notsureifdis

> Since that time I always have doubt whether to point out to someone that they took a disabled parking spot. The way I handle it now is by asking someone who leaves a car, who doesn't look disabled, if they need some help (instead of pointing out that they are assholes). If they are indeed disabled, they won't mind, if they aren't - they feel like assholes :)

You should just stop bothering because it’s really not your place or any of your business.

I say this as someone who took care of my mother during cancer treatments. I drove her to her clinics/hospitals and she had a difficult time walking from the parking lot to the door, so we were able to get a handicap parking thing issued to hang on the rear view mirror. It helped her tremendously that I could park the car basically right at the door and we could both go in together. I never abused the label and removed it when I wasn’t driving her around, but every time she was in the car with me and we went somewhere I hung it up. There were times when she/I forgot something in the car and I had to go out to go get it. There were times when people like you would have seen me lightly jogging to the car to get something and running back in. You would have asked me if I needed help and apparently I “should feel like an asshole.” You would have asked me if I needed help and if I didn’t ignore you you would have wasted my time trying to bring in papers or my mom’s purse or something. And if I did ignore you because I was in a hurry you might have tweeted about me taking up a handicap parking, when you know absolutely nothing about the situation.

When she was recovering and was able to drive herself, she took the decal and used the handicap parking as well. She was able to walk around normally and you wouldn’t have thought she was handicapped in anyway, but she still had respiratory issues and was physically weak that walking far was difficult. You would have been one of those people pointing out to her that she was an asshole.

I have a history of depression and ADHD, and I take (two different) meds for them and regular therapy for the depression. I’m also looking for jobs right now and I see this voluntary self-identification question all the time. It states it won’t hurt me, and I think it usually mentions they want to know so that they can report that they hire x% of people with disabilities.

So far I’ve always answered “no” because I feel like this is one of those things that shouldn’t hurt my chances, but in practice will. Either on purpose (manager passing me for someone “normal” and making up some other excuse if questioned) or cause of subtle bias (manager seeing yes and jumping to conclusions subconsciously).