Good Jesus, if I get any more annoyed I am! I sware! I’m going to pull off someone’s head and shove my fist down their neck.  I’m sorry for being so graphic but really, I’m just so pissed off!  This place will drive me nuts at times!  For fuck sake!  I’m stuck!

My problem is simple.  well, it’s not really. It’s very complicated I think.  You tell me what I should do.

Ok, I’m now working with the Novell technical support team providing support to consumers and hobbyist users of SUSE Linux.  I’m actually the technical lead on the team which means that I am suppose to be seen as the mentor or more technically able amung the team.  That’s great.  I’m finally out of Sybase 365.  What’s not so great is that SUSE Linux is possibly one of the most inaccessible distributions of Linux I’ve ever worked with.  

Sorry, this next bit gets a bit technical but I’m sorry. just read on.

Background:
I access a computer via a screen reader.  A screen reader is used by people who are blind to access a computer.  It speaks or brailles relevant components of the user interface.  for example, if Arrowing around the start menu, the screen reader would likely speak: Internet explorer. when you press the down arrow for the first time.  

In Windows, Screen readers have been around since the early introduction of Windows 95 in early 1996.  Since this time, they have grown and evolved to be very powerful and versatile.  They have a number of draw backs and unfortunately areas of the windows operating system and applications are still yet to be made accessible.  However, on a whole, Windows Screen readers have gone past the stage of making programs accessible to making them even more usable to the extent that many Blind people can interact with the Windows environment just as fast if not faster than their sighted counterparts.  

In Linux however, the story gets more complicated.  In terms of screen reader and accessibility, Linux is broken into sections.  The console, has been accessible for years.  This console environment is very similar to Dos and it’s accessibility possibly has existed since the time of Dos 5 and 6.  
The Graphical environments again can be divided into the final two sections within the context of accessibility.  Gnome and KDE.  These are the two most popular window managers within Linux.  For anyone to independantly use the Linux graphical desktop without sight, they must use Gnome.  This is primarily due to the Gnome projects uptake of accessibility in their core system.  The Gnome project has supported an effert by Sun Micro Systems to develop a screen reader that will enable people who are Blind to use Gnome and most applications built on it’s supported framework (GTK).  Unlike screen readers for windows who depend on tweeks and hacks, The Gnome screen reader takes full advantage of the ATSPI model which in essence is an underlying API that makes all applications written for Gnome with the GTK framework behave in a standardized fassion that exposes their controls, state and properties.  

KDE on the otherhand, although more popular in certain distributions is built on the QT framework.  The KDE eveloper network have committed to accessibility in order to help distributions comply with accessibility legislation however although their accessibility project has been ongoing for aproximitly four years, it is still very under developed and not yet usable.  

So… My problem:
SUSE Linux prefers KDE as their window manager and therefore spends a lot of time writing enhancements, fixes and modifications for this window manager.  They even write their system tools in the QT framework so they integrate seemlessly with it.  Of course, they do provide the option of Gnome but their version of Gnome is always behind the pack slightly.  For example, In SUSE 10.2, Gnome 2.16 was instaled.  This implementation of Gnome however was riddled with bugs and therefore wasn’t very usable once accessibility support was enabled.  Gnome panel frequently crashed and system performance frequently cralled at speeds slower than the oldest 4-8-6’s.  

To get around this problem, I have decided that my work pc in Novell will contain Ubuntu 7.4 or later and my test machine will contain SUSE 10.2 or later.  This will give me the best of both worlds.  Ubuntu’s window manager of choice is Gnome therefore they spend more time ironing out the kinds in this software.  Ubuntu is also the distribution of choice for the magority of developers of the Orca screen reader therefore more documentation is available specific to Ubuntu users.  It is therefore much easier to use the applications with accessibility support in Ubuntu than any other distribution in my experience.  As I have my test machine using SUSE 10.2, I have all of the tools that are necessary to troubleshoot SUSE related issues.  

That doesn’t sound very complicated does it?

The problem is, I’m stuck between two jobs at the moment.  I’m slowly but surely being moved out of the Sybase 365 team over to Novell but the problem is that it’s not fast enough and I’m already starting to get work from the other team to do.  

I-T in Stream did me a favour.  They gave me a machine to use until I get over to the Novell team permanantly.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am very thankful for that.  It’s been a great asset.  The problem is though, it’s not even a pentium 3,  it has about 5 gigs of hard disk space and 128 meg of RAM.  This thing gets stuck when just viewing the contents of a directory!  therefore, in the graphical environment, it trips over completely.  It finds it very hard to work well at all!  So, when I try to run a screen reader in a version of Gnome that is very buggy, it really has trouble.  Orca and this version of Gnome have hundreds of memory leaks.  fortunately, the problems with the main application, "gnome-panel" were logged at a very early stage and it looks like they’ve been fixed for the next version of SUSE 10.3 however in this version, it’s so slow it’s painful!
So, what did I do to get around this?  I plugged my nice fast laptop running Ubuntu 7.4 into the test network.  Now, just note that this test network isn’t connected to the main corprit network in any way.  I was then able to get everything I needed to do done.  I wasn’t hambered in any way by accessibility or speed issues and in fact, I was very impressed that I could access so much so eaily.  
That was all well and good until this morning.  A short time ago, I received an email from I-T saying that I have continually taken advantage of their generosity and good will by breaking I-T policies.  I was instructed that under no uncertain terms was I ever to connect my laptop into any Stream network again and I was to disconnect it straight away.  
Now, Ok, I put my hands up.  Yes.  I broke I-T policies.  Yes.  I ask them for a lot but come on!  Why cant they see that Absolutely everything I have asked for is work related.  There was not one personal message or window open on that laptops screen.  In fact, they should be thanking me for reaching my full potential by utilizing my own equipment!  There’s a frien of mine working in another office run by the government.  He gets things there that he probably doesn’t need half as much but to help him out, they make things as easy for him as possible without giving him an unfair advantage!  
That’s all I’m asking.  I want to have the same oppertunities as everyone else in Stream.  I’m not looking for any unfair advantages.  I just want to have the access I need to do my job.  

I know this probably isn’t getting my point across but I really hope you understand after reading this the position I am in.  

The wosrt thing is, I am so annoyed, I want to leave.  I want to get up and leave right now.  But I know I cant find another job.  I’m really stuck between a rock and a hard place!

Sometimes I feel like giving up completely!  Why bother with all this shit!

I should just play on the disability card all the time and let the government worry about it!  Why bother getting stressed over a company who probably doesn’t give a flying shit about me anyway.

Fuck it.  I’m pissed off.

In saying that though, Writing this rant has helped.

Thanks for reading.

Write back.  Tell me what you think.