July 9th & 16th, pt 1

After winning 11-7 on July 2nd, I held a postgame meeting.  I congratulated everyone on doing their job of shut-down defense.  The pitcher was shaky that night, having walked 8 batters total and he apologized for that.  I told him not to worry - he would do better next week.

"Uhm, about that..."

Uh-oh. 

He proceeded to let me know he would be on vacation for 2 weeks.  Okay.  I asked the team if anyone would be willing to pitch next week.  I was immediately nominated for that.  Uhh...  I repeated my question and they all stared back at me.

The problem was I hadn't pitched in a game for 12 months and I figured with so many available players, I would not need to stay sharp.  After all, I was doing practice with two different teams at least once a week which helped keep me fit.  I consented and then sent everyone off with a rousing victory speech.

Before I knew it, Monday the 9th was here and...I never got around to practice on my pitching.  Crap.  I knew the exact distance because I have the measuring tape...but can I do it again, hitting the target consistently after all that time?  Only way to find out.  I went to the park an hour early, measured off the distance, placed a faux home plate at the end of the tape, and took my spot on the other end. 

I positioned myself, took one step back, took a breath, and went into the motion.  I was short by two full plates.  Tried harder...*thud!*  The ball had hit the plate.  I tried harder and I cleared the plate, but a bit off to the right.  Took a breath, centered myself, focused on the area above the plate, and let it fly.  Landed perfectly.  Threw another...almost same result.  A slight hiccup in my throwing mechanism and the ball veered off.  Centered myself and I found the area once again.

15 minutes later, I felt good about my arm.  Then the game started 10 minutes later.

First inning - we scored a run and then it was my turn.  I was a bit off and walked the first batter (since this was a male batter, he automatically advanced to second base).  The next batter tried to wait on my pitches in order to draw a walk.  The shortstop (one of the fixtures) came over to tell me how to pitch.  I told him to back off, do his job, and I will do mine.  The batter then grounded out, advancing the runner to third.  I walked third batter, putting him on 2nd base.  The fourth batter flied out to outfield, scoring the runner.  The 6th batter grounded out, tying the score at 1-1.

Second inning - we didn't score a run.  First batter grounded out, 2nd batter singled, 3rd batter singled, 4th got on by shortstop's error, 5th lined out, 6th lined right at me which almost took me out, scoring 2 runners, before shutting down the next two batters through flyouts.  I became very vocal on the field and that fired the team up.  I didn't walk a batter and gave up just three hits.  Down 3-1.

Third inning - we scored a run to cut the deficit to 3-2.  Got first batter to ground out.  Second batter singled, third batter grounded out, and fourth batter struck out.  Score remained unchanged, but I underwent a transformation on the mound.  I found my zone and nothing was getting to me at all.

Fourth inning - no score from us.  Struck out first batter, gave up a single to next batter, third flied out to outfield (outfielder thought it was three outs and never bothered to throw the ball back so the runner advanced on no throw), fourth singled to score the runner home, fifth singled, and sixth batter lined out at second baseman.  Score 4-2.  Everyone could hear me and I told the shortstop off again for not being in his position.

We scored 2 more runs over the next 2 innings...but gave up one more run in the final inning to seal our fate.  The funny thing was that shortstop singled before I told him to back off and do his job.  He floundered, going 0-4 and committing two errors.  I felt good about myself despite having pitched 7 innings, giving up 5 runs and walking two batters.  I wanted more out of myself and others...and I knew the team wanted me back on the mound next week. 

The problem with next week was...  Come back next week to find out!  ;)

Then the softball season came around...part 1

The funny thing about this softball season was...I wasn't looking to be a coach and I was made to be a coach, twice. 

I was looking to play again this year...this time as a player without the "/coach" added on.  To clarify this...last year, I was a player/coach of an adult coed slo-pitch team (with a mix of deaf and hearing players) and we managed to win just one game (when a team full of barflies didn't bother to show up).  Last year's team was, at best, a mediocre collection of players.  We had lost two games by two runs or less and 3 games by 5 runs or less to finish at 1-13.

When a very talented player joined the team in the final game of the season last year as second baseman and played brilliantly in tandem with me at first base, I realized with her returning next year we would be one or two good players away from becoming a respectable team.  I am a great catcher, I am a very good pitcher that doesn't crack under pressure, and I am a decent infielder.  I'm just like Crash Davis..."all my limbs put together are worth 7 cents a pound", but boy do I have the brains for the game.

Don't get me wrong...I am not all about winning.  Yes, winning feels good (always!) but I would never try to win at anyone's expense.  I *am* competitive by nature - I always give everything I have on the field and I always leave it all on the field.  Most players, who came consistently to the games, always played their hearts out and I would take them over any talented player who doesn't care about the team.

The point is, it's just a game but I wanted to give the players a chance...more accurately...a fighting chance to win every time.  I always put everyone in the game, even if it means losing the lead...even if it meant I wouldn't get to play.  Growing up, I was always picked last or excluded from the games and I *hated* the feeling that came standard with being excluded or subbed for a better player.  I vowed to never do that to anyone if I ever became a coach and I still haven't done that to anyone.

Here's what happened this year - I was supposed to play in a league 30 miles south with one of the last year's players becoming the coach but he took too long to register a team.  You guessed it correctly - I was able to register a team in my league and again I was the coach.  However, the majority of players from last year brought more players and the skill level was much better this time around. 
 
I moved a player from her usual shortstop position to second baseman because she had trouble making the throw from there and I knew she would adjust to the "flipped" side.  She adapted so well that she gained confidence in her game and she even went after players who would "lollygag the ball around".  I promptly made her the captain of the team.  Certain new players who instantly upgraded the skill level were put in center outfield, shortstop, and first base, becaming permanent fixtures along with the captain.
 
Me?  I ended up not playing at all in order to accomodate the sudden influx of available players.  I knew I missed being on the field, but I didn't realize exactly how much I missed it until I had to pitch on July 9th and again on July 16th.  More on that in a future post, I promise.  :)

And the "twice" part I alluded to at the beginning?  Stay tuned. 

Bonus points to anyone who caught "Bull Durham" references - I *love* that movie and it is the greatest baseball movie.  Ever.  No, not even "A League of Their Own" or "Field of Dreams".  I loved the story about female players and "There's no crying in baseball!!!" and I played catch with my dad so I didn't have to "build it and he will come" which means "Field of Dreams didn't hit me as hard as it did with others.  So there!  LOL

Spring Break From Hell!

Thanks to my eperience with Spring Break from Hell, I can't stand any type of strobes. Not even those used at parties or dances. Just triggers the preconditioned headache.

This happened in my second year at an university when I made the ill-fated decision to stay there over the spring break. I didn't budget carefully and when I made my decision, I had just $10 in my account.

After I blew my $10 on 10 days' worth of bread and soup, I returned to my dorm room and found a note stuck on the door. It read, "We will be testing the fire alarms over the next three days for testing and maintenance."

I thought nothing of that - I had gone through the nights when someone thought it was funny to pull a fire alarm at 3 am. I had no idea what was in store for me in sheer terms of misery.

First day, the fire alarms went off with the strobe lights flashing. I went to a friend's room and we thought it was enough to put a cup over the strobe. The flashing seemed to get brighter and brighter, to the point where it was annoying us. I got a plastic bag and stuffed it into the cup before putting it back on the strobe. Ah...but the victory was short-lived. The strobe light was determined to shine through 2 inches of plastic and it did.

It stopped after three hours. I had an headache. We thought it would be about the same length of time used to test the strobes for the next day. We were ready for the light. We got three cups stacked on top of each other with paper lining the inside, the bottom cup was stuffed extra-full of plastic bags, and the shield was taped tightly over the light to prevent any light escaping. The test commenced and we almost couldn't see the light at all. Suh-weet!

We started to notice the flashing from the stobe. The flashes were getting stronger and stronger...I checked the clock and saw it had been 3 hours already and it was still flashing. My headache was back. And flashing. 4 hours. And flashing. Headache was so strong that my eyes were hurting. AND flashing. AND FLASHING. AND FLASHING! AND FLASHING!!!!!!!!

We fled the dormitory for the mall. It was actually weird to see all floors of the dormitory flashing in random sequences as if there were gunfights all over. When the madness finally stopped an hour later, we returned to his room and we were shocked to discover that the bags in the shield had melted a bit from the heat of constant flashing.

Because of the heat and the intensity of the strobe, we decided to not cover the strobe up at all and we would leave the dorm before the testing started again on third day. It took them 9 hours to finish and I was thoroughly familar with the mall. Having lived on bread and soup for 10 days, the cafeteria food had never tasted better than the day after spring break ended.

It's easy to overlook something when you're not disabled...

A prime example is this funny comic strip...

This actually happened to me once. I had a doctor's appointment in the morning; I preferred mornings because it was far easier to see the doctor in the morning than in the afternoon when the doctor has already fallen behind schedule.

After the appointment, I arrived at work and decided to park outside instead of the parking garage because I knew there wouldn't be any decent parking spot left. I went into the building through the front doors. What caught my attention was lack of people on the first floor - this area is where people come in to pay what they owe. Not a single soul...not even behind the counters.

I shrugged and went up to third floor. When I opened the door to third floor, there was nobody around. I started to freak a little...even thought that maybe I came in on a non-business day or even worse...I was in an alternate reality.

After looking around a little, I went into the bathroom. After finishing my business in there, I ran into my supervisor as he headed into the bathroom. He was relieved to see me. I asked where everyone had gone. He said that there was a fire evacuation drill and he was surprised that I could not hear the strident WHEE-oo WHEE-oo alarm.

I asked him how he knew I was here and he said someone had spotted me. He thought I had gone to my desk, but I wasn't there and he freaked out a little. I probably took a year or two off his life. Hmm.

This is WHY workplaces should be mandated to have strobe (flashing) fire alarms. Shortly after that incident, every floor was equipped with strobe fire alarms.

Oh boy, that reminds me of the spring break from Hell...which I will post shortly after this. ;)

Talking "tiny", mumbling, and/or unclear lipreading

No, this is not about little people who mumble at high speed. ;) This is about a certain kind of people who fall into the unfortunate category of "Impossible to Lipread".

Those who fall under the column heading tend to:

• mumble


• whisper


• talk in low voice


• wear very bushy mustaches


• thick accents (usually foreign)

I have tricks to help me build "lipreading habits" with everyone. What I meant by that is once I figure out how a certain person would pronounce words, I can get into their habits and be able to lipread them more effectively. This does NOT mean I lipread flawlessly or understand better than 60% most of the time. I have yet to meet a deaf person who can lipread flawlessly, never mind that Sue Thomas, the deaf FBI agent.

I once knew a young guy who had this habit of "lisping" the f sounds with the th sounds, like saying "are you death?" instead of "are you deaf?" upon meeting me for the first time. Then about 10 years later, I had a manager who kept saying "bof" instead of "both", which I understood clearly because of my prior experience with that young guy. The weird thing was, I was told this is how some black people talk (which I didn't know at the time)...and this young guy is white.

The point being, people have their ways of saying words, accents or not. I lived in the South (have relatives who still does), in the Northeast (upstate New York), and the Midwest. The worst/impossible accent for me to comprehend? That would be Russian or Slavic accents, which totally kills my ability to lipread.

I've had to deal with new people each and every time I meet when they do not know how to sign. It's literally a pain in the butt when I have a new class and I have to build on the lipreading habits. The environment in a classroom is socially rigid - I can't just jump in and say, "Excuse me, I missed that...can you repeat?" over and over. The roll call is always the best way for me to begin my building process because I can pick out my own name as a teacher goes down the list of students...until I hit the wall in that teacher.

I was in my first year of community college and I initially thought I was in the wrong room for an English-related class (I believe it was Literature or some advanced writing) because I was only 18 and everyone else looked to be in their 20's or older. I sat down in the front row to give me the vantage point. An old woman shuffled into the room and she had the shakes from advanced age. When she spoke, her lips barely moved and she kept licking her lips to moisten them.

I sat there, blankly looking at her. Not one word was discernible. Then she pulled out the attendance sheet and...I knew that I wasn't in top half due to my last name and I stared hard at her mouth. Uehj owme? Lieg ahl? This went on like this and I kept staring for my name, knowing fully well that she would say my name again if I "missed" it and I'd get to jump in...

I understood NONE of anything, not even my own name. I waited until after the class to talk to her and I introduced myself. She said something I didn't understand. I talked with her some more, but I was going nowhere in terms of understanding her at all. I started to freak out and I said something about having to go and I left.

I sweated about going back. How was I going to get through the second day, let alone the whole semester?

Second day. I sat in the front row again. My heart was beating wildly. A different teacher came in and explained that she is the substitute teacher. She said the original teacher needed surgery and would not be coming back for the semester.

Wait a minute...I understood the substitute!

I breezed through the semester with her and I even signed up with her for another class the following semester. :)

Part 2 of "A new workplace = anxiety"

If you will recall, I talked about my experiences at the county government center 5 months ago (see posts #1 & #2 for more). I will discuss the other experiences that helped cement my unyielding intolerance for all forms of discrimination against deaf people.

When I worked for the 1st manager, she always got me an interpreter for meetings and seminars. She knew I had something that would greatly benefit the department and she made sure, through her actions, that I would want to contribute. When another deaf person was hired and struggled mightily to understand how to do her job, the manager went out of her way by hiring an interpreter to stay with the new worker for a full working week (the new worker had an interpreter for 2 days beforehand). The deaf worker ended up getting fired for playing with her pager too much while in training.

The first incident occurred when HJIC (see the hyperlinked posts) called a meeting without bothering to set up an interpreter to announce who he had hired as the 3rd manager (the Bitch). I had to rely on co-workers to tell me what was going on. The second incident happened just one month into the Bitch's tenure when she tried to minimize the need for an interpreter by telling me, "Oh the meeting is just 5 minutes...don't worry about it." We walked out of the meeting 20 minutes later and I understood not a thing. I lost my faith in the county government.

The county never hired another deaf person. Ever. I was hired in 2000 and the last one was hired in 2002. The last deaf worker, who was hired about 5 years before me, finally quit about 3 years ago when she figured out that nobody was going to promote her despite all the sacrifices she made for the county.

I was hired away from the county as an advocate and I was able to bring a lot to the table for the company that hired me. I became a heavy hitter for the deaf community and I made a lot of hearing people nervous. I toured around many police stations to give lectures on the rights of deaf citizens. When the deaf community learned of my tours, they were indignant because they have had personal experiences with the police which soured them on the cops. My response? "Call me when something happens to you and I'll help."

My first call was when I had to advise a deaf citizen to file discrimination against the police department (in my hometown, no less) when I found out that after arresting him for suspicious activity, they mocked his speech and denied him the right to an interpreter. I went to the police station and told them to stop patrolling his house or I would consider that to be a form of harassment since the client filed a claim of discrimination against them. The client let me know he missed the deadline to file, but the cops had kept their distance ever since and his life had gotten better.

My second call? I threatened a police station with legal action when they refused to let her wear the cuffs in front when I visited her in her cell. There was no way she could communicate with anyone, let alone me or an interpreter. She was arrested for a hit and run and they wouldn't get her an interpreter. I brought my own interpreter and after the cops finally agreed to comply with my demands with the deaf woman, they asked to interview her as a possible witness to a crime that occurred in her neighborhood. Naturally, she refused to cooperate with them after what happened to her in the cell.

After I left, I followed up on her the next day and I learned that the police had asked for a psych evaluation on her and I had to threaten them again when she was evaluated without an interpreter. The person I called was incredulous about the whole thing, even said to me "What does it matter to you if she had an interpreter or not?" I responded with, "Imagine if you were being held in a foreign country, you don't speak their language, and you weren't given an interpreter. How would you feel about that?" The person said incredibly, "We aren't in another country. I don't get the point." I hung up on her without saying another word since it became painfully clear to me that she wouldn't work with me and I promptly called the police commissioner. That call shook things up.

The point? If you think you are being discriminated against, SPEAK UP! Edmund Burke said it best, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Silence = consenting to or accepting what happens to you
Silence = not fighting for your most basic right
Silence = letting them do it again...to YOU

A new workplace = anxiety for various reasons

Furry Bottoms' post about the struggles of being a deaf person in a hearing world inspired me to write a post about workplaces.

I am always anxious each and every time I start working at a new job. The first reason is communication and learning how. The "learning how" part refers to how everyone uses their mouths...some people will talk tiny while others will mumble. What I mean by "talk tiny" is little mouth movement which makes it hard for me to lipread. Oh boy, that reminds me of a story for another post and that will be published in the near future...I promise! :)

The second reason is discrimination. I have seen far too much and experienced way too many times to not allow any wiggle room on this matter. I will not entertain or accept any argument on what is pretty much the white elephant in the room for those who have never known firsthand what it is like to experience discrimination as a person with disability in a workplace.

Here we go...

My first negative experience happened on the first day of my first job. How's that for an auspicious beginning of my work career? My dad knew this guy who was the supervisor of bag boys at the commissionary and the supervisor's deaf son also worked there. For those of you who don't know what the commissionary is, it's basically a grocery store on the military base. The bag boys there did not work on a hourly basis - they worked for tips only. I had been stiffed few times and the smallest tip I ever got? A fricking dime. Jeez!

While on a break, I sat down to read a newspaper. One of the bag boys came over to me with an incredulous look on his face and said, "You can read that?" When I told him I could, he did not believe me and asked me for the newspaper. After giving it to him, he randomly pointed to an article elsewhere in the newspaper and asked me to read it out loud. I lasted only two months; when the supervisor told me if I left early again due to my illness, I should not bother to come back...so I didn't. I didn't appreciate that despite coming in to work every day.

I worked in a warehouse for a company that primarily dealt with retail and rental stores for movies and music. You can imagine how vast the place is - it takes 10 minutes to walk from the front entrance to the back exit. The company was amazing in terms of working with my deafness. I first started as a warehouse worker who did whatever was asked of me. They realized the potential in me and promoted me to being in charge of a locked enclosure containing promotional items of high value. They paid for a phone signaller so I could hook it up to my TDD. Every time the phone signaller flashed, I would know the call was for me and that meant there was a special job for me - a customer was going to get the goodies. I never messed up an order because the TDD always printed out the conversations so I could easily refer back for accuracy. For those who don't know what a TDD is, it's a teletype device for the deaf which looks like this:

The shortest duration ever on any job was three days at Wal-Mart in 2009. Worst two days ever and I thought nothing could come close to what I experienced in my job at a government center. Wal-Mart came extremely CLOSE SECOND to that. I skipped the 4th day (Friday) by claiming that I was unable to find a babysitter for my girls. Then the weekend came and went and I called few minutes before I was supposed to start on my "5th day" (Monday) to say I wouldn't be able to work anymore due to babysitting issues. 1st day was nothing; I was paired up with a worker who had been there 10 years and he showed me everything I needed to do. We got along just fine. He asked me about me and why I was here.

Then...along came 2nd day...I was paired with a female worker who was slightly older than me, but alcohol had taken its toll on her - making her look to be in late 50s instead of mid 40s and I could smell it in her pores, as if she had taken a sip right before coming in to work. She acted like I was the stupidest guy she had ever known. She insisted on showing me how to take out a trash bag in the office area and how to replace it. She did not believe me when I told her I had already taken care of trash in the break room - she made me follow her to the supposedly full trash cans. Yeah...duh. When I was cleaning the bathrooms, she put up a sign on the door that said, "Closed for cleaning". I saw what she did and went back to cleaning. She came over to me and told me to go read the sign...I told her I had already read it. She became indignant and demanded that I tell her what the sign said while blocking my view. I repeated the sign verbatim and said, "I can read." Things were tense between us the rest of the time.

3rd day...oh boy...the worst was yet to come. I was supposed to work alone, but the alky must've complained about my attitude instead of telling the truth so I was paired with a young man. Everything seemed to be going well until it was time to clean the bathrooms and I discovered how ugly and petty people could get. In the ladies' room, he immediately sat down and started working on the sink pipes with a rag at a leisurely pace. I shrugged and cleaned the stalls and moved on to the men's room. 5 minutes later, a supervisor came in and sternly told me to clean the ladies' room. I tried to explain that I did while that guy cleaned the pipes, but the supervisor wouldn't listen. Fine. I re-mopped the floor. The guy came in and watched me mop. I left to clean the men's room.

Guess what? I got chewed out...because she said I didn't clean the toilets. Oh yes, I did the first time around. Fine. I got another bottle of bowl cleaning solution and used up the whole bottle in all 4 toilets. The supervisor watched me the whole time. Then she ordered me to clean the men's room and I got yet another bottle and she watched me while I cleaned everything all by myself. Yep, that young worker claimed he did the work while I goofed off. To punish me for that, the supervisor made me help workers re-stock the products. Haha...I actually enjoyed that part and the supervisor came to fetch me at the end, thinking I'd be wishing I was cleaning the bathrooms. Her shocked reaction upon seeing my face (I had enjoyed the re-stocking and was rocking at it) was priceless!

I guess I will write in depth about my job at the county government center at a later time (in two weeks) since this post was SO LONG. Sorry about that. Just sharing my experiences and you'll see why there is absolutely no wiggle room left by the time you finish the second part.

I didn't get the job. Again.

Five weeks ago, I discovered through an old friend that a company was looking for someone with certain set of skills and experience which I happen to have. I applied and went in for two rounds of interviews. The vibe felt good all around. They were impressed with how easily I handled the "obstacles" they threw at me to confirm that I knew how to do the job.

I found out early last week that I didn't get the job I really wanted. It didn't matter that it was only part-time because I already had another part-time job and I would've easily tailored my day around both.

I tried to ask someone deep inside the company to check my resume to make sure I had no cause for concern in future interviews three weeks earlier, but got the "I didn't check, but I doubt it's the resume" brush-off.

I have connections and my network is huge. It didn't take long to learn who was hired instead of me and it was someone I have known since '98. My wife, upon discovery, angrily said something about the new hire not having any degree or experience. I told her the company probably had their reason for not hiring me. That didn't please my wife at all.

When she told a friend about what had happened, he responded with "Well, he is Donald Trump among his peers and the new hire? She is just commonfolk. That's why they got her cheap." Whether or not that was true, that made me feel good for a little while.

The point is why don't companies want the best possible candidates? When I started working for the black hole of a county government center in '00, it was seller's market for the people seeking jobs. Not anymore.

When I told a blogger friend by the name of Shelle BlokThoughts about who got hired instead and what a friend said about me, she told me "It's the economy. They will take someone who is average, okay enough that they can teach the rest of the skills to."

Sighs. At least Shelle was honest with me and with the help of her candor, I'm grounded in the reality now and ready to move on with my life. Let me end this post with a great quote...

"Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody." -by Henry Wadsworth.

If you thought job hunting was hard, try being a deaf person! (pt 2)

The 3rd manager? She was HJIC's secretary before she got the job. That surprised everyone because she had never been anything more than a secretary in any job anywhere. Everyone *knew* how she got the job. I stayed quiet because she had been nice to me when she was the secretary and I had helped her with some stuff in the past. None of that mattered because she got very mean to me and did everything she could to get me to quit.

Once I had to go to the bathroom badly (and I do mean BADLY) and when I finally came out, the Bitch (HJIC's former secretary) caught me on my way to the desk and she claimed that I was gone for 30 minutes. "Impossible," I said, "since I lose the feeling in my legs after 20 minutes." The Bitch then let me go and called a supervisor (not mine) over and while standing just 6 feet away from my desk, in the center of the department...they started discussing openly for anyone to hear...about my bathroom habits. I found out about that later and I was told they were overheard in saying, "How can he sit in that office chair for hours on end and not lose any feeling in his legs?" among other things. EXCUSE ME?!?

I was so mad and embarrassed by that. I was given an opportunity to retaliate when I had to write my argument for why I deserved a raise during my annual job review. I had done the job consistently with high remarks year in, year out. So, I wrote up a nasty review on the Bitch and I basically outed her as being HJIC's companion during business trips that had nothing to do with her job duties.

I was called into HR and I met with two ladies - one of them was the same woman who was impressed with me at the job interview. They asked me subtly why I wrote the letter and I said, "You know why she got the job." They giggled at that and I instantly knew why they laughed. Everyone's suspicion about how the Bitch got her job was correct. They thanked me for my time and I thought that was that.

The firestorm that resulted from the review (in which I got "bad reviews" and received a tiny raise of 1.5% instead of the usual 3%) motivated me to look into taking jobs within the government center so I could get away from that. The same woman, who was impressed with me at the job interview and working in HR at the time (and still was), let me know about a job opening. She knew I had all the qualifications and I immediately applied. Few days later, HJIC called me into the office and basically patted me on the head about the job and shoved me out the door. What did he say? Something along the lines of "This job is not for you, but thank you for your interest. You may go now." I was boiling mad after that.

When HJIC ordered a security door installed which became a major inconvenience for everyone because we all had to use our ID to get in each and every time, I observed something about HJIC and the security door. He had grown weary of that and started using the "back door" tactic by going through a conference room instead of dealing with the security door. I retaliated against HJIC by locking the door opening into the hall from the conference room, effectively locking him out and forcing him to go through the security door because HJIC's new secretary had hearing issues and couldn't hear him knocking on the door. If he forgot his ID, he would have to ask someone to let him in. Soon, he was checking the door to make sure it wasn't locked before leaving...I'd wait a while and...lock the door. He never caught on as to who was locking him out, let alone catch me in the act. ;)

The screaming supervisor finally retired 1.5 years after the 1st manager had retired. The Bitch had since moved on to an easier job where she didn't have to deal with HJIC as much (and me since I was starting to catch onto how the management style worked and started using them against her effectively)...plus, she didn't have to work as hard at her new job. The 4th manager, for whom I had warm regards for because she was my supervisor during my first month there before I was promoted, was a horse of a different color. Literally.

I applied for the supervisor's job since I was the only one who knew how to do the job, inside and out. The Horse refused to interview me and put someone else in the seat who had ZERO experience instead. I was initially bothered by that, but I figured that maybe I didn't meet the qualification of being 4 years on the job. The new supervisor was devoutly Christian and he struggled mightily to reconcile what was going on - being told by the Horse and HJIC to do things that weren't helpful to me career-wise and he tried to buffer that by taking some of the heat himself. How did I know that? He told me. He couldn't handle it anymore after a year and became an appraiser.

I applied again for the seat and the Horse again refused to interview me and picked a guy who had been working for 3.5 years instead. I screamed "discrimination" and threatened go to HR and HJIC cut me off by saying the county government had this obscure rule about the so-called "short list rule" where if there were less than 5 people applying for the same job, the manager had the discretion of bypassing the interview process and picking someone. He even claimed that the guy had been here for 4 years and met the qualification. I e-mailed HR anyway and they confirmed the rule and HJIC went after me for that. I just sat there and pretended to listen while HJIC angrily spoke to me. He finally stopped talking and left.

I tried to reason with the Horse to no avail and I ended up saying, "So you want me to train (the Golden Boy) just like I did with (the Christian)?" The Horse actually said, "You didn't train (the Christian)." "Oh, really? How did (the Christian) learn how to do his job then?" She shrugged at that. I said, "Fine. Good luck with (the Golden Boy)." and walked out of her office without giving her a chance to respond.

I refused to help the Golden Boy learn how to do "his" job and he started to fall further and further behind on his job. He even started coming into work and start working 30 minutes before his shift would start and staying 30 minutes after his shift ended just to try to keep up. The Horse KNEW why he was failing miserably and she was being stubborn about it. The Golden Boy finally quit after 11 months. I applied again and guess what? No interview. Picked a woman who had zero experience and had been with the county just 4 years. 4 years and 2 months to be exact.

A co-worker approached me at my desk with my new supervisor right beside her and asked me if I would help my new supervisor because the Horse didn't know how to help. I said, "You already know that I can't help." The new supervisor nodded and went to her desk...and did something unexpected. She e-mailed me and told me she learned from the same co-worker about everything and all the crap I had endured. All this in a very understanding manner and she ended the e-mail with "I will understand if you still do not want to help me learn. I wouldn't help me either if I had to go through all of that too."

The same co-worker, who told the new supervisor everything, shortly after found herself in a very messy situation and started telling the Horse everything in hopes of extracting herself out of that. The new supervisor pulled me aside and let me know the co-worker was basically selling me (and others) out. I was hurt by that because the co-worker was my "work wife" and we had shared things with each other closely and intimately. I thanked her and I promptly fed the co-worker disinformation. When the Horse realized the pipeline into the drones' mentality had been compromised, she cut the co-worker off and refused to help her out of the messy situation. I refused to do anything for the co-worker as well. That almost destroyed the co-worker.

I ended up being friends with the new supervisor and the co-worker finally mended the fence with everyone at work (except the Horse). Not long after that, I got my dream job. I loved it and I flew so high at my new job that I soared. I had found my paradise.

If you thought job hunting was hard, try being a deaf person! (pt 1)

Editor's note: I apologize! I had planned on finishing the post yesterday but I was asked at last minute to open the center for a meeting and I just forgot. Also...since the post itself is so long, I had to break it into two parts. Sorry!

Other than communication issues (lipreading and/or speech comprehension), I'd like to share with you how easy it is for a smart, well-educated, and deaf man like me to find jobs.

I graduated from an university with Bachelor's degree in communications. The program I majored in is considered to be more advanced than most programs in other universities - you have to do a thesis and pass it in order to graduate. That doesn't happen until you get to Master's.

With a newly minted degree in hand, I went to job fairs for 2 years. Never missed one. Never got a call or a nibble from anyone at the job fairs. Just postcards/letters with the usual "We have your resume on file and we will contact you" bullshit. That practice has now been discontinued with so disgruntled applicants suing companies for whatever reasons. In fact, I haven't seen anything like this in almost 7 years now.

At one of the job fairs, I handed my resume to a woman at a booth for a local newspaper. She looked over it and seemed okay with it until she spoke to me. When she realized that I am deaf, she said "You do know that we use telephones at work? How could you handle that?" I explained to her that people could call a TDD (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf) operator and then they could talk to me as if the operator isn't there. She was shocked by that and I walked away with disgust and contempt clearly written on my face for her. I stopped going to job fairs after that.

About 3 years after graduation, someone at an advocacy company leaked to me about a job opening at a local county government center. I ran over to there and my typing skills impressed the woman who was doing the interviews. She was reluctant to hire me because I was so overqualified. I told her that I was willing to start on the bottom and if I have the skills to move up, surely I would be moved up. That did it for her - she hired me on the spot and I started working the following week.

The day after I started, the manager caught me in a hall that wasn't close to where I was and pulled me aside. She said, "What are you doing here?" and I *knew* exactly what she meant by that...she wasn't asking me why I was out there. I explained about doing the job fairs for 2 years without any result and how I had just gotten married (got married in 2000, almost one month before I started working), and I was desperate for anything. She pondered that for a second and said, "Thank you for your honesty." One month later, she put me at a desk that was in charge of records and I never left that desk for 6 years despite all kinds of discrimination I endured.

I can hear you go, "What kind of discrimination did you face?" Truth be told, the manager, who put me in that desk, never discriminated against me and refused to allow any sort of that to happen. She had 100% faith in my ability to do the job despite having to work with a supervisor who was so universally disliked by all that nobody wanted to work with her...let alone be willingly promoted to that desk.

Naturally, the supervisor got very angry with me during the first week at that desk. The manager was genuinely surprised by how calmly I took the supervisor's rants in stride. I didn't mind the supervisor so much. What got worse was when the manager abruptly retired (she refused to tell me why but it became obvious after...) and the HJIC (Head Jerk In Charge) put in a young woman who used the "rah-rah" style of management. That's exactly when everything went to hell.

The supervisor got even worse with me after the 1st manager retired...co-workers have told me they heard her scream at me, even when I was just a desk away. She would scream my name as I walked away to get something (per her request or job request). She hated how I would get up and go, even when I didn't stop to talk with others. Once she came down hard on me for a simple error of omission and that burned me. Guess what? She made a similar mistake the same day and I told her so. She promptly reported me to the Cheerleader. (Eye roll)

When my wife and I were expecting our first baby, the Cheerleader came to me and encouraged me to change from the old PTO (Personal Time Off) system to the new one "because it's easier for you to build up your vac time versus splitting up the sick time and the vac time...and you'd have to re-accrue the vac time all over again if you used them up." Sounded like a good idea, so I signed the paper.

After my daughter was born, I discovered that I lost all the sick time and the new PTO system caps the hours at 360 (the old system had no cap on sick time and the new one doesn't allow sick time). I spoke with the Cheerleader about that and she said I agreed to use up all the hours before the maternity leave time kicks in. That wasn't in the agreement I signed. Her response? "Oh, that was covered in the policy book." Bleep. You're probably thinking, "What about the maternity leave that was supposed to be guaranteed by law?" The paper I signed stated that I agreed to that. I hated her after that and she quit after being on the job for 6 months.

(Part two to be continued tomorrow)

Lightning rod for controversy

Last week, I posted about how outdated some concepts are in terms of creating a resume. While writing up that post, I had an "Eureka!" moment and decided to create another post about job hunting.

On February 4th, ABC News did a segment that flew under the radar for most of the hearing viewers unassociated with the deaf/hard of hearing community. Why? Two reasons: ABC News has been doing the "What would you do?" segments for a while and the shock value has worn off...and the other? That segment really didn't apply to them.

Please click on this link for ABC New's show, explaining in text what you are about to see.

Then click on the link for behind the scenes on YouTube, showing you how that particular segment is set up before the taping and the airing.

Link for the lightning rod on the segment itself, watch all the way to about 5 minute mark. Better captioning of the same show can be found here

I will post next week about my experiences in job hunts. I noticed that not a single person offered the two young women any job. I also asked at the end of last week's post if anyone would hire me...

10 Resume Rules: Fact or Fiction?

Not long ago, I went to see a Department of Rehabilation Services (DORS) counselor about going back to school and get my Master's, possibly even PhD. She said, "Why?" DORS/VR (Vocational Rehabilitation in most states) help deaf people like me with the schools financially. I graduated several years ago with a Bachelor's degree.

I explained that the economy has tanked and it is the "seller's market" in terms of employment (meaning there are more people looking for jobs than there are empty offices, hence low demand for hiring). I felt that by getting my Master's, I'd look more attractive to potential employers. She asked me to bring my resume in. I asked, "Why?"

She was caught off-guard by that and after regaining her composure, she explained that she wanted to see what kind of job history I have and how attractive I am to employers. I pulled out my flashdrive and told her to print out my resume, again catching her off-guard.

After printing out my resume, she immediately broke 6 of the 10 resume rules.

1. Your resume should not have to fit into one page


2. Always use a cover letter


3. Your resume doesn't need an objective


4. Gaps in your employment history will not cost you


5. Any embellishment on your resume, even a tiny one, is not okay


6. Organize your resume in reverse chronological order


7. Put educational background at the bottom


8. Your resume does not need references


9. Use buzzwords


10. You do not need to print your resume out on fancy paper

(This was taken from Jeanine Skowronski's article on Yahoo! Finance - go to the link for full explanation)

What rules were broken? The counselor thought I had to fit three pages of my work history into one page, she felt I should put in an objective, she wanted me to throw out gaps of work history, she wanted to change one of my job titles to make it sound "better", she told me I need to put in references (how with 3 pages crammed into one?), and she suggested that I put the resume on fancy paper.

I tried to tell her that the one page resume was a thing of the past and she refused to believe me. Fine. I told her that I cannot change the job title - "What if a prospective employer calls and finds out I embellished a little?" and she was sure that wouldn't be a problem.

I decided that was enough of that and I tried again to discuss the school plan with her, but she kept hemming and hawing on getting involved. I tried to nail her down, but she wouldn't give me a definite answer. That told me she wasn't enthusiastic about helping me financially.

So, here I am...four page-long (just included the director of a center) resume, resume on Monster.com & CareerBuilder.com (always getting calls from companies that need warm bodies to telemarket - no thanks!), working part-time as a tutor, working without pay as a director for a center, getting ready to start playing softball as player/manager, and doing my parental duties. Anyone want to hire a deaf person? :)

Speaking of which...I'll post next week about something that was on TV last February which became a lightning rod for controversy.

Q & A #17

Gillian from A Daft Scots Lass asked me this question in my Q & A #16 post - "Were you born deaf?"

No, I was not born deaf. I was a normal healthy boy with a massive shock of blonde hair on the head.

When I was 13 months old, I contracted a case of spinal meningitis and that put me in a coma for about two weeks. During that time, the high fevers destroyed some of the hair in the inner ears which made me deaf.

When I finally woke up, my mother was the first to notice that I wasn't responding to audio stimuli and the tests confirmed her suspicion. My deafness was measured at around 96 decibels. To give you an idea how loud something has to be for me to hear it, a lawnmower is around 110 decibels.

Funny thing is, I do not hear the lawnmowers...even when I operate one. My theory is my body picks up the vibrations first, negating the need for my ears to "ring" with the noises. The only effective way for my ears to pick anything up is if you do a high pitch scream into my ear or create a loud noise close to my ear - thus eliminating my body as the middleman.

Strange, huh? What's even stranger is how my ears work differently. My right ear picks up "sharp" noises like knocking or a barking dog while my left ear picks up "soft" noises like a ringing phone or a meowing cat. That's with the hearing aids...and no, I don't use the hearing aids anymore.

Why? For a long while, I kept getting confusing mix of sounds on my hearing aids...remember how my ears work independently in the last paragraph? That wasn't discovered until I was in my mid-20's. I had given up on the hearing aids when I was 12. I tried the hearing aids again with this new discovery and a better understanding of how my ears work...and that was still a failure, so I quit for good.

I think it has something to do with the atrophy factor in the part of my brain that processes sound. Just like the legs of a person who became paralyzed - they atrophy after a long period of no activity. Because of that, I am no longer a viable candidate for cochlear implants - I wouldn't be able to process sounds effectively at all. I do not want to be a candidate anyway - I love sports too much and I wouldn't be allowed to play softball or racquetball or football or anything with physical contact.

Story series - Point A to B to A, not C, D, or E. Clear?

You've learned from last week's post that I had been driving for less than a year when I hit the Hulk. I have a better story for you and it's infinitely more entertaining. :)

I was staying at my father's for the weekend and I was in the mood to have my best friend over to hang around with. My father did not want to go get him (he lived 30 minutes away) and I told him that I would be more than happy to go. He tried to deter me by reminding me that I was low on gas and he was not paying for gas.

No matter. I was willing to go and get him and take him back home. My father sighed and said to me, "Okay. I will let you go, on one condition. You go there and get him and come back here in one hour. Got that?"

I nodded my head. In reality, I was going "Yeah, yeah, whatever." in my head. He said, as if he had sensed that, "That means no stopping for food, no getting off that road for anything, nothing. Not even to go to the bathroom. Point A to B to A, not C, D, or E. Clear?"

"Yes, I got it."

5 minutes later, I was on the road with every cent of $2.35 pumped into my tank. I got my friend 20 minutes (yep, I drove fast) after that. I told my friend about what my father said and we had better hurry back. We were back on the road and about halfway to home, he convinced me to take a quick detour to look at computer games. What's the harm as long as I got back home in one hour?

After taking a quick look-over at a store located on a road perpendicular to the road I was supposed to be on, we got in my car and got ready to exit...only to find that the road was jammed full of cars. This added to my anxiety considerably - waiting for the cross traffic to clear enough for me to get out of the parking lot meant that the safety margin would shrink exponentially.

After about two minutes of waiting, suddenly there was a clearing and I jumped for it. Made it! My friend and I celebrated and high-fived each other. (Sound of a car crashing into another) Oh, bleep. Our celebration was short-lived. I had hit a car, 100 yards from the road I was supposed to be on.

100 yards. A block. A football field.

The driver angrily motioned for me to pull into a restaurant's parking lot and I followed. All I could think about was how I was going to explain this to my fa...when the driver jumped out of the car with a rearview mirror in her hand and slammed the door on the Cadillac hard.

Funny how I noticed the rearview mirror in her hand right away. Not her face, not her build, not her age, not her fashion style...just the mirror. As she stomped her way up to me, I could see she was a young woman, about same age as me...pretty and a bit heavy on the makeup.

She started yelling at me, which made it impossible for me to understand so I calmly told her, "I'm deaf." She glared at me, turned around, and walked around my car...to yell at my friend. I calmly said to her, "he is deaf too." and she threw her arms up and yelled in frustration before walking away from us. She went in her car and I noticed that there were 2 other young women in there. She got out and went into the restaurant.

All in the span of one minute. I took stock of the damage. My bumper was now pushed in and I could see the Cadillac's bumper was hanging a bit. I realized that I need to call my father. That's when one of the passengers came out and asked me if I go to that high school. I was stunned by not only that, but how easily I could understand her. I nodded at her and I asked how she knew that. She told me that she knew a girl there who has a deaf brother and she wondered if I was the same guy. I nodded again.

If you'll recall from my bully posts, I was the only deaf student there. Not hard to figure out. I was going to be a smart-aleck about it, but the young woman was very nice and pleasant. I was attracted to that. She asked if there was anything she could do for us and I remembered about my father. I asked her to call for me.

We chatted for a while (the driver got back in her car and never came out) and then my father showed up. Oh yeah. That look on his face. Readers, you KNOW exactly what I mean by that. Forget the Hulk. He had nothing on my father - I had to live with this one. He didn't say much to me. He didn't have to. I could feel it.

The young woman, after my dad left to talk to the driver and overheard my father ask the driver about contacting her parents, said "Oh boy, I don't want to be here when my friend's mother finds out." That's when I discovered that the driver was in bigger trouble than I was. No wonder why she was so livid and how she reacted to us.

She borrowed her mother's car...without permission and got busted for it due to my negligence. And my father? He asked me over and over and over for the next 6 months how much it cost to fix the Cadillac's bumper...and my bumper.