Starbucks is being sued for firing a woman who has dwarfism. After three days of barista training, the woman was fired from an El Paso store on the same day she asked for a stool or small stepladder to perform her job.
If you read the comments (and do recommend it) make sure you clink the "all" button. There's a very thoughtful discussion going on there.
Bottom line, IMHO? Starbucks didn't make nearly enough of an effort to find a reasonable accommodation, and has a pretty lousy track record in this department. And I think it's absurd that the expected reaction should be that if they lose, more companies will be leery of hiring dwarfs or anyone else they might need to accommodate. It's so absurd. There are so many ways this could have easily been worked out, but in the end sloth motivated by no more than simple discrimination won out. The ADA is one of those laws I see as an inherent good and it's signing was one of the non-war related highlights of the Bush'41 administration and it's expansion to include a broader range of people was one of the few thing Bush'43 did right.
It's equaling amazing and depressing that there remains a group of people in this country who are afraid to ask for reasonable accommodations or feel they need to hide their handicaps (when possible) to avoid discrimination. I read all the comments in that article, and it really made for a very thoughtful, spirited discussion in which both sides were represented, but really? Starbucks is 100% in the wrong here because they didn't even try to accommodate her or find something that would work. (Couldn't she have been a dedicate cashier? Or transferred to a different Starbucks, with a larger workspace? Seems like there usually a dozen with walking difference.) I'm interested to see how this plays out. Here's hoping they draw the Liberal equivalent of a Hanging Judge.
Oh, yeah... And the best comment?
What do you expect from a company whose smallest drink is a Tall?
Why would they hire her to begin with? I would think they would have thought of the accommodations she needed ahead of time. But to hire her for three days and then adios?
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