- Original Poster
- #1
Since I stopped teaching in college, I've tried to give young people a start whenever I can by employing 18 yr olds when then finished college with their basic skill set in music, performing arts and media. Some just for a couple of months until they went off to uni and others going into the area I work in straight away. I'd often give work to uni students too, if they came back in the summer, and pretty well everyone knows how our industry works and are very similar in attitude and ability. I'm also very happy, and often prefer, to take graduates rather than total strangers. I've also started to take the newcomers by Facebook recommendations/friends of friends from the local area.
Not had too much luck this year - similar circumstances, twice. New people - CV typical of their ages for an ex-graduate and an ex-college person.
I need to be careful in my explanation, and change a few details, as I've received considerable grief, but my record with people with disabilities is pretty decent. A girl who lost her leg through cancer - who was going to be a dancer, was also I discovered pretty useful at things her leg didn't effect - Stage Management - having a logical head, and being cool and efficient, doesn't need her to run about, and another guy who lost his leg had no problems at all with lighting. He could even climb ladders perfectly safely with the clever electronic leg he had. Both these people moved on in the business, and the lighting guy now earns many times what I do, working internationally, and still rides a lethal Ducati motorcycle that is scary! (Up and down gear shift on the handlebars, for bike lovers).
Now to the current situation. If my lighting guy had had both legs, but had been blind - as a lighting person, I could not have taken him on, simply impossible to do that job if you can't see - but what if they could see well enough at interview but didn't reveal their lack of sight at a distance, and no colour vision - until you ticked them off for making silly mistakes. Then they tell you their condition, and say it's not their fault?
Or again, with some details obscured for privacy reasons, how about a person coming in for a job that by the nature of the job requires to be able to work off the ground, and also requires very, very basic manual handling skills - the kind that you show somebody once, and then never again, because once you do it once you remember? Some of the work involves lifting things - not mega heavy and not something a slight female would have issues with from a safety perspective. You notice that in the team of mixed male/female members, one person always hang back when the next item on a truck is big and heavy and steps forward when it's a small tool box. You notice that you have shown them the safe way to do a simple process, but then others are also showing them the same thing - but when they try to do it, others have to step in. Maybe after 3 attempts under observation, people have to step in each time, and then on the fourth, they simply get it so wrong, somebody else is put in such a dangerous position the more skilled team members shout STOP - DO NOT MOVE, because somebody has been put at real risk by something so simple as forgetting to do a very simple, easy and common sense thing - for the 4th time! Turns out he has a condition that means he has trouble with this kind of thing.
With both the people I'm thinking of, I simply mentally downgraded them in ability terms, made adjustments and took them off jobs likely to cause them and others harm. In both cases, these people carried being paid the same, and spent large amounts of time sitting doing nothing watching the others work harder to compensate. It's only a few months - we can manage.
In health and safety terms, he's dangerous. His actions could seriously injure people. Imagine two people carrying something heavy, and him just suddenly letting go. Fingers, backs, feet all at risk, and at one point he really could have killed somebody left struggling when he gave up.
Then, in both cases above, they do something that just wrangles. In one, simple and horrible gross misconduct, and the other, I text them the time for the next day, and they said fine, but said they couldn't do the next day because they needed to go for a blood test. I replied saying that this was a double day - probably 14 hours, one of our rarer events, but a really long hard day. No - they can't do it. As I'd had words explaining that despite his condition, he was clearly lazy - citing one event where somebody was pulling a very heavily loaded truck, sweating and panting, while he walked behind it, not even pushing! I also mentioned the things that I, as a 59 year old had had to do, because he couldn't lift it (and I have a bad back too). I told him to pull his socks up and try harder.
So my last response in the text was to tell him not to bother coming back. Mainly I think because his attitude to the job was that he could just announce he wasn't coming in and that was fine - I subsequently found that when I was not there on Saturday, he didn't turn up, but I didn't know that when I fired him.
In both these cases, I instantly got accused of firing them because of their conditions - but they ONLY disclosed them when they first started to make mistakes. In both, the cause of the firing wasn't their conditions at all - it was simply them using it as an excuse for poor standards. One of my lot is a severe dyslexic, and nobody knows because they learned how to deal with it, and she only revealed this when he was bandying his condition around as an excuse for not doing anything. Another has mild autism and Aspergers syndrome - and as long as we are precise in our instructions, he fits in well - he does what he's told, doesn't ever complain, and if we see him just standing around because he doesn't know what to do - people just tell him, and he does, and he gets paid the same as my problem person, yet works twice as hard, which isn't right!
Now the question - I'm aware of the disability legislation in general terms, but if their disability is not revealed before you take them on, what do you do when they are totally unsuitable for the job they get engaged to do.
I'm very fed up with complaining parents, and we're offering him a few hours in the week mentioned in his contract, which we really don't have to as it's zero hours, just to be nice. It leave me with three weeks left of short handedness because I cannot get a replacement.
I should mention that this is not a training role - we need people with experience, which college is usually sufficient, or amdram etc.
In my opinion - I didn't get rid of either because of their conditions, but they say I did, probably because they don't want people to know that they're not employable in our business.
Everyone tends to be a team member - each with a totally different role. There is nobody to supervise them during a show - everyone has their own job to do, and they must be able to do it, virtually from their first day, once basics are delivered.
I'm made to feel that I singled them out.
Not had too much luck this year - similar circumstances, twice. New people - CV typical of their ages for an ex-graduate and an ex-college person.
I need to be careful in my explanation, and change a few details, as I've received considerable grief, but my record with people with disabilities is pretty decent. A girl who lost her leg through cancer - who was going to be a dancer, was also I discovered pretty useful at things her leg didn't effect - Stage Management - having a logical head, and being cool and efficient, doesn't need her to run about, and another guy who lost his leg had no problems at all with lighting. He could even climb ladders perfectly safely with the clever electronic leg he had. Both these people moved on in the business, and the lighting guy now earns many times what I do, working internationally, and still rides a lethal Ducati motorcycle that is scary! (Up and down gear shift on the handlebars, for bike lovers).
Now to the current situation. If my lighting guy had had both legs, but had been blind - as a lighting person, I could not have taken him on, simply impossible to do that job if you can't see - but what if they could see well enough at interview but didn't reveal their lack of sight at a distance, and no colour vision - until you ticked them off for making silly mistakes. Then they tell you their condition, and say it's not their fault?
Or again, with some details obscured for privacy reasons, how about a person coming in for a job that by the nature of the job requires to be able to work off the ground, and also requires very, very basic manual handling skills - the kind that you show somebody once, and then never again, because once you do it once you remember? Some of the work involves lifting things - not mega heavy and not something a slight female would have issues with from a safety perspective. You notice that in the team of mixed male/female members, one person always hang back when the next item on a truck is big and heavy and steps forward when it's a small tool box. You notice that you have shown them the safe way to do a simple process, but then others are also showing them the same thing - but when they try to do it, others have to step in. Maybe after 3 attempts under observation, people have to step in each time, and then on the fourth, they simply get it so wrong, somebody else is put in such a dangerous position the more skilled team members shout STOP - DO NOT MOVE, because somebody has been put at real risk by something so simple as forgetting to do a very simple, easy and common sense thing - for the 4th time! Turns out he has a condition that means he has trouble with this kind of thing.
With both the people I'm thinking of, I simply mentally downgraded them in ability terms, made adjustments and took them off jobs likely to cause them and others harm. In both cases, these people carried being paid the same, and spent large amounts of time sitting doing nothing watching the others work harder to compensate. It's only a few months - we can manage.
In health and safety terms, he's dangerous. His actions could seriously injure people. Imagine two people carrying something heavy, and him just suddenly letting go. Fingers, backs, feet all at risk, and at one point he really could have killed somebody left struggling when he gave up.
Then, in both cases above, they do something that just wrangles. In one, simple and horrible gross misconduct, and the other, I text them the time for the next day, and they said fine, but said they couldn't do the next day because they needed to go for a blood test. I replied saying that this was a double day - probably 14 hours, one of our rarer events, but a really long hard day. No - they can't do it. As I'd had words explaining that despite his condition, he was clearly lazy - citing one event where somebody was pulling a very heavily loaded truck, sweating and panting, while he walked behind it, not even pushing! I also mentioned the things that I, as a 59 year old had had to do, because he couldn't lift it (and I have a bad back too). I told him to pull his socks up and try harder.
So my last response in the text was to tell him not to bother coming back. Mainly I think because his attitude to the job was that he could just announce he wasn't coming in and that was fine - I subsequently found that when I was not there on Saturday, he didn't turn up, but I didn't know that when I fired him.
In both these cases, I instantly got accused of firing them because of their conditions - but they ONLY disclosed them when they first started to make mistakes. In both, the cause of the firing wasn't their conditions at all - it was simply them using it as an excuse for poor standards. One of my lot is a severe dyslexic, and nobody knows because they learned how to deal with it, and she only revealed this when he was bandying his condition around as an excuse for not doing anything. Another has mild autism and Aspergers syndrome - and as long as we are precise in our instructions, he fits in well - he does what he's told, doesn't ever complain, and if we see him just standing around because he doesn't know what to do - people just tell him, and he does, and he gets paid the same as my problem person, yet works twice as hard, which isn't right!
Now the question - I'm aware of the disability legislation in general terms, but if their disability is not revealed before you take them on, what do you do when they are totally unsuitable for the job they get engaged to do.
I'm very fed up with complaining parents, and we're offering him a few hours in the week mentioned in his contract, which we really don't have to as it's zero hours, just to be nice. It leave me with three weeks left of short handedness because I cannot get a replacement.
I should mention that this is not a training role - we need people with experience, which college is usually sufficient, or amdram etc.
In my opinion - I didn't get rid of either because of their conditions, but they say I did, probably because they don't want people to know that they're not employable in our business.
Everyone tends to be a team member - each with a totally different role. There is nobody to supervise them during a show - everyone has their own job to do, and they must be able to do it, virtually from their first day, once basics are delivered.
I'm made to feel that I singled them out.
