" to your working conditions or your workplace requires disclosure. I had warned my former employer about my condition but it served little purpose. They were ignorant about their obligations to their disabled staff. However, there are plenty of forward-thinking organisations that have inclusive recruitment policies; are more likely to employ a worker with a disability; and are more aware of their legal duties. The public sector out-performs the private, but not always the voluntary, according to studies for the Disabilities Rights Commission.
H) I decided to give the voluntary sector a go and was surprised to be offered flexible working conditions and other solutions to meet my needs as an employee. But given the choice, I would still prefer a career in the private sector, which for me is more dynamic, has more attractive salaries and offers better prospects than the voluntary or public sectors.
I) Despite the advances of the DDA, there will always be an army of workers who will soldier on, maybe aware of their rights but choosing to remain silent for personal reasons. It is important, though, to recognise the significance of the act, the protection it affords and the obligations that employers have to us as employees and as human beings.
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