Listening Beyond Hearing: Thriving as a Disabled Professional at SECOM (Part 2)

At SECOM, the diversity of our team allows more realistic testing for clients. There is no single “type” of malicious actor. So, having diversity within our operations team helps us design the best possible pretexts and scenarios. This ensures that what we present is reflective of what clients see in the real world.

SECOM’s commitment to diversity and a team-oriented atmosphere makes it an ideal workplace for individuals with disabilities. To view the beginning of this exploration please visit the April Newsletter.

How I fit in to all this…

We can look at statistics all day, but anecdotal evidence has its place too.

The information security industry has great potential for accessibility. Personally, I believe my experiences with hearing loss and neurodiversity have developed skills and perspectives that make me particularly suited to social engineering.

It may seem counterintuitive that someone with a communication related disability might seek a job so highly focused on communication, but my weaknesses are also my strengths in this case!

I LOVE connecting with people

As part of a community that is frequently and significantly impacted by language deprivation, facilitating communication is something I am both fascinated by and passionate about. I LOVE connecting with people. I love to find out about them and learn what is important to them. Communication, in whatever form, is the key to those connections, and I work with a wonderful team of like-minded individuals.

I may not hear well in the traditional sense, but I’m a GREAT listener! In all my interactions I look for context, I seek possible different interpretations, I watch facial expressions and body language, and I am experienced with seeking clarification when needed. These skills are invaluable while trying to build important social connections!

Challenges

All that said, it’s not all a walk in the park, and I don’t want to falsely represent it as such. We live in a world where accessibility is not the default. As someone with hearing loss, a lot of times it feels like the heavy lifting of communication is on my shoulders.

I only receive about 70-80% of spoken language under PERFECT circumstances

I am fluent in expressing myself in spoken English, but even with residual hearing and my cochlear implant giving decent access to sound, receptively I only receive about 70-80% of spoken language under PERFECT circumstances. Guess how often those occur?

I have to work HARD to offset what I miss. Accommodation and accessibility vary a lot depending on what I am doing any given day. Background noise can be extremely problematic. Multi person conversations jump around A LOT which can be a lot like watching a disorganized ping pong match.

I rely heavily on context clues like topic and lipreading, so I need to know what the general context of a conversation is and, ideally, be able to see the speaker. Lighting is important for being able to see lips and facial expressions. Accents are hard because they distort both what words sound and look like. I won’t even begin to expand on the challenges of trying to lipread strangers beyond adding the interesting bit of trivia that only about 30-40% of spoken English can be read on the lips. These are all variables that I must account for personally, and there isn’t always a ton of work around for them.

Very few people in my general circle of communication know ASL

Yes, I’m guilty of falling back to the “smile and nod”, probably too often. There are a couple of people in my life who read me well enough to see it and have called me on it, but usually I end up getting the backhanded compliment of “oh, you’re hard of hearing? I never would have guessed”.

Because I default to oral communication for the ease of everyone else, the reciprocated communication is less accessible to me than some form of visual communication (written English or American Sign Language) would be. Out in the world, this ends up posing a lot of challenges. At work, sincere efforts are made to make sure all relevant information is available in a reasonably accessible manner. Hearing folks used to aural communication typically default to it, even when they know ASL. Very few people in my general circle of communication know ASL, but I am EXTREMELY lucky that one of my coworkers does! Who knows, maybe the rest can be incentivized to learn. Team building exercise anyone???

AI has vastly improved live captioning, it still gives some wild (though sometimes funny) interpretations

A sizable part of my job is spent making phone calls. This is not my strongest area for obvious reasons! Accessibility tools aren’t perfect. Though AI has vastly improved live captioning, it still gives some wild (though sometimes funny ) interpretations. I do sometimes find myself having to review content more than once to puzzle out what I know I missed. There are times when I need to fall back on asking a coworker to listen to something to see if they have better luck with it than I did, particularly on calls with a poor connection. It’s a little vindicating if they can’t figure it out either!!!

Overall, though, it is all 100% worth it to me to do a job that I love with a team of people that I genuinely look forward to working with every day. With a combination of tools, persistence, and patience, I get the job done.

Making a Place

To set myself up for the most chance of success, I must recognize my weaknesses to account for them. I have had to learn to self-advocate and to be persistent about it. It’s very much a work in progress, and it’s not always easy to do.

Not all reasonable accommodations are expensive, many are even free such as process changes, but they often do cost some money. It can be hard to ask someone to “spend money on you” but there are a couple of variables to keep in mind.

• There are programs in place that make accommodation expenses tax deductible for the business.
• EVERYONE uses tools, it’s NOT unreasonable to ask for tools if they are needed to facilitate what you need to accomplish!

Though accessibility measures are protected by law, sometimes the social ask feels like a big deal. Even before I joined the ranks of the disability community, I never liked drawing attention to myself. I have always been quiet and private, an introvert, a work in the background to support the group kind of personality. Some of the “big ones” for me are asking for adaptations that affect a group. Things like suggesting tables be set up in the round to allow for lipreading, or turning down the background music, turning captions on, or even having to ask for a repeat or context for what seems like the umpteenth time. As with anything, there are people who resent it, but most are pro-social and happy to adapt.

Good accommodations can make or break an experience, so know that you are worth the ask, and seek those legally protected rights.

Reality Check

I know that I come from a place of privilege. My hearing deteriorated post lingually, so English is my native language, I don’t have an accent beyond my regional one, and I “pass” well in most hearing environments (even if sometimes it’s a smile and nod kind of pass). While I have had issues with denials of service and challenges with ablest behaviors out in the world, I have found a soft place to land here at SECOM.

I feel extremely fortunate to work for a company that has not batted an eye at my accessibility needs. A company that values me as a whole and has a sincere desire to make access to our work environment equitable for everyone here. I know very well that is not always the case everywhere and it can be incredibly hard to get a foot in the door enough to show your abilities.

I suppose what I offer here is perspective from the far side of the wall. For those of you wondering if your access needs stand in the way of your desired career, there IS room for everyone at the table in the information security industry. There is not only room but NEED for diversity of background and thought. You know yourself better than anyone else. What can you do when the playing field is leveled through proper accommodation? What are you interested in, and what are you passionate about? Find it and fight for it. Should you desire, perhaps there is a place here in social engineering for you as well.

Written by
Faith Kent
Human Risk Analyst, Social-Engineer, LLC

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Security Through Education authored by Social-Engineer. Read the original post at: https://www.social-engineer.org/general-blog/listening-beyond-hearing-thriving-as-a-disabled-professional-at-secom-part-2/