Category: Jobs and Employment
Hey
I was wondering after a conversation with a friend about how would a total blind person be able to walk in to any business and get a job without having to bring in loads of adaptive technology with them and still be able to do the job.
What kind of jobs could a blind person do that would not require them to have adaptive technology.
I am talking about normal jobs that are not already designed for the blind and something that a person could do for a short while such as seasonal or while taking classes in college.
So part time work will fit in this category too.
Something like NVDA could be used but, these jobs are situations that an indevisual would not be receiving help from the state.
thanks
Nicky
I would say bussing tables in restaurants, or washing dishes behind the scenes. As long as you can become familiar with the layout of the furniture and the "set up" of where condiments, etc., go on a table, you could easily scrub down a table and collect plates.
Similarly, you don't need much adaptation to become familiar with the buttons on a company phone, such as ones with buttons for different lines. You would be able to answer calls and use a switchboard to assist customers to different departments.
I'm sure most telemarketing jobs couls suffice, and they're pretty easy to get. They're just not easy to keep, from what I hear, since you get paid based on commission, so you actually need to be a convincing salesperson, and if you're like me, a telemarketer calling you at the most inconvenient time of day, or any time of day for that matter, is probably the last person who will be able to convince you.
To be fair, though, many call centres and companies with switchboards have inaccessible systems. Certainly, the job sounds easy enough, and there are probably some which could work out, but I did have to mention it. As for bussing tables, that is quite interesting. Learning the layout is obviously very important. But how, as a totally blind person, would you be able to tell when the customer needs a refill of something or when he/she has finished with his/her food so you can take the plates away?
Well what about jobs like custermer service or jobs at retail stores?
I think that busting tables would be hard, people move their chairs about and what if you crashed in to someone and dumped a plate? You would have to hand them their plates rather then to set it down at the table for them. You could work behind a bar, people work in BEP fisilities all over but that is different than tables.
But with the custermer service or whatever, sometimes you have to read recetes. How about that and the rest?
as far as how you'd know if people need refills/are finished with their food, ask them.
Nicki, bussing tables really isn't difficult. sighted people drop things often; it just happens. when it does, you do what needs to be done to clean up the spill, and move on.
I had a few odd jobs when in college, I'll list what I did.
I am aware, though, it's 2012 and not 1991 and so we have a lot of political correctness and things now that probably get in the way.
I did work study when in college, meaning I worked at the school cafeteria. I scooped dough from the buckets onto the cookie sheets. Did it for hours in a day to be precise, and that was at the school cafeteria / commons area.
I also worked at a McDonald's and Miss M is right. I didn't do tables, but I worked in the cack: Saturday mornings I would come in and suit up and work in the freezer: grab the boxes that came down the conveyor and throw them onto the stacks. You don't have to be precise, you can fix that later, in that situation anyway, and each of the boxes was a different size. That stuff is so frozen solid you won't break it by throwing it. In fact, the managers used to break us of the fear of breaking it by opening up the box, giving us a patty and telling us to throw it at the wall, see if we'd break it. I gave it all I had and it wouldn't break. They then had us stomping on them, jumping on them, just to show we could be rough with the boxes and not break anything. Speed was all that mattered at that point, and though speed is often our enemy as blind people, in this case it wasn't. If you're fit, you can grab what comes down the chute, pivot around in the direction where you know the stack is for that particular item, and throw it.
Aside from that, I cleaned a lot of things from fry racks to grill covers to shake machine parts and the like, plus the dishes from the breakfast rush, etc. That and filled the racks with fries which the fry cooks would load into the fryers. I was never very good at trying to do those messages jobs you mention, sitting at the switchboards and typing out messages. Guess I was better at just doing things physical.
Another thing I did, the school library was hiring students for the summer, on an indoor construction project. We were all lackeys, the real construction people handling the building and the like. But we would put together shelves, load up carts, unload carts onto shelves, stuff like that. Work all day, party all night, was how those days went.
Yes, you get people asking how you are going to do this or that, but I would just do it rather than try to mess with all the explanations. I got a lot of rejections when looking for work, and some rather embarrassing ones too. Even members of my own family didn't know or think I would do some of those things, and to be honest, I can't say I set out to prove anything either. The work was just there and it happened. Not much for a inspirational memoir like people do, but so far as I saw it, it was worth it. Yes, you will face a lot of rejections and I went months that way at times, which was really difficult.
I agree with you though: we need better options for short-term work - for students, and for people between jobs - for the blind. For me, I've always been better in those situations doing something physical rather than the customer service types of things where you didn't hear someone come up, and they're standing there waiting to be helped, and think you're just a goof-off sitting there ignoring them.
Anyway that's what I have to offer, hope it stimulates some thought for what you can strive at. The downside for some I think is, the stuff I was able to do you need to be physically able and fit for - and from being on here I have come to understand that a lot of the blind suffer multiple medical issues which compounds the situation.
I struggled with this in 2005 though, when I needed work. What I would have given for to find some sort of job the way my sighted peers are able to pick up a cab driving job, or a stockroom job or something. It is a problem we really do need to solve. And I agree, the agencies are most probably not the ones to solve it: too much tell, not enough show, to be of any real use to the private sector. At least most of them.
I've noticed that blind services, as a general rule, seems to see these types of jobs as a very last resort. If you have, or can come up with, the money to be in college, they'd rather you be there, especially for us young folk who are just fresh out of high school. Now, I'm not against college; it can be necessary at times, but when you don't even have enough money to buy your own personal hygiene items, even a job that requires the most boring, repetitive work for only minimum wage is like a breath of fresh air. Call center jobs, it seems, usually pay a bit more than minimum wage, but the problem with those is that you either need to get into a program that is willing to provide general training for new people, or you have to have experience, and sometimes both. the sad part about most of these simple manual labor type jobs is that although we're perfectly capable of carrying out the daily tasks, a disaster on the job caused by a blind employee would really damage the company's rep, a lot more so than the same disaster caused by a sighted person. In the former cinario, the blame would really fall on the company for hiring a blind person in the first place, whereas with a sighted person, well, accidents happen, people get careless, and there's really no way the company could have prepared for that ahead of time. it's sad, but that's most likely why it's more difficult for us to get these types of jobs. I'd say our best bet is to frequent the venue, whether it's a restaurant, library, or whatever, and prove that we can be compatent simply by going about our business where they can observe. It may not land us a job, but it's a good start, at least.
Apparently, everyone except me can find assembly line and other manual jobs, or even crafts! I can't find any of these things! When I do, you need to be able to lift 50 lbs. or more. I don't have any other medical issues aside from blindness, but that's pushing it! Most agencies just want to stick people on the phone. Yes, I can do phone work, and yes, I've had some interesting experiences doing it. But after awhile, it burns me out and I simply can't stand it! I would much rather do something physical, or even just research things online.
That's the ticket Eleni: I admit, I was and still am very physically fit, which meant the 50 lbs of weight to lift was never an issue. But I have family who could not do that, and they are fully sighted. So if your eyes don't work, plus you have a physical constraint preventing you from physical effort like that, that could be a real problem.
And when I say 'we' need to solve this problem, I am not talking the blind services. They are there to move people from wellfare to permanent work, whether they do so or not. That is what they are paid by you and I to do. That being said, only you the individual can decide, and ultimately figure, what you are going to do about your given situation. But I think the 'we' who must figure this out is the blind ourselves. If we are a so-called community, then part of being a community would by definition mean solving problems faced by that community. Far too much advocating and too little action, it seems: talks about the services, etc., and I wonder if that model is very last-century. Just as the institutionalized model was so very 19th-century.
I'm not dissing the services: don't take me wrong. There are several life events of mine which would not have happened had it not been for them. And I'm old enough to admit it with no shame or uber snootyness the youth are wont to display:
First, in the 80s, they had a summer work experience program which I participated in. Sure, I'd had a basic manual job before, but this allowed me to work for the Immigration Service, something I had simply not thought about or even known of at 16. And sure, family was upset about it because it was government, and government is supposed to be bad. But that experience forever shaped me as a human being, working in a federal office like that.
And, I would not have been able to make it through college were it not for the partial funding by the Commission (our services for the blind out here), plus the OCB scholarship I got.
But, I question thinking of services as a default mechanism. When I graduated college, they wanted me to go to this outfit where she wanted to put me on telemarketing, said I needed to change my goal. I had a portfolio in front of her which she had not cared to open. I may be fully blind but surely I would know if you opened a folder and rifled through the papers or not.
I was out of that building quicker than shit through a goose. Now, is that their fault? Was I some sort of victim? I posit the organization is merely an inanimate object: a tool if you will. Do I throw a fit at Home Depot if I pick up the wrong sized pipe wrench? No, I keep looking for the one that fits.
Now I admit, they are an expensive tool. And, unlike Home Depot, you and I have to pay for it whether we use it or not. The part that is so last-century, in my opinion, is this idea that services is even vaguely supposed to have the answers. This is something I have obsserved in the past three years, now that I have ventured into the online blind community.
Of course they don't have your answers: you do. You, when you visit them, are just window shopping to see if that tool is the tool for the job.
The differences between young people now and young people of the early 90s are staggering, in terms of what you as blind people can do. You can read, research, and browse through anything online. You are not relegated to what is rarely put out in Braille, a bit more commonly put out on tape. You ave the entire Internet at your fingertips, plus things like Craigslist and eBay. I'm not minimizing the difficulties, just putting this out there.
Last century, people considered institutionalization a very 19th-century behavior, even though it was still common for certain groups. I simply posit that Services for the Blind as an advisor is very very last-century.
Of course, like any financing infrastructure, they will only finance certain things. Remember the only reason they exist is as a means to invest in the blind population to move people from wellfare to work, or prevent wellfare to begin with. So for them to do things like taking a colleged-educated person with a portfolio and suggesting they work a dead-end commissions-based telemarketing job has short-term benefits to the investors. Just like laying off thousands of workers benefits the shareholders in a company in the short term.
The answer is you. All you. You are all you have. I just challenge you to look at State Services like you look at a pipe wrench or a screwdriver. Only perhaps more symbiotically: if you can benefit from what they have, and fulfill something for them (move from wellfare to work), then have at it. But if you and they are incompatible, meaning they are simply not the tool for the job, no need to cry or rant online on forums. Move on: the Internet, and the whole world, is before you. Again, I'm not minimizing the challenges every one of us face. But I think our power is in ownership. And I wonder if the whole idea of Services as we know them to be, one of an advisory role, is vrey last-century. Consider their employees work in a government building, serving clients, but may or may not actually have a good finger on the pulse of the modern economy.
Just to clear something up, which I have had conflict with in offline life with all of this:
I cannot consider all of what I said to be bragging here, in my last two posts. I am most probably of very average intelligence, many of you have gotten better grades than I did in school. I earn a lower-than-average income for my age and time spent in a career: in my field I am pretty average not a star by a long shot. Why do I say all this? Context: All that I have either claimed myself to have done, or claim as a way to look at things, is from a very average nondescript American. This is just an average joe talkin', which means with added technology I never even dreamed of, online opportunities, and the like, who knows what you might be able to accomplish?
Well, considering that I weigh maybe 110 lbs. or so, if I lifted 50 lbs. I would be carrying almost half my body weight and would probably break my back doing so! Perhaps, if I lifted weights, and really got in shape, I could do it. I see no issues with working at a government job. It's still work and you're still getting paid. I wouldn't have blamed the organisation itself, but I certainly would have blamed the woman for not at least reading my portfolio and taking me seriously! I don't think that expecting services to have answers is last century. They're supposed to specialise in helping the blind, and that includes working with us on finding employment. So while they may not have all the answers, they should at least try to help guide us in the right direction and work with us to meet our professional goals. For the record, I also don't consider institutionalisation last century for certain groups.
just as the goals of blind services are to help their consumers, it's even more your responsibility to know what you're seeking, stick to it, be open to other options, and, you know, prove to them that you've done your work.
this doesn't all fall on blind services, Tiff, as much as you'd like to think it does. it falls on you, you, you.
you, as a person supposedly wanting X, Y, and Z, have to know how to make it in the world. if you don't, no one will even attempt to help you. however, if it's obvious you're trying to better things, and taking responsibility for the things you want, then, I assure you, that'll produce promising results than wining about the difficulties you face.
They're supposeed to move the blind from social security and other dependency on entitlements to a working taxpaying existence. If they did not do that, there would be no justification for paying for them. Harsh, but true.
Benefits to seniors who go blind is an entirely different issue, as is benefits to the wounded warriors who are blind or go blind.
But for us lifers they are there for one reason: to finance such education and equipment as is necessary to move you from benefits status to taxpayer status. That is why they will not pay for religious degrees, underwater basketweaving degrees, froot loop studies degrees, etc.
In fact, I had started on an International Studies degree, but due to a grand mall seizure actually deleting a bunch of the Japanese I took, I finished with a General Ed degree, which was an exceptional situation. They aren't there for us the blind people: they're there for us the taxpayers, to move the nonworking blind from the dole to taxpayer status. Good, bad, or indifferent. That's actually how the system works. I'm pretty uneducated on the whole advocacy bit I will admit you that. But their claims on or against us during school can be said to be financially valid.
So, when the so-called counsellor said to me, "We've never sent a blind person overseas," What he meant was: "The taxpayers have never financed an overseas education for a blind person."
My response was in kind: "You won't be sending me, either. I'm working to save up for the trip, the University is covering our expenses while we are there provided we make a minimum grade point average."
That's how the job got done. Was it fair, or nice, that he said that? Probably not. Was I pissed? Sure. But what's a guy gonna do? Pout? So the Oregon taxpayers could not assume the financial risk associated with sending a blind guy overseas. So what? Either I was gonna make it or not: all we have is do or die anyway, so no great loss, right? Now upon my return, I resisted giving them a full report, for the simple reason they hadn't paid for it. Unlike what they thought, I wasn't still mad they didn't spring for it: a deal's a deal, right? You want nothing to do with it? Fine. Nothing to do with it, it is. I'm game. They had financed the first year of school, for which I had submitted report cards, just as I did subsequent years to the Financial Aid office which is for everybody not just the blind. I'm just laying things out there the way they are.
They don't have your best interest at heart. Not saying they have your worst either. They are there to invest in a commodity that will yield. To make that commodity yield, it has to operate in the proper environment, e.g. get a degree that will yield a financial success. Technically, their investment in me didn't yield as either they or I thought: I had that seizure and so had to change degrees, got out on time, ended up in an entirely different field. Haven't made the kind of money the inital one would have, but still a consistent taxpayer except the year I'd lost my business. In other words, been paid back and several times over.
But don't hold any allusions: They are there for that one reason. To reduce the number of the blind on the federal and state benefits system. They even get credit for moving one off the system, which makes sense from a financial perspective. Like a dividend on stocks.
well said, leo.
Well posted Leo and your jobs you did was really interesting. Great awesome even!
Yes, thank you for this information. It has been helpful as I look for jobs.