It is all honky dory to believe that the real world outside will accept disabled persons in their midst with more compassion and patience than their regular peers. After all, the very fact that they are less endowed than us should invoke a sense of sympathy or even pity, right? Wrong!
What I have learned is that disabled employees are sometimes expected to perform just as well as the abled ones. Perhaps at the onset when they were new their colleagues tend to be more understanding but over time their expectations increase. They begin to expect the disabled colleagues to be picking up new skills as fast as they can and when that is not forthcoming they become critical. The able employees may not know that the disabled colleagues of theirs spent many years just to learn some basic skills and are also not able to learn new ones as well or as fast. Such treatment tend to give rise to grievances.
In some societies, perception of the disabled community is more matured in a sense this special people are already accepted as different and therefore treated with better respect and preference without any qualm. In such environments the disabled are accorded respect and preferential treatment that do not give rise to complaints from the normal adults. Evolving societies are learning to change their mindset. This process may take many years.
Management may have decided to give special privileges to their disabled employees. However, the workers themselves may not be as enthusiastic or charitable in their hearts. Such conflicts take time to resolve. It is necessary for open dialogs between employers and employees to resolve any misunderstanding.
Disable employees and their families are naturally aggrieved by any mistreatment or prejudice at the workplaces. It require patience and public discourse to bring this matter to the forefront, debated and resolved.
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