Interviewing a T1 for a job

Legally, you cannot ask about health issues during an interview. Nothing prevents an applicant from bringing it up though, and if an applicant brings up an issue that can’t be asked about, the interviewer is then permitted to ask follow up questions. However, it’s all something to be cautious about.

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But then a lot of people (with or without D) look great on paper - but in reality aren’t all that great.

Agreed.
Leave the T1 out for a minute.
Does it sound like a list of excuses why this person wont be available when the team needs them?
Personally - If I wasn’t the hiring manager I would NOT take the interview as it sound like a " HR test". If this person would be a team member and you would be impacted, spend the time to list the criteria/skills for the job in a checklist to grade the persons ability to perform the job/work.

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My thinking exactly. I worked with 3 type 1s and more type 2 who were valuable parts of our team. None of them used their diabetes to burden the rest of us. Most of the non-diabetics weren’t aware of their condition. We learn how to do our duty and cope with our disease. These things are not unrelated.

Without more data than what has been posted, I would think this person is not anyone I would want to depend. It appears to me that if they weren’t diabetes, there would be something else.

I would like to see references our their past work history or if a newly graduate, from the relevant professors, especially lab instructors. One needs to be able to do the work and to be able to work and play well with others.

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In my mind the company attorney is a better person to sit in on the 2nd interview than you…this is a potential minefield. If they haven’t already involved an attorney, you may want to suggest that they do so before Jan. 3rd.

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The company lawyers are aware of the situation.
I often sit in on interviews. Esp in this department because we work closely together.
I have also done the interviews when the hiring manager for that group was not available.
Its usual for me to be there. I generally don’t question the candidates if they are not working under me.

But yes I was asked to be there because I have some experience with type 1.
I will only be listening in over zoom on this one.

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First I have to second that if she brings up anything medical, I’m sure the lawyers might discuss the option with the interviewer, but personally I would handle it as saying I am aware of your concerns…with no comments about it at all. That would be opening Pandoras box.

It strikes me as

  1. Might not really want the job or
  2. Just graduated and someone has told her to be upfront about everything she could need or
  3. Starting with a “me” chip on her shoulder or
  4. Wants to use it later when not hired to sue

None are which are a good thing…
of course none of which she put down can be used to determine if she gets the job
and I would, lol, delete this whole thread/blog or move it to the lounge as these posts can come up under searches on google etc

After one employee I had I am very leery of what some people can be and do. Luckily I only ever had one employee like that and it was later in life lol!

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When I was first diagnosed I let many at my company know. At the time I didn’t know how often if ever I would have a dangerous high or low and need someone around me to know what’s going on.

Now years later I don’t mention it to new people, I’ve never needed help and don’t think its very likely I will.

I’m sure she’s right about employers needing to make accommodations but I think its very odd the way she expressed it on her resume, I would be concerned.

If I have to attend a meeting I bring my tablets if I need some sugar, I don’t just walk out and make lunch. I also bring my insulin pen and if needed would take insulin during a meeting.

I don’t think I’ve ever had to take insulin during a work meeting and probably ate a glucose tablet 2-3 times over the last 3 years (not often).

It’s always good to document the reasons a candidate was rejected, just in case.

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Maybe I’m just super cynical but it sounds to me like the person in question is trying to poison the hiring process so she can meet application requirements to continue collecting unemployment.

As for my story I let my direct supervisor and HR department know I had been diagnosed as a T1 diabetic. I also told my direct coworkers what they should do if they saw me hunched over on my desk, aside from that I said nothing to anyone.

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That’s a really good point, @Tim12. That has gotten my attention in the past. I’ve never been sure how diabetics manage this in an environment that is highly micromanaged.

I think its really good that you all are looking at this issue with a lot of consideration about your role in advocating for people like you versus advocating for your company. It gets complicated. I don’t find it to be very ‘black and white’ at all.

I think that when I worked with EMTs, I saw it more as an advocacy issue because me being open about diabetes helped them understand the patient experience better. I think it promoted empathy for patients and a deeper understanding of diabetes. My people were more comfortable with diabetic patients as a result. If they ever felt uncertain about how to treat a diabetic, they would just call me. It was beneficial for everyone.

Now that I’m working in a different context, I feel less certain about the ‘right’ way to do things and what advocacy means in this context. Its helpful to listen to you all think through things like this. Thanks for posting the question, @Timothy. I find everyone’s perspective useful.

Let me play devils advocate for a minute.

This is a community of people who have a lot of experience communicating about illness (We all do a LOT of communicating and we are good at it). This is a community that has a LOT of VERY high performing patients who have done a lot of deep introspection over many years on the topic. We ruminate on this stuff as a hobby.

This resume might be someone’s first effort at trying to communicate about disability in the workplace. This person might have had a host of very negative experiences impacting employment as a result of diabetes. Those experiences may or may not have been her fault. She may not be able to untangle the degree to which she had or had no control over those experiences. I think she is trying to untangle a complicated narrative of her history with diabetes in the workplace. I think that can be difficult to do and difficult to communicate about. She is but one person (perhaps) without the benefit of a community to discuss it with. I think that situation is quite common and people are not born good at communicating about illness, in general. I know that I have written some things in my life that were poorly communicated and it took practice to solidify my own perspective and its a process that never really ends. This might be the ONLY time she has EVER had opportunity to put into writing ANYTHING about diabetes.

Something in her history has made her mad. We get mad all the time here. Lots of things about diabetes make us mad. I think that because of that, she is making special effort to advocate for herself. I think that’s OK, in general. Particularly now, there might be a lot of diabetics who felt like their safety was compromised by an employer during covid. There seems to be a lot of anger built up in the general population against employers. It is what it is.

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Something I can’t answer (and is very individual) is - to what degree is people’s anger against employers justified? I know that when covid struck, there were issues that popped up (off the forum’s public posts) about people loosing their jobs as a direct result of disability (through no fault of their own). Nothing happened, other than that a company needed to lay people off and they picked easy targets left and right.

Its hard for me to say what proportion of our community was impacted by stuff like that. I suspect it plays some role in ‘the Great Resignation.’ I suspect that the US workforce might be handing something to some employers that they do actually deserve. Disloyal company cultures promote employee disloyalty. It runs both ways. Companies with good culture reap benefits during times like this. Look how many people are quitting medical professions now? That culture impacts their employees in the same way it has impacted patients for years. Eminem - Business (Original) HQ - YouTube

Everything is restructuring and business isn’t keeping up. Long term, I expect the experience of illness to be good for business. I think that experience with illness makes us better people. I hope business comes out better, too.

I have read many of the comments here, and only can add a few comments/observations. I worked as a lab head/hiring manager in both academia and industry with T1D since the age of 12 (retired now). The majority of that time I had clean room facility and laboratory/biology/chemistry lab. That is by way of background for my comments.

  1. It is late in the discussion, but under no circumstances should you be participating in the interview. She should be evaluated by a medical professional who has authority to make a medical judgement of her suitability to carry our the duties she will be assigned. And, as a correlate, a health and safety officer. Not you!
    If your company does not have a medical or NIOSH person, then hire a consultant.

I have never brought up to any of my hiring/line management that I was T1D. Like you it was organic that people found out. At no time was I ever asked to sit in on an interview as you have have been requested. (See below).

  1. She is not covered as disabled under the ADA. The Supreme Court has ruled on this. Therefore, she cannot expect accommodation. Her insistence on this point is an attempt at intimidation.

  2. Does she have suitable training, experience, and knowledge, to perform her duties. If this is not a temp position, then she should be evaluated on the basis of a long term employment with potential to grow and advance/promoted. That is up to her line management.
    Her letter is a reflection on this. If she is not promoted, was it due to lack of accommodation for her health needs (not disability). Her letter suggests a level of immaturity, and entitlement.

  3. Is she someone who will have suitable judgement and decision making abilities. At every level of employment this is critical for filling out notebooks, signing off on same, carrying out protocols to the letter.

So my comments are really limited to the view of a hiring manager, and someone whose duties are employ the best and most capable person for the job.

So, good luck on this.

Mike

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She is covered as a diabetic under ADAAA. We all are. I always forget this acronym and my impulse is to call it ADADADADADA. Its a tough acronym - its the ADA + revisions. Let me try and find a really interesting history about this. Since you are HR, here’s the formal regulations (which I have not read).

Has anyone read that article on how diabetes became listed as a disability? It talks about the airline pilot who wore glasses and the “too sick for the job,” but "not sick enough,’ for disability protections paradox. Its a fascinating article that’s nicely formatted. It talks about, “invisible disability.” If you find it, your my hero. Its one of the most interesting things about diabetes I have ever read. It talks about how/why ADAAA was established.

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While that is true, I am wondering about the possible reasons that a company would not hire someone covered by the ADAAA of 2008.

I am retired, but worked in a telephony central office. We were required to be fit enough to climb ladders and to be able to lift and carry at least 50 pounds.

One of my co-workers did a permanent injury to some weird bone in his ankle doing Cross Fit. It would not heal properly and the doctor would not clear him. He took early retirement.

There is no way that anyone with a major physical disability could do the work. We had to be physically fit as well as mentally able to understand our duties.

As I said earlier, we had T1 and 2 diabetics. That was not a problem in our environment. One could have a pump, insulin pens, CGM and/or cell phone. In fact, all of us were required to have a company cell phone on our person at all times. No food or drink was allowed in the C.O., but it was easy to slip into a no restricted area if needed for a couple of minutes. I mean the smokers will drift outside to have a cigarette.

From the remarks in the cover letter, I don’t think the lab can make the accommodations this person requires, while maintaining a clean status.

I agree that there needs to be an independent medical evaluation and the consultation with a labor lawyer who has expertise in the ADAAA.

The easy and safest way would be to prove or disprove the applicant’s ability to do the work without taking the alleged T1DM needs into consideration. But, since she started with that, it is time to bring in the medical and legal guns.

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I found it!!!
Sorry it took so long.
I haven’t actually read the formal “accommodation rules” listed. She might not be asking for anything unusual. I don’t know because I haven’t read them. One of us should.

I was googling around forever trying to find this. I think we might be able to fly commercial airline flights, now. If so, that’s pretty interesting. Sorry, here’s the article. I shoveled a bunch of snow so I gotta go eat something. Its interesting, I promise you:

http://main.diabetes.org/dorg/PDFs/Advocacy/forecast-stories/2009-05-defeating-discrimination.pdf

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I scanned through this document as well as @mohe0001 ’s and cannot find anything that would answer the original question. It may be present but require an experience labor lawyer to find it.

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I’m reading this, now, @Louis3. I think I see it there. Diabetes in the Workplace and the ADA | U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

I looked at the specifics. I think she knows she needs minor accommodations and she is just stating them explicitly. I think employers have given her trouble about this.

I think she’s just stating what is legally considered ‘reasonable accommodation’ so people know upfront. If anyone would have known what constitutes that, it was us. We didn’t know. I had to look it up. I feel kinda ignorant now. This is what it states:

" Some employees may need one or more of the following accommodations:

  • a private area to test their blood sugar levels or to administer insulin injections
  • a place to rest until their blood sugar levels become normal
  • breaks to eat or drink, take medication, or test blood sugar levels"

I think I do a lot of what is stated in ADAAA for ‘reasonable accommodation,’ without knowing it.

1.) I come in a couple hours early every day to make up for any time that I might ‘waste’ eating snacks or not knowing what I’m doing or waiting on someone else to complete something so that I can do the work that follows.

2.) I prefer to do the multiple 15 min breaks things - instead of the 1 hour lunch. I just eat at my desk and tend to just eat if my BG gets low and ignore scheduled/assigned break/lunch periods. That’s always been a tricky thing with 9 hour shifts because you are required to do a 1 hour break, not multiple 15 ones. But, 15 min is exactly how long it takes to recover from low BG, so that’s more convenient. It’s safer and more practical for me to just step away for 10 min here or there. I have had employers take issue with that in highly micromanaged environments. I get around it by coming in 2 hours early. That way there is no argument that I have performed an 8 hour shift.

I guess that I could see someone who was advanced in her career just not wanting to be ‘nit picked’ about those minor things and just stating them upfront and letting the employer decide if they can accommodate (and thus interview) or not.

In highly micromanaged environments, all those ‘accommodations’ can become issues. In well managed teams, no one gives a ■■■■. They just want you to get the work done. I’ve worked in both.

I struggle to call them “accommodations,” though. I sort of just imagine these things as ‘treating someone like an adult.’

I get around calling these “accommodations,” by stating that, “I choose when I eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom because I’m an adult and I’m an American.” That usually gets a laugh - particularly in environments that are so micromanaged that they watch when you eat or go potty. Those are my warning signs that indicate I’ve got a bad employer and I will need to resign.

It’s likely she imagines that simply stating this stuff directly, upfront, helps weed out the crappy, micromanaging employers. That’s actually what she should do at an advanced stage of her career.

I think its a practical strategy. I do something similar, but in a different, less practical way. I’m changing my position on this.

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Now I’m worried that we might be so afraid of being labeled, “disabled,” that we pulled one of our own into the riptide. Its entirely possible that no one is as judgmental about the definition of disability than us. I raised this issue to a random kid working at the gas station yesterday. He kinda spazzed out and we talked for a long time. He has more severe, but invisible disability like us. I felt really bad for him. He felt really strongly that no one should ask for ‘accommodation’ ever and that its always a scam. He’s a gentleman that has needed a lot of accommodation in his life. I could tell by the bruises on his neck where someone had been trying to strangle him this week. He’s such a nice, hardworking young man who has no intention of being labeled, “disabled,” or as someone who would seek to be. That’s a young man’s fight. As we age, we are more open about what we can and cannot do. Kelly Valleau - Riptide (Vance Joy) - Fingerstyle Guitar - YouTube

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Regardless of her need for accommodations, including that as a major part of a cover letter is still a red flag, not because of accommodations, but because that’s not the function of a cover letter, so it indicates a lack of good judgment and professionalism. A cover letter should be a concise (read: 1 page total) statement of why you want this specific job and why you are good fit for this specific job/what value you bring to it (which granted is maybe true of <10% of the cover letters I read, sadly). If demographic information is relevant to that (e.g., “as someone with lived experience as a diabetic, I am particularly well suited to provide X services…”) great; otherwise it shouldn’t be there.

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