I can handle a lot of problems but this seemingly innocuous change at work angers me. I am a janitor; it’s easy and pays well and a lot of other things are good about it at this point in my life. The company that hires me caters specifically to disabled people. Sometimes they hire veterans. But I knew the office workers in the building I work in didn’t really know if I was disabled or not. They don’t necessarily know a lot about our crew or our company. Heck, I worked with my supervisor for 6 months and even he thought I was a veteran (and not disabled). But yesterday at work, they handed out new name tags that are mandatory for all of our crew to wear.
The badges have our name, a picture of us, the name of our company…and at the bottom it has a logo that reads “Smith Enterprises: Servicing disabled people since 1977”. WTH??? Now I have to walk around all day with something that announces to all these people who have treated me normal for years, that I have a disability. And all the strangers that often come through. I can’t believe it. I will take it in stride but it sucks. I think my company wasn’t thinking this through or maybe they hired new management who are ignorant about matters like this.
I don’t like your new name tag. It’s nobody’s business that you have a disability and it puts you in a compromising position because people may be inclined to say “what’s your disability?” and what do you say? You could say I have a mental illness. They may stigmatise even that. But I’d hazard a guess that if you were really honest and said you had sz that might potentially really stigmatise you.