@catapillar if you were up for a role in your company where they needed somebody who could, at a moments notice, fly off to Switzerland to do something, work through the night on it and take a flight the next day (again at a moments notice) to the US to do something similar, you wouldn't be considered. Well, I say that. You would be considered "on paper", but anyone else applying who could justifiably take on that role would get it over you. Why? Because why would any employer want to take on someone to carry out a role when they had had experience of them (or people like them) ......
- taking days off for hypos
- taking days for medical courses
- taking days off for medical appointments
- insisting on eating at certain times religiously
- insisting on their personal routine never being altered
(the above being just a few things that I have personally seen Diabetics do. I could list even more ridiculous things I have seen people on here say they do)
Diabetes soon goes from being the condition I know it to be (a manageable, condition that should not impact on others) to a condition where people think that any missed meal will lead to a fit and a hypo means you need hours to recover. By the way, a bottle of lucozade is absolutely fine to fix a hypo on the way to work.
As I said before, all of the laws in the land cannot prevent an employer from picking someone over you if they give a good enough reason. Good enough reasons can be as easy as "We felt they were a better fit" and unless you can get your hands on detail by detail stats to compare you with the successful candidate, your Equality Act 2010 means ****** all. You might not like it, but that is a fact.
While I don't think the Act is a bad idea in its entirety, it is the same as letting children know they have rights at school (and we have seen what that has done to behaviour in schools in the last 20 years). People take the **** whenever they can. Whenever I have been employed, I have worked in high pressure roles similar to the one described above. There was no room to show flaws and I didn't need to. Yes, my employers have known I am diabetic. But if I have needed to attend an appointment, I have worked it around my job (when you are flying a lot, that is hard). I haven't just taken whatever appointment they have given me, I have made sure I have only attended the essential ones (we all know some are a complete waste of time and could be done over the phone) and I have made sure that if anyone has been put out, it has been me. It is
MY condition, not my employer's or my colleagues'. That has been entirely workable, has allowed me to do pretty much whatever I have wanted to do (with regard to my career) and has not created a bad name for diabetics.
If disability could be assessed on an individual basis, then I really wouldn't care. I wouldn't be potentially dragged down by the actions of diabetics who want to coast or be carried by others. The way the system works is that it drags people down to the lowest common denominator. I'm with you on the ridiculous "courses" the NHS make people go on to get pumps. For anyone with even an average IQ, all that would be needed is a flyer and an algorithm (I used to count carbs with the aid of a little "carb book" when I was about 8). But because we live with this system of bringing everything down to that of the lowest ability, we suffer. The system should be engineered to drag everybody up, not down.
With regard to holidays, no it isn't insurance. One of the holidays was the Inca Trail. I had to get a medical form filled out. A doctor won't do that for free. They charge £50 where I am. So I had to attend 2 appointments; 1 for the doctor to talk with me about the holiday (could have been done on the phone) and the other to pick up the documentation that had been filled out a week later. The form had no more than 5 lines on it telling the holiday company what my medication was and doses. When I arrived on the tour, the guide didn't even know he had diabetic. The whole reason for that form is the litigious world we live in where people blame others for their own issues.