> I've got to tell you, if this is actually reflecting hiring practices you've helped engage in then you should not talk about it as this is a pretty significant violation of the ADA you're justifying.
What did I justify? The conversation the potential manager had? If so, sure I did justify and stand by that statement. That guy worked for him before, and had built up (presumably) solid rapport. I see nothing wrong with putting everything out on the table. If you meant anything else though, you're putting words in my mouth. A random interviewee? Yeah, I would agree with you that it's inappropriate and legally actionable.
We're going to have to disagree here. In your world, the guy never talks to his manager and never knows there is that issue floating out there others talk about behind his back (if your manager is asking you about it, I would bet good money they've discussed the topic with their peers for advice). In my world, at least the guy knows and can confront that how he wishes. Your world the guy wonders why he wasn't hired for no explainable reason. I agree that this is the legal framework we work in, but due to your attitude there are entire classes of untouchables that could otherwise find gainful employment.
The culture of silence and "oh I better not talk about it!" is absolutely immoral, and the typical response to these things is simply round-binning the resume to avoid any potential liability whatsoever. If you haven't seen this wink wink nudge nudge behaviour by HR and hiring managers in even huge corporations, you simply haven't been looking. I'm saying I find it actively damaging to society. Talk about it! Get shit out there and be human for the love of $deity! This culture of silence and simply writing people off through "legal" means is insane.
> Your position is that it's okay to abandon people if they have problems you're not comfortable talking about.
I.... what? I really must be doing a poor job conveying my actual point. My actual point is that if you cannot perform your job, and reasonable accommodations cannot be made (e.g. you bring down morale of your co-workers due to your shitty behaviour and refuse to correct it) over the course of time you can and should be fired regardless of any underlying medical condition - could be back pain that makes you impossible to work with - it's immaterial. A company is not a charity or health center. I'd highly prefer a culture where we could talk about this in the open (regardless of mental or physical issue, I don't care in the least) instead of secrecy.
Taking a week off once or twice a year and a day here and there for a condition is perfectly acceptable. Acting as a long-term cancer on your team is not, and cannot be accommodated. Much different than someone saying hey I'm having issues and need to take a couple weeks off. Absolutely no one would argue with you on this point, so I'm not sure why you made it. It's the long-term non-performing employee who has a disability that cannot be accommodated for where it absolutely leaves room for discussion. Guess one way untreated clinical depression typically manifests itself in angry folks in IT? Stereotypes aside, I have to say I must live in a bubble if that's not generally true. Accommodating that is not reasonable, clinical diagnosis or not. A sabbatical I would argue is far more appropriate, if any accommodation at all could be made.
If you meant the case where someone battling depression needs a few days here and there, or a week off to recharge? I have zero problem with that, have taken advantage of that policy at my company, and have unquestionably been supportive of any employees that have needed it in turn. That's a textbook example of a reasonable accommodation.
Really there were two main points I was trying to make.
1) Having a potential hiring manager ask these questions doesn't offend me in the least, and I honestly feel the laws saying otherwise are immoral due to the huge chilling effect this has put on hiring people with disabilities. Perhaps my cure is worse than the disease, but this is a massive unspoken problem in nearly every major corporation in the US. Look at any of the studies based on blind applicants vs. racial indicators - the disability applicants are much worse off. The inability to feel out a candidate with an obvious disability to see if they can legitimately perform the job is not an option, and I posit this is actively harmful. That coupled with the fact good managers actually give a shit about you, and will be happy to tell them their personal worries and concerns in return.
2) Due to the current climate, you're not being very smart if you advertise you had a mental condition in the past. I make no moral claims that this is OK, my only "evil" action here is I advise people to play the current game vs. shaking it up. It's fine to have the opposite position, but it comes at severe personal penalty you have so far completely ignored. I'm not talking about how I want the world to be, I'm talking about how it is and how it affects people today - and becoming a martyr for the cause at the expense of your career is a pretty arrogant thing to ask anyone but yourself to do. I made this suggestion as an employee who has experienced the fallout - it's simply not worth it at this date in history. Unless you are independently wealthy and just don't care. Not sure how you twisted this advice into my hiring practices, and I feel that was a pretty disingenuous leap of logic to make based on my post. This is why it's dangerous to talk about this stuff, people hear what they want to fit their narrative (including myself).
I think we largely agree, perhaps not on everything - but my goal is to get more employable people employed and in happy lives (both the disabled, and those with criminal records). The laws actively work against this in many cases, where you can't even have a discussion on the topic without some potential legal liability. So the default action is to try as hard as possible to not ever get into that situation and thus makes entire classes of people effectively untouchables.
I posit that more openness and less perceived (and lets be honest here - the vast majority of this is perceived legal risk with no grounding in actual reality) legal risk is a good thing, and will result in more candidates getting call backs if the hiring manager isn't afraid of either getting hit with a discrimination lawsuit, or a candidate who legitimate cannot perform the job (since he's not legally allowed to ask). As a hiring manager you don't get many mulligans, so it's your career on the line as well. What option do you think the vast majority of folks take? It's simple game theory. We are incentivizing the wrong behaviour, with predictable results.
You have absolutely reminded me why I will not wade into these as devils advocate any longer. I thought I made a rather tame post coming at the issue from a different angle, and gave a little hard-fought advice from personal experience. You interpreted that to state I think it's OK to fire anyone for an inconvenient disability, which is no where near the point I made.
Edit: As I posted up thread, holy crap.
> After I withdrew my application he made sure to tell friends of mine that he had rejected me because of my depression. Really mature, that guy is.
I went back to re-read the thread, as I was utterly confused at your rather combative responses - it felt like I was on Reddit there for a minute.
I had completely misread that, and not seen the leading sentence. This changes my entire stance on the guy, and I agree he should have the everliving hell sued out of him. That is not acceptable at all, ever, in any situation. The tone of my followup post would have been decidedly different, but my main points generally stand had that not been the case.