Sound Transit Job Posting Senior Program Manager: accessibility services

 The actual job posting

Senior Program Manager Accessibility Services

Full disclosures

--RantWoman has received this posting from more than one direction.

--More than one person has suggested that RantWoman should apply for this position. RantWoman is humbled to be held in such regard, especially because RantWoman imagines only one aspect of the job will be dealing with passionate advocates such as RantWoman.

--RantWoman is considering whether to apply. That would require leveraging a lot of volunteer experience. The job description is probably also a stretch beyond the project management experience RantWoman has; RantWoman is considering whether to apply anyway.

--More importantly RantWoman is also considering what she might say to help make the right match, what to say about a big system, the wacky decisions of WA voters, and sundry other observations gleaned from years of public participation. 

Further Comments

--Ding! Ding! Ding! No "Driver's License required!" Already off to a good start. Okay, RantWoman might be tempted to add "Must have lived experience as a transit user" or "will be required for the first six months of employment to get around entirely on transit or without driving." RantWoman realizes this might seem a littl extreme, but this is a job with a multi-county transit agency after all. 

--Does this job require a background check? RantWoman assumes so and would not mind being told early in the process. Pro-tip lots of employers check applicants' credit. RantWoman recognizes that this is a good idea when a job role involves responsibility for public resources.

--Requires use of Sharepoint and Teams: RantWoman does not imagine that occasional encounters with Sharepoint testing counts. RantWoman has successfully used and even helped another person work with Teams but RantWoman would have to start out from "I can learn." Luckily RantWoman is informed a little by one person's short-term job experience. That person would not want this job but at least temporarily had an astute employer who realized that people who use screen readers do not necessarily poke around in all corners of office systems as easily as sighted employees do.

--Transportation management involves LOTS of Powerpoint. Be prepared.

--This job will require A LOT of teamwork. Can you say growing edge for RantWoman? RantWoman awhile ago was on a panel with another visually impaired transportation advocate who like RantWoman went to public school. The conversation was about how hard group projects were, an insight RantWoman has no idea how to share with younger blind people earlier in their education.

--There is the small matter of RantWoman's quirky opinionated social media presence.

--RantWoman does not just blurt things out in social media. For instance, RantWoman had occasion to comment about one local transit agency somewhere in WA: RantWoman finds herself wondering why the local transit agency cannot get the nearest bus stop any closer than half a mile away from two low-income housing communities. Many transit agencies like to talk about attracting the "choice" rider, people who have a choice about whether to drive or take transit. That's all fine, but what about making sure to serve people who really need the service and are more likely than others in the community, for really good reasons, to be non-drivers. There. Now RantWoman gets to figure out how to sell that point of view to potential co-workers and collaborators.

Or RantWoman gets to aim to inspire someone willing to brave the absurd housing market in order to take advantage of all the great things about living in the Pacific Northwest.