Detached, Serene, and Waiting

by Amy Walker

I remember the sick, stomach-churning agony. When I applied for a job, having to prove my worth to a potential employer or interviewer made me nervous. They were sizing me up. I knew my future job could depend on something so minute as stumbling over a word or as huge as how I answered, “What are your weaknesses?”

For one, I have a disability. Cerebral palsy, that is, since the day I was born. I can’t drive, although I’ve tried (and endured the silent disdain of my classmates when I was 16). Transportation will be a problem, although I try to deal with this question as tactfully as possible. I mention taxis and buses, not knowing how reliable they might be if I get  the job. At this point, I’ll take anything I can get because beggars can’t be choosers.

Getting a job is hard, and it’s even harder for people with disabilities. Some work at workshops, but it was my lot in life to be “stuck in the middle.” Obviously, something is wrong with me physically, but the state and federal governments look at my IQ and conclude I’m not disabled enough to need help. Thus, I can be thrown to the wolves, and must go out to seek a job in the “competitive workplace.”

The “competitive workplace,” at least in my life, is code for places like an insurance company that hired me for a 2-day stint filing and stuffing envelopes. They let me go after one day. They said I was too slow when I was working, so I went back to square one. Another “competitive workplace” I toiled at was an electronics company that wanted a secretary. After 15 days on a trial period of 30, I was let go, realizing what this company wanted was an accountant and payroll clerk they could hire for a $6.75 starting wage. I was crushed, feeling like a failure.

What did I do then? I found a job at my current company, albeit temporary and without benefits. Health insurance? I tried to find some through a private broker, but found I was “uninsurable” because cerebral palsy was a pre-existing condition that no company would cover. Not only  am I uninsured, but I cannot be. The same goes for life and auto insurance (if I ever get a car!)

My job is helping people with developmental disabilities to stand up for the basic human rights others take for granted: the right to food, clothing, housing, and most of all, dignity. That means a job if you need one, and most people need to have jobs to pay for how they live.

My job is also grant-funded, and this grant must be renewed every year. If it’s not, I’ll have to either find another job or use my “backup plan.” My savings account is, so far, about it.

What will I do if I lose this job or am turned down for another one? I take heart from the wisdom of Thornton Wilder in his play Our Town. When the exuberant Emily dies, she is told by her mother-in-law to yield to nature, let it take its course in order to be set free from longing for earthly existence. Detached, serene, and waiting, she will be, before she finds her purpose on the other side. Detached, serene and waiting before she lives again.

So will I be if I lose my job or the ones I get in the future, with my mind set on a higher destiny.

Comments

[Jacqueline]

I can 100% relate because I am disabled, too, although I do not have cerebral palsy.

Not disabled enough to qualify for a $534/mo pittance from SSI and Medicaid, but not able-bodied enough to be able to get considered for a "real job" in the "competitive workplace".

We can thank the ADA for this mess. It is an unfunded mandate that says legally employers, schools and businessed cannot discriminate against job applicants with disabilities. But the problem is that the laws in this country are all stacked in favor of the employers. They still get away with discrimination because all they have to do is ask on the aplication if you are able to do the job with or without "reasonable accommodations". For me, a "reasonable accommodation" would be to be permitted to sit to perform cashier work or retail sales counter work. Heck, I'd even provide my own damn chair or stool! But do you think I could even get hired at any of these McJobs because of needing to sit? Hell no!

Thanks to the ADA, I am not able to get any income support (we're talking a pittance of $534/mo SSI - not even enough money to afford a crappy apartment on my own if I wasn't married) because I am not deemed "disabled enough" to qualify for that. Yet, because I need "reasonable accommodations", nobody would hire me either. Plus I am also middle-aged so I am discriminated against for being older , hence less physically attractive, than the perky, 23 yr old non-disabled "Barbie Doll" types employers want to hire. It does not matter to them that I have a college degree and that I had to struggle so much harder than a non-disabled and non-disadvantaged person to accomplish that.
It seems to me that the ADA was simply a code word type of law that gave the Republicans and the wealthy elite the right to just leave anyone with disabilities out on the streets to suffer and die, unable to support themselves just to be able to live.

It is, in my opinion, part of their larger agenda of slashing safety nets across the board - both for workers as well as those unable to work (or denied a chance to work). Their agenda has been since the inception of the New Deal programs of FDR, to dismantle every New Deal program and that includes SSI, Social Security, Welfare, Medicare and Medicaid - even though they know full well that even for our more fortunate, younger and non-disabled fellow citizens, getting a job is like a game of musical chairs where there never was intended to have enough chairs for everybody. And now with this race to the bottom globalization agenda, there are even far less chairs than ever before. There is roughly only 1 chair for every 102 job applicants (if we include the poverty-wage jobs). For jobs that have good benefits and pay a living wage or better, there is 1 chair for every 1,000 applicants.

The hucksters running things in government who are in bed with the obscenely wealthy elite know this and they don't care if disabled people like us or older people are left to just suffer in 3r world poverty out in the streets to die right under the noses of the well-off in their noses while they sit in their $250,000 homes in their planned suburbs with perfectly manicured lawns or shut away from the rest of the world tucked neatly away from impoverished, suffering masses in their gated communities. It is time to storm the Bastille!

[Tiffany Holmlund]

Hi,
I just would like to say I know where you are comming from. I have a physical disability called Arthrogryposis Multiplex Conjeita which gives me limited movement and i have been trying to get a job for ten yrs. and its alway's the samething all goes good till the interview then its sorry the positions filled or we will call you back and never do. So i was wandering if you would want to talk? if so my e-mail is tiny292796@yahoo.com e-mail me if you want to thanks for speaking up. I tried to last year but i was dist and nothing was done.

[Holly Redmond]

I absolutely LOVE this. Really well written and insightful. That's pretty much all I have to say.
P.S> I now take heart in what you take heart in. Excellent quote!

[Marlene]

I am heartbroken for how greed, money, competitiaveness, and apathy have shut so many doors on so many able, willing, and eager human beings who have disabilities desiring a job. Amy, YOU are speaking truth and making a difference and reaching out to so many people who have had similar experiences. Everyone who has a disability, BE encouraged and keep pushing forward to be heard and taken seriously!

[Stephanine]

Thank you for sharing your truth with me. My spouse confronts limited physical and mental abilities every day. Your words have helped me to better understand him. Thank you for that.

Thank you for your courage and sharing a life story I know so little about. You are an inspiration and have reminded me of the sanctity of life as well as the life beyond this world.

My best to you.

[Elisa (Italia9]

Ciao
volevo farti i complimenti hai un sito bellissimo un abbraccio dall'Italia
Elisa

Congratulations on a beautiful website
Loved everything on your site and you did a magnificent job. You should be proud of yourself
if youhave just a minute, visit me back and live a comment with your link, so other Italian people will be able to visit your blog
Elisa