Jun
All Work and No Play
I’m getting more and more jobs offsite, at least for part of the week. This has broken up my work routine somewhat and has me out of the office a whole lot more than I used to be. Della misses the company, but not the huge meeting table that sits in my room, which she’s immediately laid claim to for her clients and customers. Problem is, now all her clients are starting to tease me as much as Della when it comes to my out-of-office escapades. “Shall we put a candle in the window for you?” one asked the other day, as I dragged myself upstairs to my desk after a long, long drive to a client site. I was thinking of sarcastically asking one or the other of them if they’d mind giving me a ride to and from work to save the cost of a candle, then realized that half of Della’s clients are as blind as she is, if not more. No, you wouldn’t need a candle then: you’d hear me screaming from miles away. No, you wouldn’t need anything more than that. I took a pass on the idea.
Della likes to blog, though. I guess she just can’t get enough of herself - ha ha! Just kidding, Della. Actually, she has a lot of friends online and some of the blogging companies have made some half-hearted attempts to make their sites more accessible. It’s tough, though, when it’s not your problem, but someone else’s. Let one of their developers try to work online after an eye test with full dilation, for example, and you’ll see how quickly they change their minds. Too bad it’s a temporary condition. After a few hours they’re back at work, as normal.
I’m always trying to find things that will help Della communicate and keep in touch with her friends and clients online. There, of course, is the big bucks route with high cost and complex blind adaptive software. This is the stuff that comes with screen readers, magnifiers, special tools, the whole nine yards. Unfortunately, you have to be independently wealthy (or have just robbed a bank) to afford one of those. Della hates them anyway. I guess that’s part of the problem, too.
Well, I had an eye exam with dilation today and as my world blurred around me I found myself browsing in a few shops in Harvard Square. I needed to stop at Radio Shack anyway, to get some good ol’ tech-ie stuff for me, but then wondered if there was anything there that might help Della out.
Hmmmm. How about an audio recorder that uploads to a computer? That way she could leave messages that way on emails and blogs. It would be a free-standing recorder that could be connected to a computer later, so she could wander with it, recording her thoughts (or cussing up a storm, depending on the mood).
Well, I took a chance and brought one home and now have to set it up so she’ll be able to use it. The interface is tiny, with an LCD screen she will never see. There are “record,” “stop,” “play,” etc. buttons so she’s be able to do that - if she could just find the buttons. We’re talking tiny, here! The dang thing’s smaller than my Blackberry.
Step one: I hied myself to a crafts store and got some of the fabric paint that Della’s got painted liberally throughout her house. It’s on the microwave buttons, on her computer keyboard, her burglar alarm, her clock-radio, everything. Big dots of garishly bright colors. Hey, it works! Cheaper than anything made specifically for blind folk. Now you’re talking mega bucks with those: thousands of dollars that most disabled (and therefore unemployed) folks won’t be easily scratching up.
We’ll give it a try, though. I’ll dap some of those paint blobs on the stop, record, etc., keys and let her feel around for the on-off-mute switch and the computer connector. They’re both on the left hand side, fortunately. Well, I’ll just be dabbing away.
Of course, I’ll need to set up the software on her computer. She’s perfectly capable of doing it, but her tolerance for frustration is a lot lower than mine, so it’s safer on the computer and on the software if we do it that way.
Well, maybe Della will have fun blabbing this way, for all the world to hear. Goodness knows, she loves to yap!
