Since I've been a blogger, I've worried about posting my workplace woes online, afraid that someone would read them and I'd be fired, yelled at, or relegated to the nearest closet to eek out my already-miserable employed existence. After much thought and deliberation on the to-post-or-not-to-post dilemma, I've come to one simple conclusion.

The truth is what it is, and sometimes the truth hurts.

Each of the scenarios that follow is true, and actually happened to me. There have, of course, been more than just these, but I post them here mostly to vent, and to share what I have learned in the past (nearly) 4 years at my job, which is that an equal employment opportunity office is not always efficient at obeying the laws and regulations it has been established to uphold.

When I was hired to work for the federal government, I came to a building that was not accessible to people with mobility disabilities. There were no automatic doors on the building, and my office which was on the 8th floor, did not even have an accessible stall. I was unable to even enter the door to my office, as I needed both hands (one to swipe my id and the other to open the door). With crutches, my hands are perpetually full, so opening the door was perpetually...impossible.

All of these things were minor setbacks which were remedied eventually. The restroom and outside doors were made accessible before I came on board, but the inside office door was inaccessible to me for two years. Despite alerting management to this fact early on, the door was fixed only after the office adjacent to ours decided that they did not want to leave their doors open to accommodate me, that it was my office's job to do so, and that leaving their doors open to the public was subjecting them to a substantial security risk. I did not disagree and was happy to have the automatic button installed so I could let myself into the office.

Despite being able to get past some of the physical barriers to my job, attitudinal barriers I have encountered have been harder to overcome. My office is not an easy place to work, being composed of mostly women. Pettiness and gossip can sometimes abound. Attitudinal attacks are also a struggle.

As Prince said, "You don't have to watch Dynasty to have an attitude." And boy, do these women know it.

I have been yelled at by the Director of my office in a public setting--twice-- the most notable occasion for accidentally handing out an old evaluation sheet in a training, which asked participants to anonymously identify their race, age, and gender. Our office keeps the data for demographic purposes only, so we can know exactly who attends our training. It is under lock and key. Only we see it. Such data collection is not against the law, and is regularly kept by thousands of entities. I know this.

My Director, however, who is not a lawyer and did not go to law school, told me that day that I had "broken the law and undermined the integrity of the entire program" by asking for this data. I merely apologized for my mistake and told her it would not happen again. I later took a copy of the Privacy Act to her, citing the relevant passages that would allow us to gather demographic data. She still disagreed and has never apologized for yelling at me in front of my co-workers or using such harsh language to this day.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering if I should sue Apple for violation of the Privacy Act for asking my race, age, and gender when I purchased my last iPhone...

When I started my job, I worked with equal employment discrimination complaints and typed acceptance/dismissal letters for those complaints on a regular basis. Because I am a one-handed typist (and somewhat slow) I had requested voice dictation software for my computer. I have had the same software at every other job I've had, public and private, and I still don't have it here. The Director had agreed to help me request it through our computer-electronic accommodations program, but when I approached my supervisor, she was more skeptical. She rolled her eyes at me when I told her why I thought I needed the software, and made a comment when she saw me waiting for my ride after work.

"You say you need help typing but you sure are good at texting on that phone, " she quipped. I do have the software now, but have been given the runaround as to who can install it and when. Honestly, I've lost interest.

Another supervisor of mine had a similar sort of reaction when I asked for help carrying a three-ringed binder from the file room to my desk.

She shoved the binder into an intern's hands and said, "Can you carry this.... because Jessica doesn't want to?"

No one ever said I didn't want to carry the binder. Believe me, I do, I'd love to be able to carry a binder at my job, a tray at a restaurant, a friend's baby in church. But with crutches... I'm afraid carrying is a little difficult.

And my inability to carry isn't the only thing that gets me grief around here. Just the other day, the administrative assistant shoved a laptop cord into my hands after I had used our office laptop for a presentation, proclaiming that I didn't roll it properly. The cord was rolled around the adapter tight enough that it wouldn't unravel, I just wasn't able to slip the velcro around the plug.

When I explained to her that I had trouble with the motion necessary to roll the cord the way she wanted, because of the spasticity in my hands, she rolled her eyes as though she didn't believe me, and followed her reaction with, "Well, I don't care who you get to roll it, but it better be rolled properly before you give it back to me."

While the statements above smack of intent to demean, I'm not always certain that is the case. I try to give those I work with the benefit of the doubt, regardless of what they should know about being equal employment practitioners or even just professionals in any workplace. I have questioned so often what makes people think they are justified in their reactions to others, and in saying things the way they say them? Are they considering the other person at all when they react?

I tell myself that words and reactions are not always intentional, and that it is going to take time and effort to change attitudes toward differences (especially disabilities) since I work in an able-bodied culture. There are times when an attitude can sneak into a conversation with blistering stealth.

Whether it happens when my boss emphasizes the word "neatly" every time she asks me to write something in print or she inadvertently talks about me "dragging myself around the Pentagon." Whether it's when the admin assistant gives me a look after I explain to her that it is difficult for me to cut up and glue tiny strips of paper because my hands have spastic movements. Or whether it's when a co-worker says, "I love your dresses, but I'm always expecting you to have cute shoes.... and then I look down..."

People don't always mean what they say, exactly the way they say it, and being in my job I know that communications are more often misdelivered or mistaken than not. But how many flubs is too many? And when is it ok to wonder whether something is more than inadvertent. I mean, even if someone only makes one Freudian slip... shouldn't I use it as an opportunity to educate??

It's just hard to gingerly bring up that these comments and actions hurt since they happen so often. I just keep telling myself to have a thicker skin, because I don't want others to walk on eggshells around me. When can I speak my mind, and am I justified in speaking?? If I were someone else, I'd say, "Absolutely." But as my own advocate... I'm skittish, and I just don't know.