Disability Disclosure in the Workplace
YLF Alumni 2001, Deric Morrow, was recently promoted at his job with ADT Security Service. Deric's journey was not always a smooth one, though. Read Deric's story below and see how his comments prompted a discussion about disability disclosure in the workplace.
I have been working for ADT Security Service for just over three years. I started out in entry level dispatch; handling alarms that where coming into the Call Center. I moved on from there to customer service- tier two taking inbound calls of customers, police, and others that were calling ADT back on alarms or had a question about their system. The company then shifted its customer service to make tier two and three together. This put me back in training to learn the tech support side of customer service- how to help people with their alarms when they were not working right. Over this time, my manager had trouble with my spelling. She was getting her BA in English and felt that if you can’t spell, well then there is no need to transfer anywhere else. This was hard for me because my learning disability makes it very hard for me to spell everything right. The programs I was using in the role did not have spell check, and I was under a high time crunch. Everything was watched, like how many calls you are taking, how long you are on each call, and so on. To be fair, I did not come out to her about my learning disabilty. It’s a hard thing for me to do because, although I know that the ADA is there to protect me, its hard to enforce, and I always have in the back of my mind that I didn’t get the job because I came out about my learning disability. I did get a break later that year because my old manager was moving to a new company at the same time the local sales and service office was hiring a Data Management/QA Team Member. I used this time with the new manager to apply for the job at the local sales and service office. I feel where I lack in writing, I more then make up for in verbal. My interview went great, and I was hired. So, now that I have been in this role for a little over a year, I felt it was time to change once again. Right now, I work 99% with techs and don’t talk to customers most of the time. I miss the customer interaction, and I really love fixing problems. When I saw the job opening in San Francisco for a customer relations representative, I applied for it and, after a great interview, I was hired there. In this role, I will be working with customers who are having problems that the call center cannot fix. I will be moving around to different administrative roles in the office. To better my known age on the company and in hopes of moving on to a management role soon, I really need to go back to school to help with that and hope to start that back up within the next year as well. Well that’s my new journey.
-- Deric Morrow, YLF Alumni 2001
Just like Deric, many people are hesitant or confused about when to disclose a disability when working at a job. Do you have a similar story like Deric? Would you like to share your thoughts on disclosure? Then send us your comments and we will post them on this site. Please send all comments to Carrie at
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Disability Disclosure in the Workplace
Discussion
Brenda Eddy, Executive Director of the KS Youth Empowerment Academy:
Hi Deric,
I’m so impressed with your ability to know your strengths and utilize them rather than waste energy on your weaknesses. Here’s what I have learned on the journey of life with a disability. Disclosure almost always works better for me in the long run. Here’s why. When I disclose up front about my disability, it allows me to demonstrate that I’m taking responsibility for my needs. It also gives me another opportunity to ‘sell myself’ because I can talk up how I have developed strong skills in other areas to compensate. As an employer, this is impressive because they are thinking….”hmmm, yeah he has a deficit in spelling but he has some kick-ass verbal skills”. Big deal. We’ll have someone else correct his spelling.” My mom always told me “if life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. Today I view my disability as a gift because it allows me to refine some skills in certain areas where I might have been just mediocre had I not had this disability. You have that gift of verbal skills. Use it to your advantage.
If you don’t disclose, you get stuck in the shame-game. People know there is ‘something wrong with you’ but nobody is talking about it. Makes you the victim. Yucky place to be. It’s also harder to disclose later in the game because you are already being viewed as ‘not as good as’ because of this big secret of yours so you start buying into the “something wrong” mentality. Disclosing up front de-mystifies the whole process so you can put your energy into proving your worth instead of trying to hide your secret. I have also found that it improved my self esteem dramatically when I started talking about what I needed to do my job well.
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