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Comment by kreandasimmon | Hacker News Reader

You can find at least one person who is deathly allergic to anything. If I’m deathly allergic to carpets, that means no office in the world is allowed to have carpets?

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This level of extremist view isn’t very helpful. Typically the expectation is about making _reasonable_ changes which is, ultimately, flexible. There’s an office in my building that has a sign on the door stating that it is a nut free zone due to an employee’s severe allergy. I have dietary requirements that my employer accommodates. Employers don’t get to have the value of an employee without incurring costs: adapting process is part of that cost.

You can find extreme examples — such as an allergy to sunlight — and sometimes the accommodation for those examples may be different to “banning carpet from the office”.

The original post is what you are referring to. Apparently all companies must accommodate people allergic to dogs. Thankfully, just apparently.

Yes, no office that employs you. If we have to get crammed into one space to work together, we have to come down to least common denominator.

EDIT: And I'm not trying to advocate for whatever group there is. It's just reality. You make software that is used by people, you need to make it accessible. You make books, you need to make them readable and so on and so on.

And you know what I noticed? I noticed that when people make stuff accessible with least common denominator in mind, that stuff becomes easier and more comfortable to use for me as well even though I don't have any issues.

Ok time to organize a class action against all buildings that have carpets

Fuck carpets in offices in general though. I've almost slipped on one at our office on several times.

Not to mention carpet is filthy (especially in high traffic areas) and is frequently coated with those crazy waterproofing chemicals

I know that’s why I’m totally serious

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