Making Work Work

"Even in the future, nothing works!" -Dark Helmet in the movie Spaceballs

A job interview today. For a job for which before my car accident I was considered to be overqualified for. I interviewed well, she told me. She enjoyed talking to me. It lasted an hour. She said she was leaving for vacation and did not wish to leave me hanging. She would discuss with personnel and tell them to go ahead and have me interview with other people.

Damn this brain injury. Damn these feet, the vision, the inability to multi-task, the bad back.

Her concern-- the position is a third shift and take-downs would surely be involved. Could I do them now? The job is very physical. That was her concern. And it is a legitimate one.

The only thing I could say in response was yes that is a valid concern however (insert words that mean I am one determined mutherfrucker no matter what and that I can learn anything I need to learn) and perhaps I would need some extra practice with the other two staffers that I would be working with...their styles...all of that. What I didn't tell her is that I've always hated doing SKIP-R. I hated doing two-person escorts at my last job the few times I had to. And I didn't tell her about the vertigo even after being asked specifically about all of the t.b.i. crap
and complications and residual effects.

The fairly useless job handler claims she will go in tomorrow to get me those follow-alongs (in the other three departments) that the moronic VESID folks funded me for. "VESID won't support any jobs that are not within your limitations," the job handler tells me. She is young enough to have a MySpace page as her main blog, complete with an exaggerated description of her profession. And stupid enough for her user name to be the same as her legal name.

(Yes I have a MySpace page too, however it is primarily to keep up with heathen
news that a friend publishes there.)

Has she even read the list of limitations from various doctors? One of them says 15 hours a week. I'm guessing that the morons from VESID skipped over that one too. Too inconvenient. It would require a filing of a form to get an exception for the usual requirement of "must be able to work at least 20 hours a week." No overhead reaching. No lifting over 10 pounds. Avoid night driving. No carrying loose things downstairs. There's a bunch of them, along with bunches of diagnoses from various doctors of things all related to my brain injury, or made worse by my brain injury. I specifically pointed out the limitations to her several times. The civil service job she told me about today was for being a corrections officer for crying out loud. I wanted to bang my head against the wall after that revelation. I already have diagnosable brain damage (yes folks, traumatic brain injury is a polite word for brain damage) so I resisted the impulse.

Bits of depression threaten to rain down on me. Time to keep going. Routine helps. E-mail, blogging, and cognitive work tonight. Drug court tomorrow with a friend's daughter and keep putting in those applications. I won't stop with that until a job offer comes through. Walk with the dog. Practice walking on uneven ground with the dog. Housework would be a good thing. Water the plants before death ensues. Do the next clean thing. You drink, you drug, you die. A line from a rehab movie I saw once during my torturous time tutoring adolescents. I prefer adolescents in groups of one. Huge problem. There were 26 of them. But I stuck it out for my obligatory 3 years before beating feet out of there. The money wasn't worth it.

And fuck VESID. It would be nice to have their support (i.e. job coach) on a job however if that becomes "not able to happen by golly because whatever job violates some limitation or other" I'm going to go to work anyways. Even if it means working at the local Walmart as a tire-changer and an oil-changer. Even if it means using a fricking cart to bring the tire to the car.

The local Walmart is so desperate for help that I have an interview to do that on Monday. "Did you apply to be a mechanic by mistake?" the woman asked me on the phone after she found out that I never done either. "No," I told her, "I applied for all of the positions. I am willing to learn whatever you or someone wishes to teach me." Then I heard, "Oh well that is really hard work and blah blah blah I will call you back when there is a service writer position open and blah blah blah." She called me back an hour and a half later. That interview was supposed to be tomorrow but she changed it to Monday. That's okay. I haven't run out of places to apply to.

Because I am going to work this year. Even if it means missing the week in Maine with my husband this summer and the week visiting my friend Philly Dave this summer. I am going to work this year. I am going to work this year no matter what. If nothing in the future works, then I am going to make it work or beat it beyond recognition in my endeavor.

sapphoq healing t.b.i.