I recently applied for an At Home Advisor position with Apple. This is a work-from-home customer service / tech support role taking inbound calls from users of Apple products. I got called by a recruiter for a brief phone interview, during which I disclosed that I was legally blind and use a screen reader. Long story short, I made it through a second interview over FaceTime and the recruiter seemed very enthusiastic, saying she would be advancing me to the next round in the process and to watch for an email link where I could schedule the next interview. That email never came. Instead, the recruiter called me a week later essentially saying she checked into the accessibility of the software the Advisors use and at this time it does not work with screen readers. The best she could offer me was a large monitor. I was shocked and disheartened. Apple, the shining beacon of hope for accessibility, the groundbreaking company that opened a whole new world up to the blind, couldn't accommodate a blind candidate for their entry level customer service role! How can this be? Has anyone else had any experience seeking employment with Apple? I do know they give the Advisors a Mac laptop for use at home, so I'm guessing they use some kind of virtual desktop system which is notoriously challenging for blind users... but still -- this is Apple! If anyone would have this all figured out it'd be them, right?
Comments
Accusations of entitlement
@Toonhead
Against my better judgment, I’m replying to a comment on my own post from over seven years ago now, but I felt I needed to say something because the conversation is still relevant. I’d forgotten about this post but somebody recently replied so I got an email notification and decided to peruse the replies, just to refresh my memory on the conversation. Most everything Was positive or at least productive debate, with one exception. The reply from somebody by the name of Toonhead some years ago.
Disclaimer that you didn’t specifically say you were referring to me, the original poster, in your reply, but given you didn’t specify anybody else, I’m going to make that assumption. If you are still active on this board and would like to clarify that further, please feel free.
I have to be honest. I find it very frustrating when fellow blind people accuse other blind people of being entitled for simply wanting equal access to employment. I saw a bumper sticker when I was a kid that said, “equal rights are not special rights,” and I think that perfectly summarizes my position on this subject. Wanting to be able to apply to a damn entry-level job and actually be able to physically do the job doesn’t seem like entitlement to me. It’s not like I was trying to be a truck driver or airplane pilot, here. It’s a sit on your butt, put a headset on and use a computer job — something that should be well within reach of people using screen readers or other accessibility tools.
I guess I don’t really have much else to say about it. Equal rights are not special rights, and wanting to have the same access as sighted people is not entitlement. As to the accusation that I didn’t genuinely want the job and just wanted to complain, I think that’s completely unfair and a mischaracterization of my original comment and some of the other replies I’ve left since.
Anyway, the person responsible for the Reply is probably long gone by now and I’m probably just yelling into the void, but once I came across it, I couldn’t not address it.
Progress is slow
While there is still plenty of room for improvement, I definitely think things are much improved over the 90's. Even in the history of this post, it looks like there has been some improvement over the past 7 years. Again, improvement is still needed but it is not quite as bad as it once was.
Remote Incident Manager
Now that RIM is available for Mac, there's no longer an excuse. I imagine this would be a reasonable accommodation. I'm no longer interested in working with Apple because I don't think I'd agree with their culture, but I wish anyone else the best of luck.
Yeah, ok.
I went a bit to far there but it's frustrating knowing I won't be a plumber, I won't go out and cut trees and so on all because I'm blind.
I was born this way and don't usually get depressed about it but sometimes, I wish things were diffirent.
Perhaps it will never happen in my lifetime but I hope AI comes so far that people are able to see using it. I think they will one day, I just don't know when that day is.