I'm B A cK

Life's been busy here, and I'll get to that at a time I don't have to see a Dr. in a couple hours, but I'm mad.  Fed Up, tired of 'how things are.

Just read another blog/network - Job Creators Network

From their most recent post:

Welfare is Rotten in the State of Denmark: Lessons for Americans

The number of persons on Social Security disability has shot up from 10 million to 14 million in just the last four years. To put those four million additional people in perspective: Wal-Mart, the largest private employer in America, has just 2.2 million people on the payroll. The dramatic spike in disability claims has led to suspicions that the economy – rather than a real debilitating condition – is often the cause of claims.

^ Got my blood boiling... and I'll go back to their page to tell THEM why.  Getting on disability is not easy and you need medical proof of ' a real debilitating condition'.  The reason for the increase, in my opinion, is that employers see no value to work with someone who has acquired an illness or disability.  Take my case:  my last job payed me $1000 in moving expenses, trained me, and whatever other costs come with a new employee.  Then, six months after I start, when I'm diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and go to them with ideas that will keep me productive and functional for the longest amount of time, they put me in a 'temporary part time position.  I HAD started using a cane then, because I saw the benefit of me not falling and walking like a drunk, and them (trying not to break anything that may have been in our small settlement), an organization serving youth, said my handicap 'didn't fit their image'... didn't want a lead figure driving motorized aids to get places or (my words) appearing weak.  Hmph.  Why not teach children that people with disabilities are people too.  Did they offer me another position that wouldn't be so 'high profile' (or whatever they didn't want seen)?  No.  Same company just fired another employee for a disabling injury.

On the other hand, and I'm sure part of why I got disability, I applied for my unemployment 'two jobs a week for 18 months' and never got hired.  A few interviews, one job offer that was nights and with potentially violent patients that I couldn't take, but otherwise nothing.  But, I was 28 and walking into the interviews I did get with a cane.  You also don't get many interviews when your last job held on to you for about a year and a half.

All past 'stuff' aside, I do believe 'things happen for a reason'... or, really, that good can come out of anything - if you let it. My life wouldn't be the way it is now if all that hadn't happened.

I do wish that employers would find value in employees that may need to do things a little differently - altered, and work with them.