"Disabilities" required to perform a specific job

October 8, 2015 4:05 PM

What are some examples of conditions normally considered disabilities that are requirements for specific jobs?

I once read that WWII bombers needed a crew member with exotropia because it assisted in some difficult targeting tasks. In another place, I read that the military also needed people with red/green colorblindness because they could more easily detect camouflaged equipment through tree cover. Sadly, I don't remember the sources where I read these.

If true, these are cases in which a physical disability that might traditionally have been grounds for denying someone a job instead became a requirement for a specific job.

What other "disabilities" turn out to be a requirement to perform a certain job? I'd love to assemble a list.

(Feel free to correct my examples if they are imprecise or untrue.)

posted by quarantine to Society & Culture (24 answers total)

Braille proofreader. Employed at places like National Braille Press.
posted by Melismata at 4:17 PM on October 8, 2015

Best answer: For a long time it was thought that deaf people made really good mechanics and other types of factory work because they were not distracted by noises and could concentrate because of their acute visual perception. The history of deaf people being employed as typesetters and printers is a long and interesting one. Since accessibility is a requirement of a lot of modern software/apps people who are skilled/adept at using screen readers and accessibility features of tablets are in demand as software testers. The (fiction) book The Speed of Dark talks about a future in which autism is a prerequisite for certain types of specialized pattern-matching jobs and is a very good read if you're interested in these topics.
posted by jessamyn at 4:20 PM on October 8, 2015 [15 favorites]

Somewhat speculative, but some people believe that what allowed craftspeople in the olden days to do fine, close work was myopia.
posted by peacheater at 4:26 PM on October 8, 2015 [6 favorites]

In a city near mine there was a film developing plant. In high school I'd drive though there and I used to pick up blind hitchhikers and drop them home. In conversation I found out that it employed mostly blind people to develop the film. I am not really sure whether it was a privacy issue or working better in low light conditions.
posted by ReluctantViking at 4:27 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]

In China, it is traditional for blind people to be masseuses. (the idea I think being that blind people have developed a more sensitive sense of touch). I think some people or establishments prefer the masseuses to be blind, although traditionally this has not been great for blind people there as it seems to be the only job that they are (possibly) preferred for and in some places are kind of pigeon-holed into it.
posted by bearette at 4:28 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

There's a car wash company in Florida that a dad started to employ his son, who has autism, and other persons on the spectrum.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 4:31 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

Aspergers and computer programming? Obviously, Aspergers is not a requirement to become a programmer, but there there's a lot of overlap between the common qualities exhibited by people diagnosed with Aspergers and the sorts of personality traits that one often finds in good programmers.
posted by mosk at 4:32 PM on October 8, 2015 [7 favorites]

Response by poster: mosk, speaking as a computer programmer on the spectrum, I know that phenomenon very well.
posted by quarantine at 4:37 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Kenny Baker, the actor who has portrayed R2-D2 in all six Star Wars movies as well as the upcoming seventh, is 3 ft 8 in tall.

Eunuchs in several different civilizations served as harem guards and in similar capacities. Castrato singers were castrated to prevent their voices from changing with puberty. In the science fiction novel A Deepness in the Sky a (bad guys) civilization intentionally induces a kind of autism because autistic people can process information more quickly than the available computer technology.
posted by XMLicious at 4:37 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]

There are restaurants where diners dine in complete darkness. The waitstaff are blind, since moving around a pitch black dining room isn't an impediment to people who are used to navigating by touch, memory and sound.
posted by no regrets, coyote at 4:40 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

Blind piano tuners.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:46 PM on October 8, 2015

Blind piano tuners (if relaxing the word 'requirement' a little).
posted by kickingtheground at 4:46 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

People with learning disabilities are sometimes employed to shred documents, especially if their disability means they have limited literacy or reading comprehension.
posted by embrangled at 5:20 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: There is also an increasing movement toward mental health services employing people with lived experience of mental health issues, either as peer support workers or in policy roles.
posted by embrangled at 5:23 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]

At a center that creates accessible learning materials for college students (e.g. transcribe lectures, turn small font materials into large print), as I was being shown around, we went past someone whose job was to write descriptions of images for blind people. The person showing me around explained that the description writer had autism and that the difficulties for an autistic person in recognizing emotions was useful for this job because it meant they wrote descriptions and not their emotional interpretations of the picture.
posted by AnnaRat at 5:35 PM on October 8, 2015 [5 favorites]

People with Aspergers are hired as software testers (and other technology testers).
posted by gemutlichkeit at 6:00 PM on October 8, 2015

It isn't a job as such, but anecdote has it that in Andean cultures where they spin a lot of yarn by hand for clothing, the blind spinners are typically especially good.
posted by clavicle at 6:56 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I don't know if this fits in the 'requirement ' catagory, but I have eyes that don't work well together, due to hereditary strabismus. I could not pass a drivers test as a result. Two things are positive, 1. I can do close work. 2. I am a pretty good marksman with a bow and arrows.
Perhaps that's why this trait was passed down. People haven't been driving cars that long, but ever since people took up hunting and warfare, marksmanship has been a desirable trait.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 7:44 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]

Somewhat speculative, but some people believe that what allowed craftspeople in the olden days to do fine, close work was myopia.

This doesn't confirm whether this is true, but I have severe myopia, and I can see things clearly at a very close range, much closer than someone without myopia.
posted by jb at 9:35 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

This isn't exactly a requirement, but many reps/trainers for medical devices use/have those medical devices themselves. For example, people who market/train for insulin pumps (for diabetics) are typically diabetic and use whatever type of pump they are marketing/training on. It gives more credibility to be able to say "This is what I use, I have personal experience with it, etc." and someone without the disease who doesn't use the device can't have that level of credibility.
posted by rainbowbrite at 5:54 AM on October 9, 2015

There's an interesting case to be made for Anthony Starego, an autistic field-goal kicker for his high school football team. His issues with repetition and obsession were a good match for the team.
posted by Melismata at 8:15 AM on October 9, 2015

This isn't a requirement, but I have a friend who is deaf and she works caring for and holding babies in a hospital nursery. She has the ultimate patience with crying babies because she can't hear it!
posted by reksb at 10:34 AM on October 9, 2015

Another speculation—I would think that the people who make the best professional torturers might have what we would regard as personality disorders on the psychopathy-sociopathy spectrum.

This doesn't confirm whether this is true, but I have severe myopia, and I can see things clearly at a very close range, much closer than someone without myopia.

Same here; I've usually been able to clearly see things on a much smaller scale than other people, if we're talking about the same thing. In school I would print out drafts of five or six page papers for proofreading on a single sheet in 3pt or 4pt font, which the kids who didn't wear glasses said they couldn't read. My mother who sewed frequently would have me thread needles too fine for her to do herself.

So, I wouldn't be surprised if before the invention of the jeweler's loop you had to have similar vision to do the same tasks.
posted by XMLicious at 6:30 PM on October 9, 2015

Just was watching a Smithsonian documentary called Stonehenge Empire wherein an artifact found at Stonehenge was described: a bronze dagger, the wooden handle of which was sort of gilt with gold using thousands of miniature gold studs driven into its surface. A modern sculptor who specializes in working under a microscope was of the opinion that only someone with extremely keen vision would have been able to make them thousands of years ago; his guess was that the workers were probably also children.
posted by XMLicious at 5:24 PM on December 25, 2015