I started a consulting job recently and my new digs are a windowless office in the basement of a building with fluorescent overhead and task lighting.
 
“I’ll just need a floor-standing, incandescent light”, I said breezily to my new employer. After all, I only faint rarely now – usually not at work – and I had somehow filed “asking for accommodations” under the same category as “being a bother.”
 
The department obligingly got me a floor-standing incandescent light for my office. With its brushed nickel finish and beautiful milk glass shade, it looked as if it belonged in a designer showroom, more than an office. I put it together and switched it on. If I stand directly underneath it, you can almost see my face. If I’m a meter away from it, I need to wear one of those reflective construction vests so you can find me in the cave-like darkness.
 
So, whenever a student comes in to see me, I switch on the fluorescents. And, rather than being completely focused on my client, I have to admit that part of my brain is elsewhere. It makes me more than a little edgy and distracted to constantly wonder if this will be the appointment where I do a face plant in somebody’s résumé?
 
As you transition to part-time, summer, internship or post-graduation work, you may find yourself in a similar spot. Often, students have been well accommodated in their educational institutions and — like me, after years of those ideal circumstances — you may have become almost oblivious to the accommodations that allow you to perform optimally. You might even assume that you need the same accommodations in the workplace that you had in school. But, you might be wrong.
 
Human rights legislation in Canada maintains that employers have a duty to accommodate (to a point of undue hardship) once a disability is disclosed. Basically, this means that they’re not mind-readers and may not be held accountable for not providing accommodations if you haven’t told them you need them.
 
But, as you get settled into a new workplace, you may find yourself realizing that you need different or increased accommodations — even though you may have already had that first accommodations conversation with your employer during the interview or offer stage.
 
Yes, I have the required and requested incandescent light in my office. But it’s turned out to be not quite enough. And I find myself lying awake, dithering about asking for more┬à and risking the conversation that delves into the personal parts of my disability.
 
“What’s actually wrong with you? Why can’t you use fluorescents?”
 
Once it’s daylight again and I’ve regained my sense of reason, I remember that worrying about telling them that there’s a Zombie Girl in their midst with blue fingernails, a barely palpable heart rate and a strong tendency to swoon like a 19th century book character, is actually silly. I don’t have to reveal my slightly undead leanings in order to receive accommodations. And I’m not being a “bother.” The law says so. In fact, in Canada, you (and your doctor, if required) need only say that “you have a disability and it requires accommodation X, Y, Z.” This allows you some measure of privacy, especially useful if you feel that your disability has any kind of stigma — or Zombie connotations — associated with it.
 
Now that I’ve worked up the nerve to ask for more lamps, I’ll no longer be doing business from my cave, which is too bad in a way┬à... I was just starting to like my day-glo construction vest. jp
 
Christine Fader is a career counsellor at Queen's University and the author of Career Cupid: Your Guide to Landing and Loving Your Dream Job. She was a voting member of the Accessibility Directorate of Ontario’s Employment Standards Development Committee as it developed new legislation for accessible employment in Ontario.