The steady hum of chatter and the clickety-clack of computer keyboards makes it sound like any other call centre but at this Warsaw market research firm, blindness is no barrier to employment.
持續低沉的交談聲以及電腦鍵盤發出的嗒嗒聲，使這裡聽起來和任何其他電話服務中心沒什麼兩樣，但在華沙這家市調公司，失明並未構成就業障礙。
The operation runs so smoothly that people on the other end of the phone line have no idea that they're dealing with the visually impaired. And thanks to new technology, the job gets done without a hitch. “When you click on an icon, the computer tells you what it is. A sighted person can read it while we can hear it,” employee Lukasz Chmielewski told AFP.
這家公司運作十分順暢，使電話線另一頭的人完全不知道他們正在跟視障者交談。而且拜新技術之賜，這項工作得以順利無阻地完成。員工克米利維斯基告訴法新社：「當你點擊圖標時，電腦會告訴你它是什麼，明眼人用看的，我們則用聽的。」
Set up last year, the small firm called Quality Cube has 15 employees including 12 who are blind, expanding -- if minimally -- the limited pool of jobs for the visually impaired in Poland. “These people are the best employees,” said company co-founder Marcin Gic. “They are the most loyal. They never take sick days or take a day off because they partied too much the night before, so it's very positive.”
這家名叫「優質立方體」的小公司去年成立，共有15名員工，其中12名是盲人，儘管步調緩慢，波蘭視障者有限的職場仍不斷擴大。公司共同創辦人吉克說：「這些人是最優秀的員工，他們最忠心耿耿，從不隨便請病假，或因為前一天晚上開派對玩過頭而請一天假，僱用他們效果非常正面。」
Gic sees Quality Cube as a “real business”, not a charity. He concedes it took some investment to adapt the office to the needs of blind employees but said it was well worth it and expects to turn a profit next year. Initially, he planned to allow the blind to work from home via Internet “but it turned out that employees prefer to work here in our office.”
吉克把「優質立方體」當成「真正的企業」，而非慈善機構。他承認投下不少錢，改裝辦公室以適應失明員工的需求，但他表示這些投資十分值得，預期明年就可以轉虧為盈。最初，他計畫讓這些盲人在家透過網路工作，「但事實證明，員工寧可到辦公室工作。」
Typical was Pawel Urbanski, 29, a quality control expert and consultant at Quality Cube who specializes in matching business projects and applied technologies. “Having to get out into the city every day, take a bus, walk the streets, it really gets you motivated and makes for a refreshing change,” said Urbanski, who lost his sight at 13 but went on to study in Poland and abroad.
其中最有代表性的是29歲的厄班斯基，他是「優質立方體」品管專家兼顧問，擅長商業項目和應用技術的配套。他說：「每天必須出門到城裡，搭公車，在街上走，真的可以激勵你，作出令人耳目一新的變化。」厄班斯基13歲失明，但他繼續在波蘭和國外上學。
Though employment and education for disabled is improving in Poland, it is an uphill battle. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development singled out the former communist state, in 2006, as “far below the OECD average” for employing the disabled and urged reforms. Five years later, the situation for the visually impaired is still lagging, said Elzbieta Oleksiak of the Polish Association of the Blind (PZN). “Just 14.5 percent of our working age members are employed compared to a rate of 45-50 percent in western Europe,” she said.
雖然波蘭殘疾人士就業和教育情況正在改善，但仍是一場艱苦的奮戰。經濟合作發展組織在2006年針對這個前共產主義國家，指其在雇用殘障人士上「遠低於經合組織的平均水準」，並籲其改善。波蘭盲人協會的艾莉茲比耶塔．奧勒席亞克說，5年後視障人士的情況仍裹足不前，「我們就業年齡會員中只有14.5％有工作，相形之下，西歐就業率有45%-50％。」
But with joblessness at 12.2 percent in this EU country of 38 million -- compared to an overall 9.3 percent unemployment rate for the 27-nation bloc -- “It's difficult enough for non-handicapped people to find work in Poland and the situation for the handicapped is of course much worse,” Oleksiak said.
但由於歐盟中這個有3800萬人口的國家失業率達12.2％，相較之下，27個成員國的歐盟整體失業率只有9.3％，奧勒席亞克說：「在波蘭，即使非殘障人士找工作都很難，殘疾人士的情況當然更雪上加霜。」
Most of Quality Cube's employees were trained at the Laski educational centre for the blind, not Poland's only such school but one that's taken a role in changing perspectives on disabilities and getting disabled people into the work force. The 280-student facility from elementary to high school has operated just north of Warsaw for the last 100 years. New to the centre is a course called “typhlo-IT” （based on the Greek prefix referring to blindness）, which involves adapting computer equipment and programs to meet the needs of the visually impaired.
「優質立方體」大多數員工在拉斯基盲人教育中心受訓，這並非波蘭唯一的盲人學校，卻是一所致力改變對殘疾人士觀感，及引介殘障者成為勞動力的學校。這個機構從小學到高中共收280名學生，過去百年來一直在華沙北部運作。該中心新開了一門「盲人資訊科技」（typhlo源自希臘語「盲人」的字首）課，教學生學習電腦設備和程式，以適應視障人士的需要。
“To minimize the cost of hiring a blind person, we offer employers programs, an interface, expertise and continuous monitoring,” said Jan Gawlik, a Laski instructor who developed the system and is himself legally blind. He launched the project in 1999. Though Laski is a career-oriented centre, training students as telephone operators, massage therapists or other jobs, directors said it's still a struggle to get people to hire the visually impaired.
拉斯基盲人教育中心指導員葛立克說：「為了把聘請盲人的代價降到最低，我們提供雇主程式、介面、專業技能和持續關注。」這套系統是他自行開發的，他本人也是法定盲人，於1999年推出這項計畫。雖然拉斯基是個以職業培訓為主的教學中心，旨在培養學生成為電話接線生和按摩治療師等，但該中心主管表示，要讓雇主聘用視障人士仍有待努力。
Photo shows Warsaw Call center Quality Cube expert and partner Pawel Urbanski (L), 29, and company founder Marcin Gic at firm headquarters in Warsaw. In the background are part of the blind workers who are aided in their work by technical solutions adapted to the needs of the visually-impaired.
圖為華沙話務中心「優質立方體」29歲的專家兼合作夥伴厄班斯基（左）和創辦人吉克在華沙總公司，背景可見部分失明的工作人員，他們在特別因應視障者需要而改良的科技協助下工作。（法新社）