Should You Disclose Your Illness to Your Employer?

Fred Gutermuth always had shaky hands, but in 2005 the shaking got so bad it began to interfere with his work as a water treatment operator. “I couldn’t read my own handwriting,” says Gutermuth, 64, of Virginia Beach, VA, a retired US Navy corpsman who was diagnosed with benign essential tremor in 2010. “Some days working on the computer was impossible. I couldn’t move the mouse or type. It definitely affected my job.”