Giving descriptions/Recognizing Faces
thechadmaster
Veteran
Joined: 13 Feb 2005
Age: 37
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,126
Location: On The Road...Somewhere
I work in a convenience store. From time to time we have people who drive off without paying for their gasoline. Procedure dictates we call the police department, provided we have a license plate number and description of the vehicle.
The other day, a twist got thrown in. The officer showed up and asked not only for the vehicle description, but the description of the suspect. I told him that i am terrible with faces but he was a white male between 25and40. The cop kept pressing me for details, but my mind draws a blank when it comes to faces, he showed me a picture of the suspect, which looked somewhat similar, but since i could not say with absolute certainty it was him, they would not prosecute.
As far as company policy goes, as long as we get a plate and description of the vehicle, the cash loss will not count against us. Im concerned that soon enough they will demand a description of the perp.
I did not disclose my AS to my employer or to the physician performing the pre-employment physical. I feared not getting the job, and other than my face-recognition issues, i am thriving at that job, i was named assistant manager six months after being hired.
Could i be fired for disclosing/having my AS? The nature of the job requires employees to be physically and mentally "strong" considering that we work alone 90% of the time, and there are no breaks, regardless of the length of the shift. If i had a meltdown(hypothetically), there would be nobody else there to take care of the customers, and i would certainly be found incapable of doing the job.
_________________
I don't know what the future holds, but I know Who holds the future.
thechadmaster
Veteran
Joined: 13 Feb 2005
Age: 37
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,126
Location: On The Road...Somewhere
Is it in this case though? No reasonable accomodation could be made, customers do not believe in "accomodations" they just want service and they want in NOW!
To be clear, there is no indication that my lack of face recog. skills are threatening my job, and my AS has become much milder over the years, im posting this purely as a hypothetical situation for fellow WPers, i have no plan to disclose, now or in the future.
I just believe in certain cases, an employer may have grounds to terminate disabled employees. Think, How many mentally ret*d neurosurgeons are there? How many soldiers are on the front lines in Iraq who are in wheelchairs? How many epileptic pilots are there?
Not many.
_________________
I don't know what the future holds, but I know Who holds the future.
I have a similar problem. I work at basically a toll booth for the US government. Stuff happens and the only thing I can remember is stuff that makes no sense to any of our law enforcement. However, everything we do is on camera. If you're assistant manager, you may be able to do something about getting a camera installed. We're looking at improvements and it's looking like it'd be about $4000 per professional grade security camera. We used to have a really bad system that went directly to a vcr and we had to replace the tapes daily, erasing the tapes after a week. You could make a case for that being helpful for making sure the employees are behaving themselves, and for safeguarding them too. I've had a couple of instances where I've pointed to the camera and then unruly persons have calmed down. It's a decent solution for everyone involved.
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