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Hmm!
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Nov 8, 2014 22:11
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 09:53 |
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So I might might might have a possible job. Member services rep at a local credit union, call center work. $16 an hour to start, 25-29 hours a week, no sales. It pays better, oddly, than the job I had doing blogging for a market research firm right out of college. I was initially more or less "Let me run this by parents just to make sure it doesn't screw me cause I'm on benefits", so the recruiter gave me his phone and email, parents said "Take it!", so I emailed the guy and said "Sure, I shall do this!" (not in those words). Now to hope he sees the email before filling the position.
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Nov 13, 2014 18:50
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I followed up the email with a call (that went to voicemail, naturally) after the last post. Same basic message. No response yet *today*, but here's hoping?
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Nov 14, 2014 01:26
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Thank God I never really listened to you.
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Nov 14, 2014 04:05
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Oh, it'd be absolutely amazing for my mental health if it lasts. Which is why I said "hell yes" via email. We'll be arguing it with social security - basically, they want me to have the safety net of being able to go back on Disabled Adult Child benefits, as otherwise (when you add in Medicare coverage and such) I'd screw myself getting a job. We'll also have my psychologist saying basically "Seriously, do this. If he has a job, his brand of mentally ill does much better. But to get the job, he needs the safety net." (I should note that the job has basically no benefits, just the paycheck. And woe unto anyone trying to get mental health coverage off of Obamacare, since (do we have anybody reading this thread who knows Federal health insurance benefits?) I think the FEHBP Blue Cross I get via my dad I'm only eligible for because I'm on disability.) Now hoping the guy who called me yesterday gets back to me. (If he does and says "OK, got your email and voicemail, good to go" or something similar, then I gotta check what of my various insurance coverage I lose if I work.)
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Nov 14, 2014 14:25
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Marchantia: Problem is, this offer didn't come from any initiative on my part. He found my resume on the local community college's career services job board online. And, for the record, he didn't call back yesterday. I called him, left *another* voice mail message. If he doesn't respond to that by tomorrow, I'm going to presume he's moved on and quit worrying. Thanksgiving is going to be somewhat busy for me, and parents are taking me down to their condo in FL for a month from mid-December (they were going to skip taking me down if I had a job, but as right now I likely won't, why not, even if I'm mostly down there to babysit the dog when they go out (which works for me, don't get me wrong)), so the job search is going into a fallow period for me.
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Nov 18, 2014 15:58
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AA, figured you deserved an update on the Social Security front: They called us back today...It's both not as bad as you and I thought, and not as good as parents thought. Quick summary: Because the diagnosis that gets me benefits is technically depression (yeah, not the physical stuff, made me go huh too), I'd have to reapply if I were to work for a long period of time. However, it's not hard to prove a relapse, apparently. So I don't lose benefits permanently, just need to reapply.
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Nov 21, 2014 21:18
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OK...Here's what I PMed to Hot Dog Day a few days ago (I think it was that long ago anyway): --- OK, a rundown. I will not call it quick, it isn't. I was born 94 days premature and had a brain bleed at 12 days old to begin the adventure, with retinopathy of prematurity from 2.5 months old. The end results: Physical: Cerebral palsy (a light case, I can walk but don't ask me to go too far) as result of being premature. Still have a very heavy gait, for example, partly a result of the fact that I haven't been in physical therapy since age 8. It's something easier to explain in real life, because you can see what's meant. Some brain damage that we can't particularly associate to anything as a result of the brain bleed, neuroplasticity being a thing. Fine and gross motor difficulties - Can't tie shoes; don't even ask about a necktie, because that ain't happening for the same reason. Can't ride a bike due to lack of balance. My handwriting is also poo poo as a result. It's legible now, at age 30, but only in print and only with a lot of effort. My typing speed, bizarrely, is 50 wpm, but I only use my index fingers most of the time, with occasional use of my right thumb (which is rather odd-looking due to my right hand's fingers falling off while I was in the NICU, then 3 of 5 growing back not-quite-right). Some reflex issues, hard to define em, though What my psychologist aunt calls a "non-verbal learning disorder" - I can see your face, but the facial expressions don't click in my head, nor do other body language. I'm deaf in my right ear as a result of the brain bleed, too. Left ear compensates exceptionally well and you'd normally never notice, but it means I can't localize sound when I go outside, for example - we've tried hearing aids, but they never worked out well for me, either because they're small and easy to lose or because they amplify everything, which means I just get lost by the background noise. And the big one: I am blind in my right eye as a result of retinopathy of prematurity. The left eye sees no better than 20/80 corrected and is extremely nearsighted - I can read the fine print of a contract (handy, huh) but not see the broad side of a barn...Or, for that matter, read street signs. The field of vision is also extremely limited, but I don't remember what my remaining field is at, numerically. Statutorily, because my left eye is at 20/80, I'm in the worst of all possible worlds so far as vision goes - I'm functionally blind for most purposes (can't drive, for example), but I don't qualify as blind for the purposes of the social security act. New Jersey considers me blind, though, and I'm registered with the NJ Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired as a client, though my case has been closed for a few years (because they only help when I'm actively job searching, and they haven't gotten back to me this time about reopening things, despite my calling repeatedly over the past few months). Psychological: As you might imagine, my physical state (and the reality that it can never actually be fixed, even with technological advancement - the brain has simply adapted to not having certain functions available) has produced clinically significant depression; it was suicidal (ideations, not an attempt) when I was a teenager, which resulted in 10 days inpatient when I was 15, and 30 days partial hospitalization a few months later when I had a second incident. Between me and my psychologist, the Major Depressive Disorder has descended? to dysthymia, but the end result is still 4 separate prescriptions (1 for attention deficit disorder, 2 for depression (one at night, one in the morning), and 1 for depression-induced insomnia) from my friendly local psych nurse. Social Security did a medical review about a year ago (ish), and I distinctly recall what the guy at the local field office (who was doing the review) said: "I entirely accept that you don't have one solitary diagnosis that pushes you into the eligible range. However, your sheer totality of diagnoses and conditions...Yeah, you're disabled, and I can tell that from looking at you." The problem is that SSI wants one diagnosis, so depression was it. --- Doghouse: Software dev would fit my personality fine, but my math skills suck and always have, which I'm told is a barrier to actually learning that. (My latest math was remedial algebra at the local community college, where I got a C+.) I'm getting the depression treated, but like I said above - it is fundamentally rooted in the physical stuff. Unless you fix the physical, the psychological ain't going to do better than "I manage it". And unless people know of ways to rewire the brain that aren't public knowledge yet, there's no way to fix (for example) the vision, especially after 30 years without it.
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Nov 23, 2014 19:05
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Funnily enough, depression is why I get SSI/SSDI currently, marchantia. It's just that unlike the usual case where depression can be cleared up eventually, mine can't - because of where it's rooted in the physical disabilities. But yeah, I hear you. When stuff opens up in an hour (ish) I hope to get a call in to the last place I applied to, following up. They haven't replied at all, and that annoys me. It was a local cerebral palsy organization, and it was kiiiind of a shot in the dark, but.
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Dec 10, 2014 14:20
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Engaging in blatant thread necromancy to report good news of a sort: I had an interview today, my first (except for a Skype interview with OfficeTeam that, so far, hasn't led to any work) in this whole job search insanity, and it seemed to go well! (Though I've no true idea how I did and not wanting to count chickens before hatching, etc.) Was for a receptionist job at a vet's office (dealing with dogs and cats - fortunately, actual animal wrangling is *mostly* someone else's job, I think) - and while it's 16 hours a week max at somewhere between $10-15 an hour, that's a ton better than 0 hours a week at $0/hour. Now the anxious wait to hear back begins. They said they were right in the middle of interviewing people, and would still be interviewing for a few days, so who knows when (or if) I'll hear back. (In case you were wondering, the cerebral palsy place? Hired someone related to someone who works there, I heard.  )
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Feb 22, 2015 03:45
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I am. The difficulty is *finding places posting ads* in the local area.
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Feb 22, 2015 18:06
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In the event, Irish Joe was right. Didn't get the job.
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Feb 24, 2015 19:14
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Irish Joe posted:Just being a realist. The odds are against you any time you apply for a job in general, but even moreso when you have a bad resume and/or a disability. Add on top of that the fact that a receptionist is the face of a company/office. If I'm looking for someone to sit in the lobby and be pleasant and approachable, am I going to go with one of the ten able-bodied young women who applied, or the anxious disabled guy? The answer, I think, is obvious. And that's precisely why the OP shouldn't put all his hopes and dreams on a single position, but should be applying for everything that comes along: the odds are stacked against him no matter what, and he'll never get out of his rut if he strings his failures out one at a time. Logical brain of mine actually agrees with this, even if emotional brain hates to hear it because jobs seem to only come along in ones and twos, and half the time I don't get a response to my resume anyway. (It'd be nice to actually get responses back even if they're no. At least then I can not wonder if they're suddenly going to come back to me a month+ later...) Note that I'm not strictly looking for receptionist work. Dream job at the moment is paralegal stuff, but I've explained itt how hard that is to get. So I'm looking for anything, and receptionist was just the one time I got an interview - or even a response to my resume at all. I fully agree I had maybe a 5% shot of actually landing that job in particular, if that much. At the moment, it's a situation where I'm somewhere past frustrated and into just wondering if I'll ever get anything period. Tbqh, I try to not think about it most days, because the results have been so disappointing.
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Mar 6, 2015 17:53
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 09:53 |
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So an update: In desperation, about two months ago, I called up the state commission for the blind and re-registered as a client. Easy, but I'd been avoiding it and trying to work off non-disabled methods of getting a job, mostly (exception: Federal jobs, because I had hope the Schedule A letter would get me sweet sweet government job...didn't happen...). Yeah, that was the best decision I've made job-wise in a while. They set me up with a contractor job coach, and said job coach basically helped me redo my resume completely...and helped me get interviews at several places. Eventually, though, I decided to try old place I used to work: Yup. The survey company I worked at out of HS. They pay $9.38 an hour, I can realistically work a max of 25 hours a week before I start losing benefits, but it's a job. They hired me today, I start training 6/23. Whee. So when some guy calls you up to ask you to do a survey, don't slam the phone down on him or swear at him immediately, it might be me.
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Jun 10, 2015 23:23
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