The title is a pretty accurate summation of my situation, but here's the nuts & bolts of it:
I work as a work at home call center agent for a very large financial institution. As part of the hiring process where you're asked to fill in the voluntary ADA form, I indicated that I am physically disabled, require a wheelchair in public, & that being required to work on site would be very difficult for me. As part of the hiring process, I had to come on site through the front entrance, which is absolutely not ADA compliant. I nearly collapsed from exhaustion & pain using my cane to get inside.
Due to COVID, you have to be cleared by HR to come on site for any reason. Also until recently, the schedule adherence policy was beyond absurd, to the point where if you went to the bathroom at any time other than your scheduled break, you would be given adherence penalties unless you stay after your shift has ended & make up any time you have missed. You were allowed to have a daily maximum of 1% deviation from your schedule, including breaks & lunches. Now, we are “allowed” to have our breaks & lunches deviate from our schedule, but we have to get approval from our supervisor. While my personal supervisor has been very accommodating, the fact that I technically need his permission to use the bathroom any time other than my pre-approved schedule is insulting in the extreme.
Now comes the ADA issues. I have severe high blood pressure, & take medication to keep it under control. I have provided my supervisor & HR with the required documentation under ADA guidelines. My job is very stressful, which exacerbates the main side effect of my medication, ie, it causes me to frequently use the bathroom. The other main side effect of my medication is drowsiness, which can slow down my call times. I have nodded off a few times for approximately 10 to 30 seconds on calls. The amount of time we are allowed to have on each call is approximately 360 seconds, or six minutes. We are told as much as possible to force customers to accept self-service options, even if they've been on hold for nearly an hour. While I can & do complete a lot of my calls within 3 minutes, because it's a major financial institution, we attract a lot of Ken's & Karen's. If I get one of those calls, it can take almost 30 minutes or longer to complete those calls. The online banking calls can take up to an hour, due to us lacking the tools needed to troubleshoot issues, & having to play an obnoxious game of telephone through a supervisor to reach out to to tech through a chat support only they have access to. I have gone round & round with my personal supervisor about those kinds of calls. He agrees that I lack all the tools & access I need to take those effectively, but always comes back with “Everyone else manages to do those calls in the time required, so why can't you?”.
Now we get to the matter of the call volume itself. Anyone who has worked in a call center knows or can understand the term super priority queue. For those who don't, it means there is literally zero down time between calls. Need to sneeze or cough? Too bad, next call's coming in. Need to get a drink of water? Too bad, next call's coming in. Need to finish your notes from the last call? Too bad, next call's coming in. The last customer suddenly hung up on you after calling you an obscene, sometimes racist slur because you can't waive their late fees after not paying their bill for three months & you need a moment to collect yourself? Too bad, next call's coming in. Also, God forbid if you ask for any help on calls for any reason other than a supervisor required verification issue, or even try to help a fellow agent. You immediately get yelled at in the public chat to get back to your call. Also, if you're on your call more than six minutes, a supervisor starts putting you on blast in the public chat, distracting you from your call. If you don't respond enough, you get pulled off calls to get yelled at for not responding to inquiries about why you're taking too long on your calls. Lastly, the primary call center interface is completely web based, & is less stable than Windows Millennium Edition. I have to reach out to Tech Support multiple times a day, just to get permission to run the sel-repair & diagnostic tools to clear the web cache. If I don't, each call can literally take up to a full minute to load into the interface, further complicating things.
TL;DL version: I'm about to lose my job in a very toxic work environment, where my supervisor & HR have intentionally neglected or delayed their responsibilities under the ADA regarding my physical & health issues. If I get fired, should I drop the dime on them for violating federal laws?