Maria’s job required her to walk to a copier, located on the opposite side of the building, several times a day. The copier was shared by virtually everyone in the office. Now, the walk to and from the copier for you or me would be easy and perhaps would be viewed as a little bit of exercise. For Maria, however, it was a time consuming and, in my view, an exhausting undertaking.
Maria’s supervisor, a competent and caring individual, came to me shortly after Maria’s disclosure to her and requested that we move the copier to the other side of the office so that Maria would not have to walk so far several times a day. From a practical and logistical standpoint it was certainly a reasonable request, and my first instinct was to say, “Sure, let’s look into it.” But then I caught myself and asked, “Did Maria request this?” Maria, in fact, had not requested that the copier be moved; it was the supervisor acting unilaterally out of the “goodness of her heart.” In light of that my response was, “No.”
Like so many of our actions, moving the copier would have resulted in a number of consequences that we neither intended or even anticipated. For example, everyone in the office would know, or think they knew, why we had moved the copier. For all intents and purposes we might just as well have put a flashing neon sign above Maria stating, DISABLED!
I don’t know if Maria ever considered herself disabled. All I know is that she came to work every day and did her job without asking for any favors or concessions, and never spoke about her condition, much less play off of it for some advantage.
