What makes you feel most insecure? Your pinky finger is longer than your index finger, you have bony knees, your ears stick out — whatever. I want you to think about this thing and hold it in your mind for a second. Now imagine that, in order to do your job, you have to remind everyone of this insecurity multiple times a day: every time a colleague shares their screen, every team project, every email. You have to mention the insecurity again and again. How long do you think you could last in this job? So it felt like I was going blind in the company. It’s not officially called that. It’s a huge Canadian institution that you’ve definitely heard of. I’m not saying his name because, when I started the job, I signed a bunch of papers that I didn’t read, partly because navigating the legalese of incorporation contracts is about as fun as sticking sewing needles under your fingernails, and partly because — as will become clear— reading the fine print is not really my thing. I have a degenerative eye disease called keratoconus. Starting in my early teens, my corneas began to thin and bulge outward. At first, the situation was a mild inconvenience. I had to sit near the blackboard during the lesson. I struggled with the subtitles. But in recent years, the disease has progressed to the point where it can cause real problems in my daily life. Essentially, anything small or far away is a blur. I can make out the shapes but not the details. A fast food menu is a bright fluorescent wash. A video game is an out-of-focus Polaroid. While I can still get most things done, there are some things I have to approach differently, like navigating new spaces or limiting my screen time. My difficulties are compounded by the dozens of new programs that have emerged during the pandemic to facilitate remote and digital workplaces. Whenever I talk about my vision loss, I’m expected to characterize its impact in some easily digestible way. People tend to think of vision as an all-or-nothing perspective — blindness as total darkness, vision as anything else — but for half a million visually impaired Canadians, it exists as a spectrum. I’m on the less severe end of that spectrum, but I still have issues. I can’t always predict what those problems will be or how I might deal with them. Because my vision loss is progressive, everything is in flux. (I’d say it’s a know-it-when-I-see-it scenario, if not for the inevitable pun.) During the job interview, I did not mention my vision loss. I tried to present myself as an ideal employee. I put on my “get me a job” polo, asked questions about the target demographic, and even referenced something on the company blog, which I had studied for exactly 40 seconds before the interview. I wanted my prospective employer to imagine me as part of the team. I was concerned that mentioning keratoconus would interfere with their ability to do this. But another reason I didn’t mention my illness was because I didn’t think it would be a big deal. There was nothing in the job description—to write copy to improve the company’s user experience—or the take-home assessment that indicated my vision would affect my performance. It might diminish my attention to detail, but to be honest, attention to detail wasn’t my strong suit even before I started going blind. In March 2022, the company offered me the job. It was a six month renewable contract. He paid double what I was making as a freelance writer. Accepting it felt like a step forward, like I was finally gaining the footing in adulthood that had eluded me for my entire 20s. But on the first day of my virtual training, I realized that my new position would involve working on precise formatting and complex PowerPoints. I also realized that I couldn’t see the shared screen well enough to understand what I was being asked to do. I still struggle to think of myself as a disabled person. Even the word is strange. This is partly because this experience is still quite new to me. But it is also partly rooted in the unconscious ableist perception that disability is somehow a personal failing. As if I should be able to start my way to better vision. Like, if I tried a little harder, maybe my eyes would work again. Even when people tried to help, dealing with the problem made me feel like a burden. During a training presentation, I realized that the font on the shared screen was too small to read. I asked for things to be enlarged. The team happily obliged, but even so, I couldn’t see what was going on. I tried using the zoom function, chasing the cursor around the screen for relevant information like I was playing the world’s saddest video game. Was not working. In the chat window, I explained my situation: eye disease, I can’t deal with the information, I don’t know what’s going on. Everyone was very kind. They promised to work on a solution. Meanwhile, I wouldn’t be able to complete my first mission. I couldn’t write and format the copy when I couldn’t see what the formatting looked like. Without proper training, I lacked the knowledge to start projects. Someone from another department who didn’t know about my vision problem would ask me to do something—a seemingly simple task—but it was like trying to teach someone fractions before they learned to count. The best I could do was stammer out an apology and explain my vision. Nobody got mad. Inevitably, someone would share a personal anecdote about a distant cousin with cataracts or a family cat that began to go blind in its old age. I think that was supposed to make me feel better. When I told my supervisor what was going on, she was determined to find a solution. Arrange a meeting with the company’s disability coordinator for the first available date. The first session—and there would be many sessions—was weeks away. In the meantime, I paired up with another colleague to help me get started. During one-on-one meetings, they tried to guide me through the work, blasting out the text and waiting patiently as I tried to see what was going on. I looked and strained. I brought the computer closer to my face, but my vision was like a radio frequency stuck between stations. The information was organized into flow charts and formats that looked, to me, like Magic Eye posters. I would end these meetings with little to no progress, my eyes dry and tired, still feeling incredibly distant from real work. It went on like this for weeks: training followed by frustration, rinse and repeat. At times, the whole thing seemed almost comical, like a George Costanza situation: What is your profession? Well, every time my boss gives me work, I remind them that I can’t see well. And they pay you for it? They pay, Jerry! However, the situation weighed on me. I was getting paid, but I had the faint feeling that I couldn’t work. I wanted to let it go and believe that things would get better, but my mind doesn’t work that way. Instead, I spent hours in a feedback loop, feeling guilty for not getting the job done, frustrated that this huge institution wasn’t moving faster, and embarrassed that I have to constantly talk about my eye disease. Meanwhile, I was fast approaching the halfway mark of my contract. On top of all that was the realization that no matter what happened with work, this was just my life now. Because of my vision loss, there are things I will have to do differently or maybe not be able to do at all. I can’t drive anymore. I lose the ability to see people from far and near. Writing, in one form or another, is my job. if I can’t see well enough to do it, how am I supposed to support myself? And, as a person whose identity is tied to the ability to write, who am I if my vision takes that away? The meeting with the disability co-ordinator finally took place in my third month at work. I came to the appointment hoping for real solutions. They asked me questions about my vision, trying to understand my challenges with the company’s format and the programs they were using. They asked what tools I could work with to make the work accessible. They asked many things. In previous jobs, I used my phone to see my work better. To do this at the company, I would have to go through a three-step process that involved submitting several forms to my supervisors. I also usually used a text-to-speech feature, which was blocked on my work computer. To unlock the feature, I was told, I would have to travel to the company’s headquarters. The accessibility team may be able to send me a monitor with a larger screen, but it was currently on pre-order with an expected wait time of about two months. For security reasons, working in the preferred accessible writing programs was not an option, but the accessibility team was confident that, with some trial and error, I would find a workable solution. Maybe we could search the internet together for some apps that might help. I knew everyone was trying to accommodate me. I also knew I couldn’t keep doing this. It had been three months since I started the job—three months of constantly trying to make things work in an environment that clearly wasn’t designed for me. I was now halfway through my contract with no assurance that anything could change. So I decided to quit. I did not want. I was making more than I ever had, possibly more than I ever would. Leaving without a solid backup plan, with a recession looming, made me want to puke. But I have to back myself so strongly and…
