The Most Stressful Job Program I Went Through

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Do You Understand Why We Stress The Importance Of Education? This Is Why.

In 2017, I went through a program that I thought would help me find a job. It turned out to be useless and stressful. I don’t think they even help you with employment, to begin with. This is a result of that lady invalidating my autism, thus causing me to not get placed properly. My mom found this place in May of 2017. This place assisted people with disabilities to help them with employment.

My mom used to understand until I started working with this program

Because the counselor they gave me refused to believe I have autism, this caused me to not get the help that I need. I talked about my issues with the coach in a previous post. My mom was even on point with my psych until that counselor. Now I don’t know for sure if the lady who refused to believe my autism changed my mom.

Before seeing this lady my mom is like ‘she needs something low stress, not too many people.’ “she cannot be under pressure w/o meds.’ ‘her learning differences is will make it hard.’ “she cannot work, her doctor says so.’

After seeing the lady ‘see if Walmart is hiring.’ “see if Culver’s is hiring.’ “you need to learn how to be under pressure w/o meds..’ “There are disabled adults your age working.’ My mom went from understanding how my autism makes finding a job difficult to not understanding after the first meeting with Sally (what we will call the lady) When she swore up and down my doc told her I couldn’t work full-time and I needed something were not a lot of people coming in and out. SO who told her Walmart doesn’t have a lot of people? Walmart is the busiest store we visit out of all of them.

My Impression Of This Program

My initial thought of this program is that they help you build your skills for the type of job you are trying to get. Take someone who is skilled in numbers, help them find an accountant job, or help them build their skills.

Signs I should have noticed that this program is full of it

I met with the coach in private. I thought I made it clear the type of job that I needed. thinking she would keep that in mind with understanding my limitations. WRONG. My short-term memory is poor, so I had missed or forgotten a lot of information. I was placed in a group with people who were previously employed.

How could I get help when I am in a group full of people with different struggles?
The first day of the club was a few days after. I will call the coach Sarah. On the first day of the club, Sarah jumps right into the job interview questions/basics. Aren’t you supposed to build your resume or cover letter?

This was a sign that I missed that this club would not help me. Perhaps the other members had jobs before but had to leave due to their disorder or sickness.

Another sign is I felt the coach expects us to have no lives.  I saw a message on the board saying if you are going to concerts etc are you ready to work. WTF? Are people supposed to have no lives?

You’re telling me people don’t deserve to treat themselves every now and then? If you don’t have a job you can’t buy concert tickets, to begin with. Unless the participants received disability benefits.

You can’t live on 700 dollars a month. At each meeting, Sarah would ask us what jobs have we applied to. Because I missed this, I thought that applying was optional.

The coach was putting too much pressure on me, and expected way too much

Whenever I didn’t apply for a job or didn’t send out enough applications to please Sarah, she would pressure me. Like ‘you need to be committed.’ She just assumes we don’t care if we are not applying for enough jobs.

She is working with disabled people. Does she not understand it’s not that easy for disabled people to find jobs?

That’s why they are attending the damn program! Does she not understand employers are ableist and agest?

They don’t wanna hire disabled people or people over a certain age. My golden rule with a program from this point is to find out if they’re contracted with employers. As long as employers discriminate, no amount of job programs will work.

That program can train me until the cows come home. If my resume gets turned down or I am turned away after an interview because of my autism and the stigma then the program is doing me no good.

The coach had zero empathy

I didn’t apply for a job and I told Sarah things had been crazy and she continued to pressure me. I e-mailed Sarah that I just could not handle the program anymore and she would not understand.

If she understood she would have said ‘if you want to leave the club you may, I will have Sally(what we’re gonna call the ableist lady) close your case.’ 

But now, she proceeds to go on about how would I be able to attend a job. I started to get burned out and I was only going to the club for a few weeks.

I asked her if I could opt-out and proceeded to be like ‘No you can’t if you don’t show up we close your case. It’s up to you if you follow the rules or not.’ Sarah didn’t care at all about my mental health. All she cares about is a job. 

She only gave you 3 days to miss. She expects you to have no life outside of that stupid club.

If she understood that people have lives, she would not have been so pushy when I didn’t send in enough applications. Sarah is a ‘job coach’ but doesn’t understand that

• disabled people are discriminated against by employers
• employers do not want to hire disabled people
• jobs are hard to find and it’s getting harder
• some areas have more jobs than others and my area had fewer jobs than everyone else.
• disabled people need jobs where possible adjustments can be made.
• the quiz the application makes you take weeds out neurodiverse people and “must be able to lift 60LBS” when the job doesn’t have any lifting, weeds out disabled people. They won’t apply since they know they can’t life, stand etc
• you have to request adjustments and they can reject it.

This coach expected me to take the bus with the money I didn’t have if my grandma couldn’t bring me

This should have been another red flag, I couldn’t opt out.

Another red flag is I told her I might miss days if my grandma had to take my grandpa anywhere and said I couldn’t miss any days unless it’s job-related (eg interviews, volunteering) telling me to ‘take the bus’ Remember I am UNEMPLOYED not getting disability checks at the time and this ‘coach’ expects me to take the bus which you need MONEY for. I would have to take 3 buses, the fare is let’s say 3 dollars. I’d need 20 dollars to get there and back

What kinda people do they think they’re working with, drones? What if someone in the family dies? The last thing a grieving person needs is a job program and that lady hounding them for not applying for enough jobs.

As I said, she never gave a specific number of applications. She didn’t make her expectations clear and was surprised I was not meeting them.

Realizing this program is useless as a brick

Let’s put it this way. Let’s say I had joint pains, I couldn’t do retail or fast food. I wouldn’t be able to stand for several hours, unload trucks, stock shelves, or prep food due to my pain.

I can’t do office jobs due to the fact most of them are downtown and you have to commute via train and I wouldn’t be able to climb all of those stairs and walk from the stop to the building and vice versa.

I think maybe this program knows what I can do. Only to get some ableist “disability” counselor who invalidates my disorder, (Disabled people can be ableist just like able-bodied people) and refuses to listen when I try to explain, get misplaced, and put in the wrong group only for a ‘job coach’ to do nothing to help me find a job, expect me to apply to jobs when I need help looking for places to apply to.

The coach assumes I don’t care about the program when I don’t apply when in reality I am struggling.

She never thought that I was struggling to find a job to apply for, I guess she thought adding more pressure on me was ‘help.’ It’s like the lady is there for show and they didn’t do a single thing that would help me.

One day, we did mock interviews. Sarah asked me the ‘tell me about yourself question’ I messed up on the question and Sarah kept asking questions when she knew I did not have any work experience. She could have modified the questions for me at least.

I asked Sarah how much longer is this club and she said ‘Forever, until you get a job.’

So what if I am out of luck and just can’t get hired? I come until I die? Sarah is a doughnut for a job coach. Jobs are getting harder and harder to get. You; ‘re making the one group who struggles to get hired, stay at your program until they get a job they might not be able to get.

I can understand the club being for a few weeks or months, but until you can get a job? So if someone is out of luck and can’t get hired they’re confined to that program.

All they seem ever do is job interviews, it seems like they don’t even show you how to perfect your resume (or CV if you are not American), or how to do a cover letter. Have employers come in and you can explain the needs you will require so they can keep it in mind if they hire you. I mean I started in September and left after Thanksgiving so I don’t know what they did after I left. But 50% of the time before I left it was job interview stuff.

What folks need to understand is employers do discriminate against disabled people. A non-disabled person can make 10 bucks an hour and a disabled person gets 8 bucks an hour.

You can have all the programs in the world. If nothing is being done about the discrimination, you’re wasting your time with programs. I mean to see if they’re contracted with any companies.

My breaking point with this program

I had a staffing meeting. Sarah just assumes I am being held back from applying. I don’t think she will ever understand how hard jobs are to find/get and how limited someone can be due to where they live.

On the verge of a breakdown due to all of the pressure Sarah was putting on me, I said I was getting therapy because I knew she would let me go.  I wasn’t planning on coming back so I just said give me a year. I deleted the number from my phone and threw away the card, cleaning my e-mails.

How can Sarah be a disability job coach and not understand the discrimination when it comes to disabled people? That keeps them from getting hired. She could have done something about the discrimination rather than doing job interviews.

This program needs an actual disabled person who has struggled to find a job due to their disability and who understands discrimination and ableism.

Remember, programs won’t do anything if nothing is being done about the discrimination, and ableism that disabled people face.

I left the program after 2/3 months. I was not getting the help I needed and I ended up struggling. All because one person refused to believe I am autistic.

Final thoughts

Why place someone with no work experience with a group full of people with experience? They should have placed me in a beginner’s group or something.

 Even if I didn’t have autism, at this point getting a job will be close to impossible since the last thing I did was back in 2011-2013.

Employers won’t even look at something that far away. When you put down your last job on an application the potential employer will contact the last employer as a reference. Employers look at something recent. I don’t think something from 2012-2013 will cut it

This video will tell you about that lady.

I wrote some other blog posts about this program for reference. One regarding the signs I missed that the program wouldn’t help me in the first place.

I did a revision of this one for info that I may have left out.

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