With all due respect, not everybody is you, or able to fully function socially and at work in spite of their disabilities as you can.
Seriously, I have a problem with this, a big problem.
Whenever I move to someplace new, such as this place fourteen years ago, to save time and trouble, I simply contact the nearest office of state vocational rehabilitation, an agency that's known me for, well, a very long time, asking them to find me a job.
It's easier and quicker; I don't have to waste time reading help-wanted advertisements, writing applications and resumes, and burning shoe-leather.
They have my file--and it's a very thick file--and they know people in the area, whereas I don't, and people in the area don't know me, but they know and trust them.
For them, it takes just one telephone call--"Hey, I've got a guy here who'll work out for you really well; he's a great guy, top-notch, top of the line, with an impressive work record," after which further information is given from the files--and I've been hired immediately, no application, no interview, no references (although of course available) requested.
It greatly uncomplicates this life, not having to bother with any of that myself.
- - - - - - - - - -
However, last time the agency insisted I
had to file for social security disability. I wasn't happy about it, and I'm sure that showed on the application.
An attorney, when looking at it, said, "If I were an examiner, I'd need to hear what you
can't do, rather than what you can do. All you've done here is brag about what you
can do despite your impediments."
After which an
impasse, and nothing further came of it.
I told him my mind's never worked that way; I'd never in my life thought of things I
can't do, only along the lines of things I
can do, and things I haven't tried yet.
Think of it. I've worked, and still on occasion, work, as a retail clerk--despite the magnificent four-year college diploma--a job that of course requires much communicative give-and-take with other people.
I'm deaf. I can't hear. And because I disguise the deafness, other people aren't aware of it.
Really, now. Has anyone ever met a deaf person running a cash-register or answering questions about products and services?
Well, I guess I decades ago proved yes, a deaf person
can do such things, and I resent any thought that we
can't.
- - - - - - - - - -
And thus my unbridled contempt for primitives such as Pork Chops, the Odin2005 primitive,
who hasn't even ever tried.
Never mind his "Asperger's" (or whatever it is), never mind "learning disabilities; I've been through all of that. It's not unsurmountable.
If one can't get through a wall, one can always walk around it, or dig under it, or fly over it.
- - - - - - - - - -
At times I sit back in amusement, watching as the primitives fantasize that franksolich is possessed of great intellectual and manipulative talents, when in reality the real-life person behind franksolich doesn't have the talents and resources of hearing people, and even most primitives.
The stories I've written here about life in the Sandhills are true, sometimes fiction based upon real-life experiences, but generally true (the people, the events, the feelings), but if one notices carefully, there's always an underlying theme; that of a deaf person with scant resources trying the best he can, to get along.....and usually succeeding.
Sorry about this long rant, but this is really one of those things that gets me all pissed off and bent out of shape; people who say "I can't" when they
haven't even tried, and so think it's the obligation of the rest of us to carry them.
