Been away too long

I know it has been months since my last post! The months were filled with a flurry of activities such as caring for my children, running errands, job search, volunteer work at a local church.

Yes, I volunteered to work at our local church in the office. Mainly, it was cutting papers to size, labelling the CD's that they use for sermons, monitoring the copier machine, folding church bulletins, perforating the bulletins, stuffing envelopes. Mostly the "dirty" work that would have otherwise overwhelmed the already overwhelmed secretary. The poor woman was trying to multitask and realized that she alone cannot have superpower to do them all in a flash.

The job search has been pretty disheartening. Most of them have "found" the person that they have been looking for. I mean, as a Deaf adult, it shouldn't be that hard to be hired. We can basically do anything except that our hearing isn't perfect. Some of us cannot work with phones at all, while some of us can use it to convey our message but only briefly and simply. Nothing complicated.

I am not looking to be an office assistant whereas I'll be answering phone calls. That is one duty that I have not been trained to do, nor can really do it even with the really good hearing aid readily available.

It is too bad that more and more companies out there prefer to combine several different positions into one employee to multi-task just about everything that they don't want to do.

Here is an example of the ever-changing trend that's happening in the workforce today:

Back in the 80's, a title "Assistant Accountant I" involves a simple task of data entering all the invoices into the computer whether it be an account payable or receivable, while another person calls to verify the information they received via mail.

Today's "Assistant Accountant I" involves the above mentioned duty PLUS, call to verify the informations AND to make a decision AND to answer any incoming calls AND to create a complete financial report.

Today's job now requires you to have a degree.. now I know that I've been out of work too long, but I need to get back in the workforce soon and fast before I lose my chance of learning how the companies have changed the way they run their businesses.

It is a crying shame that they prefer a hearing person to fill this position when the ADA law came into effect to say that the company can hire us Deaf with reasonable accomodations.

My reasonable accomodations? I can get the CapTel Phone (I wish that the IP Captel is out already so that it is downloadable and not need to go through the process of getting the special telephone!) or that the position be revamped to the point that I can do everything except to answer phones.

CapTel Phones would not cost them anything, and hiring another person to answer the phones would not be a financially sound decision for the company. I noticed that nowadays, all companies are looking to SAVE money rather than to SPEND money. Just like us.

OH well....

It has been too long to be without jobs and trying to obtain one is even harder than I thought.

Why can't the office hire us just to see if they like us or not?