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With my health suddenly restored in a matter of months after six
years of decline, I could have just found the first grocery store job
in town. But as the experience had massively derailed my life, I
felt I deserved a more thoughtful return to the employment pool.
Talking about this with my counselor, Jude, he too agreed that it
made sense and recommended I go to the state's Vocational
Rehabilitation office and let them manage my return to work. When I
mentioned misgivings based on my experience with them three years
earlier, he noted that they had probably forgotten about me since
then and let's see what a fresh intake evaluation would find.
As VocRehab was just three blocks from my apartment, anyhow, I
thought I might as well go and see.
Arriving at their office, it seemed unchanged by the years gone by
and I introduced myself to the receptionist. This one didn't burst
out laughing at my stutter. Fearing I might be assigned to the same
counselor who had vehemently rejected me the first time, I was
luckily assigned to a different counselor. I actually walked
passed the earlier counselor a few times in the office, but he didn't
seem to recognize me. This new counselor, I'll call 'Cindy', was
a middle aged woman who lead me to her office and sat me down for a
chat. I noted my health history and recent improvement and desired
to finish my college degree. She thought we should wait with that
option and first look for jobs that I could do today. What was I
interested in? I told her of my extensive history in computer
programming and while I didn't have a degree at it, she thought she
still might be able to find me a job in the field. But first I'd
have to be evaluated by their on-site psychologist. Fearing that
they had the same disturbed psychologist as before, I noted that I
could possibly provide a report for them. She then pointed out that
if I told her I was receiving psychological counseling it
would probably mean I couldn't be accepted by them for help under
their rules. Did I want to say I was seeing a psychological
counselor? ''I guess not,'' I said, message received.
''Good,'' she said and left the room to set up the evaluation
appointment with their own guy as I remained and looked around her
office. I noticed a photo of what I guessed to be her daughter. A
head-shot placed prominently in the room, it showed her mouth in the
shape of a smile, but her eyes looked very hurt and haunted. It
reminded me of the photo my mother had me pose for, despite my not
wanting to, after my high school graduation. Cindy returned and
the evaluation appointment was all set.
When I returned the following week, their on-site psychologist was
indeed the same guy as my previous evaluation, but he didn't
recognize me either. I guessed given the number of faces flowing
through the office each year for the past three years, he had long
since forgotten me. This time, rather than the giant bubble test
to evaluate my psychological fitness, he had changed to what I
guessed he thought was a better method of cracking people's psyches:
A hand writing evaluation. I was to write a couple pages about
myself for him to review. When I noted my problems writing by hand,
he gave me an extra fifteen minutes to work on it in his office. He
then went on break and I spent the next half hour writing something
up. Given the need for speed, I resorted to my old two handed
technique where my primary hand formed the printed letters while my
other hand's fingers helped to steady the painful tremors.
When he returned and saw the results, he barked at me because I
was supposed to have done the sample in cursive, not print! But
as he hadn't told me that and he didn't have more time to have me do
it all over again, he deiced to work with what I had written and had
me next see his assistant for a fresh I.Q. test. A friendly girl, I
think this was the highest I.Q. score I had ever received, though
in reflection that might have been in part because I had just had my
I.Q. evaluated by the neuro-psychologist a few months earlier and it
seemed to be the exact same test. Once the I.Q. test was done,
and a career aptitude test which showed I should either find a job in
computers or writing, I was sent back to the psychologist's office
where he glared at me and said he couldn't conclude anything about me
from my hand writing sample and suspected I had intentionally
disguised my writing in order to hide something. At my blank
returned look, he decided not to worry about it and I was deemed fit
for Vocational Rehabilitation Services to help me.
With my return visit to Cindy, she was happy with the evaluation
results and said she had the perfect job for me! It was a start-up
company Data Acquisition Systems and they needed computer
knowledgeable people to help get the company going. Cindy told me
that the way things worked was they would hire me, and after my first
two weeks, VocRehab would reimburse them for my initial paycheck.
When I arrived at their office, it was actually the management office
of a neglected shopping center and of the three people there, two
were in their early twenties and brothers who were 'forming' the
business and the third man was another self taught computer
professional about ten years older than me. We talked at length
about what they wanted to do with the company but beyond picking out
the name they really didn't want to define it. It would have
something to do with computers because they saw that as the future of
business, but what precisely they weren't quite sure.
The other computer guy and I were to return the following week when
they had things sorted out.
Returning the second week, the other computer guy had decided not to
come back. The two brothers explained that ''He didn't get the
vision of the company.'' So the three of us spent the day still
trying to figure it out and finally concluded that what we needed was
to come up with a good motto for the company and from that the two
brothers would better know what the company would be doing. I
offered ''DAS ist gut'', I think it was a common phase from the old
Hogan's Heroes television show, regardless of where I got it
from the two brother's got the reference and burst out laughing. By
noontime they still hadn't settled on a motto and they broke for
lunch. Given that I didn't have spare cash to buy myself lunch based
on my income level, I roamed the sidewalked front of the long
shopping strip and glanced in its mostly vacant store fronts. An
hour later, we reconvened and the brothers had decided we needed to
put the motto debate aside and work on the dress code, next. They
felt we should all be in suits & ties from now on; given my
history of feeling like a cross dresser when in formal clothing, I
noted that computer people worked in the back room and so dress style
wouldn't make an impact on potential customers... But
the brothers agreed amongst themselves that a 'professional look'
resulted in 'professional work'. That topic using up half of the
afternoon, the older of the two brothers pulled me aside to let me
know that I was to report to VocRehab that they had paid me for these
two weeks so they could get the state check 'reimbursing them' for
it. When I noted that they hadn't paid me yet, and we even hadn't
met for two full work weeks either, he knew what I meant
but how were they going to be able to pay me without first getting
reimbursed for it? So I was
told to let VocRehab know they had paid me for these first two weeks
and then the brothers would pay me from the reimbursement check,
afterwards.
I'd like to say it was this dishonesty which lead me to report them
to VocRehab, but in reality it was the dress code and the insistence
I lie to VocRehab was an extra reason to end 'the job'. I went home
and wrote Cindy a detailed letter about my time with them and what
they wanted me to do and dropped it off at the VocRehab office the
following day as I walked to get my daily soda. She called me in
and, though eying me suspiciously, thanked me for letting her know and told me I didn't need to continue with DAS. She
had instead decided to find me a job in data entry and then I
could work my way up from there. When I noted the problems I had
using my fingers on small repetitive tasks, she was sure it wouldn't
be a problem and gave me an appointment with a data entry firm to
have me evaluated. When I arrived there the next week, they had me
do a half hour 'sample run' which their computer would use to give
them my data entry skill level. Once done, they found that I had a
surprisingly low error rate, but I only entered in half the minimum
data they would need in the testing time frame to consider me for a
job. Sorry. I was sent back to the VocRehab
office to show Cindy my results sheet.
Cindy didn't know what else she could do for me and I again offered
the idea of me completing College then I'd have a degree that would
get me into the many computer jobs available in town. She didn't
think that was a good idea and placed me on hold and would keep
me in mind when the next job prospects came up. I was sent home and
didn't hear back from her for four months... At least they
were issuing me free monthly bus passes in the meantime!
Then she called me sounding very excited. I was given a date &
time and arrived at their equivalent of a cattle call where we were
all clients that VocRehab was 'helping to find a job' and we were
brought to a large conference room and told to take a seat. There we
were introduced to a bespectacled man who told us he was forming a
business with his partner who we may have heard of, Frederic Neal
also known as 'Curly', recently retired from the Harlem
Globetrotters. He was co-founding a business with this new man
and they needed to hire people fast. And they wanted us!
When asked, he explained that 'Curly' was a very busy man and
couldn't be here himself to talk to us, but he truly was a partner in
this new business and we'd meet him in a month after we signed on.
One of us here for the presentation stood up and told us that she had
heard of this guy and he was a fraud with whom Frederic Neal had
publicly disavowed any business relationship. She picked up her
things and left the room, the rest of us looked to the VocRehab
counselors standing by the walls. They seemed momentarily rattled,
but Cindy vouched for him and so the man was allowed to continue his
sales pitch. Once he was done and asked for who wanted to sign on,
the counselors were very insistent that we all do. So I gave my name
as did most everyone else and he then decided to pick about fifteen
from the pile of names. Cindy intervened and thought it'd be better
if I joined later and so he said he'd get back to the rest of us and
bring us into the business once it was established.
A month later I saw Cindy again and heard that the guy turned out not
to have any connection with Frederic 'Curly' Neal and after having
the fifteen clients sit in an apartment with next to nothing to do
for two weeks, he had pressured them all into reporting that he had
paid them for those two weeks so he could get the reimbursement for
them and then, he told them, he would pay them after the fact. Most
of them did as they were told and VocRehab cut him a check and when
they returned for the third week, they found the apartment was now
vacant and available to rent. The people who had fallen for his
request to falsely state 'he had already paid them' were kicked out
of the program for lying. Wasn't it good that I hadn't fallen for
that? Cindy said after she told
me this story. I agreed it was, but kept to myself my opinion
that VocRehab seemed to be, at least, partially
at fault as well.
The state seemed to agree after this and many other incidents and
changed the rules so VocRehab would have to be shown a paycheck stub
from the business itself, so the client was no longer on the hook and
the 'business' would have to explicitly commit fraud rather than
coerce the clients into doing it for them.
Raring to go back to work after my health was restored, by going
through the state's Vocational Rehabilitation Services, I would spend the year job free without getting a step closer to my goals...
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