Getting By With A Little Help From Our Friends
After my public whine about DARS, a few friends reached out with unexpected and much appreciated offers. Sam seized on them both, forwarding a resume to one and securing an interview with another.
I accompanied him to the interview, in part because I wanted to see my old friend, but also because she asked that I be there.
My friend runs a company started by her late husband assembling circuit boards. I’m sure there is nothing in “What Color is Your Parachute” or any of the other how-to-get-a-job-books about bringing your mom along, but that’s how we roll.
Sam and my friend communicated just fine together. They are both straight shooters. She gave him a tour and checked his ability to do some of the fine motor work. Then she told him she would work around his Albertsons schedule for now. Very classy. If it doesn’t work out, there is an easy retreat for both of them.
But I have to say, at the end of the interview, when she asked about another task altogether — helping her link up some kind of time clock hardware to her current accounting software — I saw a huge spark in Sam’s eyes.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #108
Peggy: I put a little more whole wheat flour in the kolache dough this time.
Sam: Sometimes, Mom, you can eat too much nutrition, you know.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #107
Sam: You have a real nice air freshener in here.
Peggy (motioning to the vase on the dresser): It’s the tuberose your smelling.
Sam: A Tube Rose?
Peggy: Yes. I think they smell like Hawaii.
Every Day of The Year
Based on things Sam has said about the gas plant next door over the past 12 months, I can tell he wakes up each day and thinks, “Maybe today is the day that they lose and we win and we can stay.”
As my friend Nancy said, it’s sweet, but it’s sad.
It’s a universal truth, too. I wake up everyday thinking my husband is alive and my home isn’t threatened.
Then I draw my first waking breath.
They Just Don’t Get It
I called DARS today — that’s Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services to you non-Texans out there.
I reminded the counselor that we had talked more than six months ago, looking for help finding an internship … but if not, soon he would be graduating and, in the eyes of the state, “underemployed.”
Well that day is here, and could they help with a job search and a coach, like they did with Albertsons, only with a tech job?
She said just about every way she could that she couldn’t help, and I listened and listened. Then when it was my turn to talk, I said, I’m not sure what all I just heard here, but essentially I heard that you can’t help.
Oh, no, she said, that’s not it. I just don’t want you to have any expectations that we’ll be successful this time. The providers they work with don’t have contacts in the tech world. The best network will be the one I can make for him. Besides, the job market is really soft, no one is getting hired. We could be at this for a very long time.
Essentially, repeating herself, but objecting to my characterization of what she says.
Yeah, I get that at work a lot.
But, I kept my mouth shut on the characterization and went searching for common ground.
Sam needs help navigating this alien world of job-searching. He needs help searching and applying for jobs. He needs help with the interviews. And once an employer is ready to take a chance on him, he’ll need help for a little while — and so will the employer — understand the expectations and learning how to communicate with each other.
Mercifully, at some point, before she could reply to me with another round of negativity, either my phone hung up on her or her on me.
The guys at nonPareil have seen it — Sam understands and works hard. He loves to solve problems, and he has a lot of stamina and thinking power to do it.
I called Gary Moore, who collects stories like these because he hears from parents every day, just to add to the pile. The pile know as “DARS just doesn’t get it.”
He called back and did some brainstorming with me. Lots more than required, but I appreciated it. He reminded me that Sam built a bunch of computers during his internship with nonPareil, computers meant for DARS clients.
But DARS can’t help him find that employment.
Duh.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #106
Sam: What was that all about?
Peggy: Susan was helping me re-arrange the furniture so that it looks a little better when the real estate people come around
Sam: When does that start?
Peggy: Maybe as soon as next weekend.
Sam: We’re doomed.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #105
Sam: I miss Michael and Paige.
Peggy: Me, too. What do you miss the most about them?
Sam: Well, I miss Michael, of course. He’s been gone the most.
How Paige Sees Home
First Things First
Sam and I spent a good portion of last Saturday afternoon talking about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The house is going up for sale and he’s very upset about it.
We are about to become another in what is sure to be a long exodus of refugees from the Barnett Shale. An operator has built a gas processing plant next door. I’m not sure we can even sell the place, but I have to try.
My brother-in-law is an attorney for a pipeline company in another state. Even his eyes popped when he saw what we’re being asked to put up with.
(image borrowed from Wikipedia)
Sam has known this has been coming for a long time, but struggled to see the new order of things once we leave. I’m not surprised. People with autism can barely understand our cryptic social orders to begin with. Upend the whole thing and he doesn’t know what to do.
Well, the wise Mr. Maslow said that first comes things like breathing and food and water. Breathable air is already in short supply around here, having a next door neighbor dehydrating gas, blowing off relief valves and burning raw gas to run thousands of horses every hour to keep that 16-inch line compressed adds serious insult to injury.
Not to mention, if that 16-inch line ever goes, we go with it.
Seeing it on the pyramid, along with things like food and water helped him understand.
He’s fretted for more than a year about what would happen to friendships if we aren’t living in the same place we’ve always been. Half his school chums are graduating, too, and getting jobs far from here. Somehow, Sam saw himself as the anchor in this changing storm.
But friendships are much higher on the pyramid. As a visual aid, Maslow scores for us. Sam finally understands why the exodus is necessary.
First things First.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #104
Michael (via phone, after his car broke down at the merge of I35W and 820): When you’re a little kid, you cry and then you do it. After you grow up, you do it and then you cry.
Peggy: That’s brilliant, Michael.