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DISABILITIES
When Kindness to People with Disabilities Is Not a Desirable Thing
Oh, the mixed feelings…
A fire drill was announced in my office building earlier this week.
I was not looking forward to it because I have very sensitive hearing in one ear, and I hate, hate, hate loud fire alarms.
For this fire drill, I made plans to exit the building before the godawful alarms were scheduled to go off. So did the rest of my visually-impaired co-workers.
The morning of the drill, people in my office received an email message letting us know that one of the fire wardens would be available to guide mobility-impaired staff out of the building.
None of us are mobility impaired; what we are is sight impaired. But whatever. When I received the email, I didn’t know where staff were supposed to gather after exiting the building, so at first I was glad of the assistance.
Then I started thinking about it.
We’re all adults, and we’re all experienced with having visual impairments. We know how to use white canes, how to guide each other, and how to feel our way if we don’t have a cane. We even know to crawl on the floor if there’s smoke in the air.