It has taken me a while to write about this. Mainly because I wanted to make sure that the
person involved had truly moved on and was no longer bothered by it.
My husband, a veteran and disabled with two knee
replacements, has struggled with the fact that he feels he no longer has a
purpose in life....spelled J O B. I
think a lot of us don't realize just how much self worth is attributed by being
gainfully employed - particularly to men.
It is really difficult when that desire to remain productive has a
qualifier of "things you really shouldn't do with two metal
knees." Few people truly understand
that doesn't inhibit your interest in doing something and yet even more people
will ask that person to do the very things they shouldn't. First rule of artificial knees - don't kneel
and for God's sake don't spend a lot of time ascending and descending ladders. Now when construction was your "go
to" skill when the world went crazy and you lost your "using your
thinker" job, that makes for a frustrated man.
Because of my hearing trouble, I enlisted the help of the
Arkansas Rehabilitation Department who were very helpful in burning the
underbrush of job search and helping me find something possible. Therefore, when Roger truly decided he wanted
to a) do something other than build crap for me and b) make a little money
doing it, we went to ARD again.
Recently, they hooked Roger up with an online training
program that would teach you in a 3 week 8 hour a day on line class how to
provide customer service. (Think of
those people you get when your garage door opener won't work - or you can't
find the battery compartment in your whoozits).
Well, this seemed good....work from home, kind of technical....Yay! Plus, they were very veteran friendly.
BUT NOT!
Based on this program, we invested in a new laptop with
Windows 10 - (trust me, if you aren't familiar with this operating system, you
better get on board NOW), we invested in a second monitor, a microphone headset
and had already called our internet provider to have our internet speed bumped
up with ethernet because we were deemed "inadequate."
Class began, and a whole lot of time was spent with the
trainer not being able to access their own teaching modules, trying to figure
things out, etc. And yet....Roger
persisted staying sat in a chair for hours on end, waiting for them to get
their stuff back on line after crashing, etc.
Then, two and half days into training as he was trying to move into a
new module, his credentials quit working.
He tried repeatedly to log in and got nowhere until he received a
message telling him someone would be calling him shortly.
He waited two hours and finally they called and told him his
computer skills weren't adequate for what they required. Please know that in all the preliminary talks
regarding this "job" they did not mention you had to be proficient in
Windows 10 or what your internet speed needed to be. Just internet connectivity and basic computer
skills were required.
So, in essence, after spending a bunch of money and 2 1/2
days of his time he was "fired" from a training program. That helps a person's ego now doesn't it?
Roger is one of those people who just goes silent and deep
with things like this. However, I am one
of those people who goes nuclear and loud.
The first thing I did was call the ARD and tell them what happened as
they provide those online training programs with a lot of their people which
translates into a lot of $ for those companies.
I rattled every cage in every zoo I could find.
Now, the training program wants to have him back in the
program, but we think no. It's kind of
like being newly married and coming home the day after the honeymoon, to find
your spouse has run off with the mailman - the trust is broken, plus we don't
think we can afford them.
I am absolutely happy with the knowledge that the ARD
probably has made their ears bleed with their disapproval over how this was
handled and that they are also further armed with a lot of information they did
not have prior to this event.
Hopefully, there are still people out there who look at
people who are "mostly retired" but still productive, honest,
dependable, smart, and willing that will say to themselves "hey, I don't
need a full time body....but I could use a guy like that 10 or 15 hours a
week." And hopefully, there are
even more people out there willing to go to bat for those men and women who
still want to say "I work to pay my bills and take care of my family"
- even if that family is only a bunch of little brown dogs.
