Category: Jobs and Employment
A lot of jobs in the counseling field you need a driving license for.
Even the day treatment program that I work part time for.
The reason I am not full time is because I dont have a driving license.
According the massachusetts against descrimination, its legal for the following reason.
By hiring me, creates a financial hardship for the company, they dont have to hire me.
To me, this is BS.
So I can't work for an angency, I cant work as an out reach worker, I am dont have the school counseling degree, so cant work in a school, plus in Massachusetts, in order to work in a school, you need to pass the teacher's exam. I would never be able to do that.
The only way I know to get a job is to either work for a hospital or for on my own.
Any ideas or thoughts for me?
thank you for reading this.
Jonathan
Well, firstly, yes, the law doesn't make sense, you could offer to come up with alternative ways, use special transportation services or bus system etc. Of course if you have a new assignment/address every day this is not ideal for you, for many reasons, but if you are comfortable with the bus system or you have good special transportation I really think you can dispute the "financial hardship" argument. If the agency had to hire you a car and a driver or pay your cab bills wherever you go, that'd be different.
And why can't you pass the teacher's exam. They are not particulaarly hard, I know of a few blind professors even and they do quite well, one in physics and one in evolutionary biology. If you set your mind to it you could pass such an exam and I think something like a school job would be ideal for a blind person, any job that is basically tied to a specific location would be good.
Don't give up the fight, consider the options. Get them to analyze what they mean by financial hardship, explain how that could be done so that the company would not have to indur financiial hardship, thereby taking the reason away from them.
Good luck
-B
You know you could always get a PHD that would open up a lot more doors.
RBMask, Sir...
If you were UK based, I'd say apply for the Access to Work Scheme. That can pay for a driver to be employed to transport you wherever was necessary if the job required it.
Well, you say your degree is in counseling. Fortunately, there are lots of avenues you can look into. From what you said, I'm not sure if it is or is not school counseling.
I know that under some parts of the ADA, there are some criteria that outline what constitutes a "financial hardship." WB is right, however. you might be able to find other ways to work out the transportation issue. I had a job and subsidized some of my driver's expenses. I was able to take some off my taxes for this. It sounds like you're working for a non-profit. Maybe they have some volunteers available to help with this aspect of the job. Gets tricky here, because you don't want to give the perception that your clientele can work through/with them. Good luck.
Lou