Remember that your employer is not required to give you paid time off, or change your basic job assignment, and if being present at the workplace is essential to your job function, you may not get an accommodation in this area. Anything that is essential to your main job functions need not be accommodated away.
There were several questions raised in comments to last week's article that are worth mentioning.
- Pam asked about working in a High School with fluorescent lighting. Under the standards above, filtering or changing the lighting in Pam's own classroom or work area, along with allowing her to wear sunglasses indoors, would be reasonable accommodations. Asking the school to change all its lighting would probably be expensive enough to be considered an "undue hardship."
- Hcampbell asked about working as bus attendant for autistic teens who scream and trigger her Migraines. Possible accommodations might be wearing noise cancelling headphones if she could still perform her job with them, or reassignment to another bus if there is a particular child who is the problem, or arranging time off. However, if dealing with the screaming is essential to her job functions as an attendant to autistic teens, there may not be an accommodation for this issue.
You may need to negotiate. Open a dialog with your employer. Speak with your Human Resources department. Your employer may not know that you have a real neurological disease that entitles you to protection under the ADA. You may need to let them know.
Ultimately the way you enforce your rights under the ADA is to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. That's a last resort - first I hope that knowledge of the law can help you find a way to stay at work.
*** This sharepost is legal education, not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created. ***
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