Guest Post by Kristine [lizbeth_laila@yahoo.com]
There are several career limitations for color deficient individuals like me. I’ve been through the agony of being rejected because of my ‘limitations’. It killed me to find out only recently that I was color vision deficient after taking an Ishihara test as part of a job qualification.
Daniel Flück, author of the Colblindor website, knows how I feel all too well, as he writes about the plight of color blind jobseekers everywhere. I believe that these restrictions apply only in careers that deal with life and death, such as emergency medicine, firefighting, police work, and the military. I perfectly agree why these jobs require perfect vision and color perspective, but civilian jobs ought to be more lenient.
Being rejected outright because of a “vision problem” is probably the worst part of not getting a job. I hope that employers eventually learn more about color blindness and how judging applicants by their visual health could deprive them of a sizeable portion of the talent pool.
I'm curious to know what type of job you applied for that tested for color blindness. I have worked as a Traffic Engineer (a position you'd assume would require perfect color vision) for ten years without significant issues.
I think much of the problem is ignorance about what colorblindness is and is not.
Posted by: Brian | May 22, 2009 at 06:20 PM