Embarrassing Interview

This post made me question if we are covered by the Americans with disabilities act.

www.google.com/search?q=Americans+with+disabilities+act+diabetes

I know I can just ask search but then I would have nothing to post.

Just found out the answer is yes.

We are protected, but keep in mine someone still gets to choose who to hire for all sorts of various reasons. If they decide they don’t want to hire you, it’s easy enough to pick a valid reason.

That is still why it’s smarter to not show any issues that might come with hiring you. With some people and companies it might not matter at all. Unless of course your potential boss is a T1, then it might go in your favor.

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Shortly after diagnosis, I had to go to a week long work retreat. It was way over my pay grade, but I was directed to meet my boss’s boss’s boss, make a good impression, with the hopes of getting converted to a permanent job.

I killed it all weekend, ended up getting the new job. Not that it would have been an issue, but I still kept my diabetes on the down low. Then as we were all (15+) people waiting for our flights out of the very small (five gate) airport, a gate agent came on the loudspeaker and announced, “If you lost a small black case in the terminal, please come to gate five. I think it’s like a diabetes bag. Thanks.” Of course that was my kit I dropped. Everybody watched as I got up and walked to the gate to get it. Yep, that’s my bag o’ diabetes.

I’m kind of glad that happened so early, cause now I don’t care at all who’s around when I test, inject, etc. I’m kind of jealous of your alarms though. :slight_smile:

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Have you seen my thread " Creating a white house petition to make all insulin over the counter. Need help with the wording

What if your bag went unnoticed or it took too long for the security people to do what ever they do when they find unattended bags and now you don’t have your supplies ?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just go to the nearest pharmacy and request like in my case a vial of Lantus and go on with your day instead of long possibly expensive hassle, time waiting and travel, calling doctors or transfer my prescription ect ect, Name Address Birthday, show ID… Pharmacy experience so similar to being detained at a traffic stop, I absolutely hate it.

I have too draw blood and do injections till the day they cure this thing, I accept that. The pharmacy experience, I never will.

My thread looks like it has some new replies but never gained any traction.

Maybe you will like it but I am almost done here, I picked up an anonymous hater that doesn’t like my attitude and flags my posts to spite me and it seems I don’t have the ability to “rally the troops” anyway.

We used to not be covered by ADA. We ARE now covered by amendments to ADA. Something like ADAA. Here’s a good article: http://www.diabetesforecast.org/2009/may/defeating-discrimination.html

Sorry if you had a bad experience. I did actually lose my insulin on another trip, where I took a shot at an airport and must have left my Frio pack with my basal at the airport. I didn’t notice until late that night, when it was time for basal. I called my insurance company the next morning. They sent an emergency refill to the closest pharmacy (out-of-state) for one vial of Lantus. No cost to me. And the pharmacist threw in a 10-ct. bag of syringes to get me through the week.

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My insurance won’t pay for it and pharmacies profile me as an addict. I am very thin and contrary to popular misinformation not all diabetics are overweight.

Anyway that night you should have been allowed to go buy your Lantus OTC that night and then got reimbursed later. Instead this wretched system made you go the night without your medicine. How did that feel ? Did you eat breakfast or run to the phone and pharmacy first ?

Did you take the Lantus that morning or go all day without to stay on schedule ?

You had a bad experience too.

Out of state big deal. They don’t get an award from me.

So far they haven’t figured a way to infringe on our right to travel just cause we need meds. Just the fact you pointed out that it was out of state shows how much Americans forgot to protect their liberties. Out of state should be so irrelevant that you would never bother mentioning it.

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I’m not overweight either. I mean, I’m not Brad Pitt or anything, but my wife thinks I take pretty good care of myself. Sorry if your pharmacy has poor customer service. I switched to a different pharmacy, with higher prices, for the better customer service.

Since I didn’t notice my insulin was missing until 11pm. . .no I didn’t take basal insulin that night. You are correct. All the pharmacies and my doctor’s office were closed.

But I’m reminded of a Mitch Hedberg bit. “I walked by a dry cleaner at 3am and saw a saw that said, ‘sorry, we’re closed.’ No need to apologize, it was 3am. It would be unreasonable of me to expect you to bet open. Not much can be done at that hour.

I did eat a big pile of bacon and eggs and black coffee, just skipped all the toast and home fries. Called my doctor’s office with the address of the local pharmacy and had a scrip by noon.

Was it inconvenient and did it make me really nervous, yes of course. But s$&% happens. I’m sure it would be easier in Canada or Norway.

I wish you the best of health and hope things get easier for you.

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I am such an argumentative pain in the ____ !

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Yes, I am familiar with Google. And I have an iPhone to tell me how to get there. (And I’m also familiar with Bing! And AltaVista from back in the day.) There were no pharmacies open near me at that time, operating public transit, and I did I not have a car at that location. Thanks for commenting on a situation, for which you were not present, and turning my intended to be light-hearted response to a post that I found humorous, into your personal diatribe. I again wish you all the best, and this will be my last response to you, bro (or sis).

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Thank you,

I am looking at options to put this energy to better use. See what diabetes advocacy groups I would like to donate time and effort too. No time for some industry funded controlled opposition.

I like giving the system hell but this is tough, I want to do advocacy without getting played by team red or blue in politics as well.

This is good for me if I do it right.

Oops, look at that. should have put it the reply all in one post.

A long, long time ago…

I used to see books that mentioned a lady stuffing something down the front of her bra. I wondered what the cultural significance of this was.

One day I went to a restaurant with a friend of mine. I gave her some papers to look at. She took a quick glance and stuffed them down the front of her bra. I suddenly realized why: She was wearing a dress with no pockets and didn’t have a pocketbook with her - she naturally assumed that I would pay for everything. She really had no other place to put things, so it was a natural thing to do.

There’s an answer to every question, if you just wait patiently.

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I’m sorry that happened, but glad that you see its humour now.

I tend to be pretty open about everything in job interviews. I will put my pump on vibrate because if people think it’s a phone, it doesn’t look good to have “notifications” coming in during a job interview. But I don’t go out of my way to hide it, nor my Medic Alert bracelet. I also walk in with a white cane, and typically bring my visual impairment up in a positive way during the interview (usually in answer to a question about problem-solving skills).

People with disabilities who are of working age have very high unemployment rates compared to people without disabilities. It is a major struggle for individuals and an unsolved problem for society. The unemployment rate is upwards of 50-70% among people who are legally blind, and I imagine fairly similar in other disability demographics. I certainly don’t think it’s a free ticket to get a job, by any means. The world is still full of stereotypes, inaccessibility, and discrimination.

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Oohhhhh! I feel for you. I’m a retired college history professor. Taught for twenty years, mostly wearing a pump. I more thane on one occasion had multiple students in class who wore pumps. Talk about comical. But this was years before this utterly annoying 670 G!

After retiring I trained to be a Blackjack dealer at the local casino. Loved the job but diabetes made it impossible. Alarms were crazy. You cannot touch anything when dealing cards! Nothing! So, after working so diligently to make sure I wouldn’t alarm within an hour before a break, inevitably SOMETHING would alarm. It would start slowly, quietly. And then!

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My brother has this pump. He says to go to AUDIO OPTIONS and Turn Off the Audio so that it is simply on Vibrate. On the Vibrate setting, all alarms should vibrate but extreme alarms (like if you are dropping too low) will still sound. The 670g GuideBook should help more specifically.

Sorry this happened to you during an interview! I’ve been in similar situations and when things like that happen I get worried that the interviewer will perceive me as an undesirable hire because diabetes is considered a disability. But a negative attitude like that won’t get anyone anywhere.

Good Luck!

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Well, maybe not a super funny joke, since it’s inaccurate. People with disabilities remain largely discriminated against in hiring, not prioritized:

For example (all recent studies/papers):
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0019793917717474

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And that doesn’t even address accessibility challenges once someone is hired. It doesn’t matter how accommodating and open-minded an employer and colleagues are when the very infrastructure of the world is inaccessible. Something I could go on about all day…

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There is more than one side to these issues. I have dozens of employees who are completely useless that I can’t possibly get rid of because they self identify with some sort of protected class…

And I have many employees with legitimate disabilities who do a great job with or without accommodations…

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