Re: jobs star wars and stuff
I had a job handling end user tech support for Dell back in 2006 before the economy world-wide decided to hit the dirt. Dell, being a US company and a tech company to boot, knew it was about to be rocked hardcore, so took my job and several others and sent them overseas in 2008. I was still hugely qualified, and people were still calling me for interviews, but the economy was on its way down and everyone knew it. I stopped getting callbacks in 2011 or 2012. Not because I stopped being qualified, but because the economy as a whole was at rock bottom then and just about no one who didn't absolutely need to fill a hole was hiring. My last interview was in 2012, and I knew it wasn't going anywhere before I made it back outside. My blindness had nothing to do with it. So in 2013, I started the process to send me back to school - where I'm starting my final semester in a computer systems tech program in September. Throughout that process, I learned a few things very quick ly.
thing the first, and related specificly to part of what I think the OP was hinting at: If you don't use it, you *will* lose it. A+ certifications in particular are changing. The A+ cert I go for, assuming I decide to take that route and not the CCNA route, is not the same certification you took 5 or 6 years ago. If you don't renew it every I think it's 3 years, then you are no longer certified and companies will prefer people who are over you whether you're blind or not. It doesn't matter if you can swap out a hard drive in 15 seconds and not leave anything out of place. If it's not on paper, you might as well not have the ability. I can run a Linux server with the best of them, and have on my own personal time for years. but because I haven't done it professionally, and have nothing on paper that says I'm qualified to do it, I can't walk into a job interview and tell them I'm a Linux admin if I expect it to actually get me anywhere. There's an _expression_ we used to use when I was doing the tech support thing. Documentation or it didn't happen. If you call me and say someone did this, this, this and this for you, I'm going to take a look at their documentation. If the person you're talking about didn't put down that they did this, this, this and this for you, then so far as I'm concerned no they didn't. People in HR use the same mentality. If you're going to say you're A+ certified, expect them to want a copy of the certification. If you say you're a Microsoft Windows engineer, expect them to call Microsoft. And if you say you're a qualified Linux admin, expect them to want phone numbers, email addresses and the like for just about every person you've installed, fixed or ran a Linux server for - after you've explained to them what the hell Linux is.
Thing the second: Colleges are not there to make you succeed. They're there to give you the option. One of my professors put it best my first day in this program. "I get paid," he said, "whether you show up and do the work or not. You can choose to slack off, miss every second class, half-ass the work and probably end up taking it next semester, or you can show up, ask for help, show me you know what you're doing, and rock the course. The choice is yours, Make the right one and I can help you. Make the wrong one and you're on your own. Also I'll see you next semester." To me, that pretty much summarizes college life in general. You're expected by the time you get there to be able to stand on your own two feet, relatively and proverbially speaking. By the time you've graduated high school, you know the kind of education supports that work for you. The college or university isn't going to hold your hand and guide you through the process. You got yourself this far, get yourself the rest of the way and we'll meet you.
Thing the third: Speak up, dammit. Related partly to my point above, only you know what exact supports will work for your education. If you need books in an accessible format (be they electronic or, god forbid, braille), it's up to you to say so. Your college/university has got to have something that vaguely resembles a disability services department. Get on them. Be in regular contact with your profs - preferably before the semester even starts. In short, speak up. When I first started with the program, every prof I talked to was more than a little nervous about having a blind student. It wasn't even because of the blindness, per say. I knew exactly what I was doing and every single one of them knew it. But a blind student had gone through this program before me, and ended up flaming out rather spectacularly. Why? Because he absolutely would not speak up. He assumed, because he was registered with disability services, that materials would be provided to hi m in an accessible format just on basic principle. He assumed the default attitude would be to adapt circumstances to fit him, rather than adapt him to fit the circumstances. Because that was precisely how things had gone on while he was in high school. For that reason, I don't even think he got out of second semester if he even made it that far. And the end result left a bad taste in the professors' mouthes that I had to clean out. Now I'm sitting here with one semester left and in relatively good position, if I play my cards right, to take an additional program in cybersecurity. And now these profs know what a blind person is capable of if he decides he wants to.
And thing the last: Seriously? Never in my life have I heard of someone using a TVI or equivalent in a college/university setting. Not even maybe. I barely used a T.A. most of my time spent in high school - her only real involvement was transcribing my brailled work so teachers could see/mark it, and brailling handouts/assignments teachers were giving out that weren't already in whatever textbook we were using (this was back when it took a special kind of something for a blind person to own both a computer and a regular printer). For the transcription to braille or electronic material now, there's an entire department that handles that - as there should be, as I'm hardly the only blind person who either is attending or has attended that college. On top of that, it's 2016. there's no reasonable excuse why textbooks and other assorted materials can't already be in at least an electronic format, if not an accessible one. If a college in Canada, who doesn't have anything like an ADA to slap people with, can get that, then your people have no excuse.
Long story short: No one owes you an education. No one owes you a job. If you want one or both, then put yourself out there. speak up. Yes, it's cliche, but no one's going to advocate fo r you except you. You're a fully grown adult. If you want to be seen as one, open your mouth. Do that, and keep the skills you actually plan on using up to date, and there's no reason (*) why you shouldn't be able to land yourself a job that will at least provide you with a paycheck if not an endless fountain of enjoyment. And for the record, I had the 40000/year job. I also had time to enjoy it - or, at least, as much time to enjoy it as anyone else with a job, anyway. And I'd do it all again if given half a chance.
(*): There's no reason for not finding a job, except for perhaps living in the middle of nowhere. If the small town you're living in is anything like the one my parents call home, and it sounds like it is, you shouldn't be too surprised the jobs are few and far between. I moved out of that small town specificly because I didn't want to spend my life working retail, or waiting tables, which was pretty much the only thing on o ffer on a regular basis.
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