ADDiva first learned of the org when she saw their commercial.  The commercial itself is fine.  A woman in a wheelchair introduces us to her co-workers, and explains how all of them could be called a little “different”.  There’s a young woman with Ugly Betty fashion sense, a guy who always makes the copier spit reams of paper at him, and another guy who feels a need to shout when you’re standing right in front of him — and then with the narrator herself, who reveals that her own “difference” is that she makes terrible, awful, no-good, very bad coffee.  Ha ha!  See, you were expecting her to mention the wheelchair, but she fooled you!  Coffee!  Ha!

If you’ve ever worked with people, you’ve probably worked with these people, right?  It’s a lighthearted, not-too-challenging look at the way we categorize the strengths and weaknesses all of us have.  So, the campaign has scored a reasonably successful commercial.

Then ADDiva went to check out the web site, and found that they were offering e-cards as part of their campaign.  Here’s where things get a little weird.  The very first e-card showed a young woman at a messy desk with the label “Clearing Impaired“, and the caption: “I hid a hundred dollar bill on your desk.  Let me know if you ever find it.”

Well, the bottom dropped out of my stomach as I suffered a minor anxiety attack.  As an ADD adult, I have spent a great deal of time looking for vitally important things — including money –  in my many piles of clutter.  I also have many traumatic memories of my mean fourth grade teacher standing over me, mocking me to the rest of the class as I looked for the library book that was due yesterday, or the worksheet that had bee due last week, or the permission slip that should have been signed last night.  A snide remark about hiding money in my mess, even when made by electrons on my computer screen, is a pretty potent trigger.

As ADDiva wrote,

Ouch. That hurt.

The site that purported to lay waste to labels had just inflicted injury on the single most prevalent trait of ADHD – clutter.

She wrote them an e-mail, which she posted on her site.  She finished by saying, “maybe I’m too sensitive … or maybe they just forgot that ADD is a disability too”.

By now, my curiosity was thoroughly piqued, so I went to the site myself.  And I can say that, no, ADDiva, you are not being too sensitive; and yes, clearly they forgot that ADHD is a disability too; and furthermore, that was far from being the only problematic part of their e-card campaign.

The first, and comparatively minor, problem with the campaign is that the cards are a bit mean-spirited.  I simply can’t see myself sending anyone a card that reads “Yo, Jargon Prone” or “Dear Clearing Impaired”.  The Clearing Impaired card itself is the second problem.  As ADDiva says, it ridicules a common ADHD trait — clutter.  And I have to ask myself — does that card makes ADD adults look like valuable, productive employees?  Would you really hire someone you thought would literally lose money?  No?  Didn’t think so.

AND that takes us to problem number 3.

We’re spearheading an initiative to show that people with disabilities are normal, productive employees just like you!  And to that end we’ll … make fun of schizophrenia?  REALLY?  Apparently the people involved with this campaign are also unaware that mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, are also disabilities.

On the whole, I find this e-card campaign to be more than a little bemusing.  It’s a campaign that’s allegedly about thinking beyond labels and treating the disabled as people first, but to achieve this end, they employ thoughtless, flippant text about the characteristics of two very real disabilities (ADHD and schizophrenia).

When I actually sent the e-card to myself, I found that you have the option of deleting their “humorous message” and writing your own.  Great, so I can remove the insulting message.  Now I just have to find a good reason to send someone an e-card that starts out by saying “Hey Speakerphone Syndrome!”.  That will make sense.

Finally, when you receive the e-card, you get a message in your inbox that says “You’ve been labeled!”.  Um, great!  Then the message reads:

Addy Bell (addaptabilities@gmail.com) has labeled you!

See how they see you by picking up your eCard at http://www.thinkbeyondthelabel.com/ECards/PickupECard.aspx?ecardid=485.

We think labels get in the way, but disabilities rarely do. Think Beyond the LabelSM

About Us

Our goal is simple: To raise awareness that hiring people with disabilities makes good business sense. Employees with disabilities have unique, competitively relevant knowledge and perspectives about work processes, bringing different perspectives to meeting work requirements and goals successfully.

All problems with ableism aside, I just can’t see anyone sending one of these to their hiring manager.

Ultimately, I feel that these e-cards reflect a deeper, fundamental problem with this campaign.  This is not an action taken by the disabled to assert our worth, dignity, and value in the workforce; as it so often happens, we are silenced while the non-disabled claim to speak on our behalf, with all of the condescension and paternalism implied thereby.  Why would the non-disabled bother to do this?  Well, it turns out there’s a fair bit of grant money available to “help” the disabled, from both private and federal sources (remember welfare-to-work?).  Health and Disability Advocates, a large non-profit, has given $4 million of this money to the Chicago ad agency Wirestone to launch this effort.  That kind of money could make a real difference in the lives of HDA’s clients (and indeed, it seems like the org has some worthwhile programs).  For instance, HDA could have sought out an ad agency or PR firm with ties to any disability community; if they had, I think the e-cards would much more respectful, much more coherent, and ultimately much more successful.

***NB: The screenshots of the e-cards are posted without the permission of Health and Disability Advocates.  If asked by that organization, I will remove the e-cards.  Then, I will wallow in the irony of being an unemployed disabled person who has received a cease and desist order from an organization whose mission is to employ the disabled.