quote:
Originally posted by PeteF:
Except they are looking for people with "psyhiatric and other mental conditions"
Physical handicaps have been covered for a long time (ADA) and can make sense, guy in wheelchair can do job of AT Controller, blind person can do customer service with minimal aid, etc.
Now they want people that have mental issues that are bad enough to be diagnosed.
Psychopath air traffic controller, real good idea.
ADA covers mental disabilities too.
And again, there's way more to the FAA than just air traffic controllers. Someone with a serious mental condition wouldn't be able to be an ATC anyway. They have to be able to pass a psych eval.
But while they may not be able to be an air traffic controller due to the stricter requirements for that specific position, someone with a mental condition like depression/OCD/PTSD/anxiety/etc. - especially under control through therapy and medication - is perfectly capable of working for the FAA manning a front desk, maintaining a network system, drafting external communication releases, overseeing purchasing, designing the graphics for a brochure, managing a team of data analysts, or any one of the hundreds of other types of jobs at the FAA that don't have anything to do with being an air traffic controller.
It appears that you do not realize that there are folks around you every day, some of them in your own circle of friends and family, who work normal jobs and are perfectly functional members of society despite having a diagnosed "mental condition".
In addition, the FAA isn't looking
just for applicants with "psychiatric and other mental conditions". That's simply one of a very long list of physical and mental disabilities that qualify you as "disabled" for federal hiring purposes, and can gain you disability hiring preference for some federal job openings. (Works similar to how being a military veteran can gains you veteran hiring preference for some federal job openings.)
You're letting yourselves be whipped into an outraged frenzy and manipulated with flashy half-truths and misleading statements, leading to uninformed cries of
"Planes will fall from the sky!" and
"Psychotic air traffic controllers will kill us all!", just for the sake of generating more clicks/shares for that media outlet and boosting their ad revenue.