{"id":661,"date":"2008-01-15T12:57:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-15T12:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2008\/01\/get-a-job\/"},"modified":"2008-01-15T12:57:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-15T12:57:00","slug":"get-a-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/get-a-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Get A Job"},"content":{"rendered":"

You go to work<\/span>
You be a jerk<\/span>
You do your job<\/span>
You do it right:<\/span>
T.V. tonight!<\/span>
–Frank Zappa<\/span><\/p>\n

Now that I’ve mailed off Dirt: A Story of Gardening, Mothering, and a Mid-life Crisis,<\/span> I feel myself walking close to huge pockets of time; that huge void is threatening to open up. There is no rest; I hate rest. I’ll rest when I’m dead. I want to work. <\/span> I was raised to work, work, work for everything. From the time I could stay by myself, I was a babysitter. I worked in a movie theatre selling (and eating) popcorn and candy. I waitressed at restaurants and country clubs. I had work\/study in college.<\/p>\n

And now, my work is an odd mixture of housework, boycare, volunteer stuff, teaching, and writing. Not enough of any one thing. Not enough big blocks of time to expand any of them.<\/p>\n

So I tried to get a part-time job at my favorite clothing and home furnishings store, Anthropologie. The interview was great, I was assured they were “so<\/span> hiring,” and then I filled out the online “opinion survey” set up by the corporate headquarters. Beware corporate headquarters. Somewhere in there I displeased someone. Or maybe I am too old to represent their demographic? Me, with my closet full of Anthro clothes, my house decor of the same. I have a scary knowledge of their products and how their stores are laid out. I get my friends to shop and buy there. Yet, somehow, I was not right for the job. Eeek. That stung.<\/p>\n

I heard a similar story about CVS Pharmacy from a dear old friend. Her “high-functioning” autistic son walks to their CVS all the time; it was his first independent outing. He stocks shelves there at a school program. He knows and loves CVS and their products better than anyone I know, knows it like he knows his own bedroom, or better yet, like he knows the train routes. You know what I’m talking about. And yet this wonderful young man cannot get hired there because everyone must fill out the corporate questionnaire, which has statements like, “I work well with people” to which you answer yes or no.<\/p>\n

This dear boy does not know how to lie. He knows he does not work well with people. He works well in the stockroom. As long as everything is operating according to expectations (toaster in cafeteria working, and as long as you don’t say one particular kind of statement to him, he will do beautifully. But he cannot answer “correctly” because he cannot be imprecise.<\/p>\n

Which made me wonder: what does “reasonable accommodation” mean? Is it only about building ramps, low toilets and reserving parking spaces, or is it also about training your staff and your corporate survey-makers in the particular ins and outs of neurological differences? This is an able young man who has overcome tremendous behavioral and sensory difficulties (bolting, tantrums, undressing in public) to be the responsible, sweet young adult he is. But he can’t get hired by CVS.<\/p>\n

We need employers to understand that “accommodation” can mean many different things in today’s world of well-educated autistics and the college-degree-holding cognitively disabled. If little kids can be trained to work next to their atypically developing peers to the point where they barely bat an eye at a guy who flaps in class, why can’t the business leaders of today get a clue? I don’t need that job at Anthropologie, but my young friend really does need to be able to work at places he is trained to work in. For now, that might mean he has to be trained to lie on a job questionnaire. Stupidly ironic, isn’t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You go to workYou be a jerkYou do your jobYou do it right:T.V. tonight!–Frank Zappa Now that I’ve mailed off Dirt: A Story of Gardening, Mothering, and a Mid-life Crisis, I feel myself walking close to huge pockets of time; that huge void is threatening to open up. There is no rest; I hate rest. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-aF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}