Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Story of the Day 6/ 6/ 2014



My son, Aaron, who is deaf, has struggled to find employment.
Part of it is his fault. He is a college drop out.
Except, that, at the moment, he has dropped back in, part time.

But part of it is that one of the first things that any potential employer sees, when they look at my son, is that he is 6'3" and has two huge hearing aids.
Okay, they are not huge. They are normal sized, but they seem to attract a huge number of stares.

As a result, he has spent a lot of time going in and filling out job applications over and over and over, and finally, being hired by a place to which he had applied numerous times.
His being hired only happened AFTER they hired someone who knew him from his previous job;
and after this new hire had told the manager that Aaron really could do the job.
The job which pays minimum wage and involves sweeping up popcorn with a broom and tearing off the ends of tickets.

And ,don't think that what my son has gone through to get a part-time job that happens to pay minimum wage...or did until he got that 15 cents per hour raise....is unusual. When you are deaf or hard or hearing, life can be interesting, especially the part of it that involves looking for a job.

My son has a fried who is deaf, like he is. Deaf as in uses hearing aids and speaks well, but doesn't always understand everyone using spoken English.
So, this other young man, today, told my son that he had just had a job interview.

When he applied for this job and was told he would be interviewed, this young man told them he was deaf and needed an interpreter.
He showed up and the person interviewing him told him to sit in the chair across from the interviewer's desk, and then the interpreter sat next to him.
Him being the deaf guy who had requested the interpreter.

Immediately, this young man knew there was a problem.
How was he supposed to watch the interpreters signing, and how would she see his responses,if she was facing the interviewer and not him?
It got worse.
The interviewer spoke, and the interpreter turned to the deaf young man and whispered what the interviewer had said, whispered right into his hearing aid.

I am assuming that he was not offered the job.

I am also assuming that the interviewer and the "interpreter" felt they had done a good job in accommodating this guys needs.
I am no longer feeling quite as sorry for my son.

In comparison.

Friday, June 6, 2014

Story opt the Day 5/ 29/ 2014


I am worried about my insurance company.
Well, not mine, I certainly don't own it, or even a part of it, but the one that provides health insurance to our family courtesy of my husband's employer.

I am not complaining. Oh no, I realize what a nice thing it is to have the health insurance as a benefit of the job- one that does not even require us to pay in an amount every month, or wouldn't except that we do pay a nominal amount for the addition of very insufficient dental coverage.

I am , however, worried.

You see, one of my kids saw a physician in December, and then in January, at St. Vincent's hospital.
Not in the hospital, but in their professional building.
The insurance company was a bit slow in paying, but , in April, they apparently did, because I received two different statements , one for each of the appointments, stating that there was no longer a balance due.

That is what I received from my insurance company.

I found out, when Laura, from the physician's office called me, yesterday that they had received two very different statements.
They had received statements from our insurance company that we didn't have coverage.
She was calling to see if I had a different insurance company I wanted them to send a bill to, or if I was going to pay the balance.
The balance being everything except for the copay amounts they got from me when we were in the office.

I located the folder where I keep the medical bills, and pulled out the statements.
I read her what they said and then I got her email address and took a photo of each page, well, two photos of each to be safe; and sent them to her.

I have a feeling that this is what we refer to , in our family, as a " start of a Story of the Day."

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Story of the Day 5/ 20/ 2014



My daughter has been working on a final project for a class she is in, this semester.
It is a group project, and there are two other students in the group.
Sarah was very excited to be working with them. They are a little bit older and she thought they seemed like very interesting people.
But, as she has learnt, perhaps a little too interesting.
At least one of them is.

They had a work meeting to discuss the project, and the one young man showed up late.
Late but not very, very late.
And drunk.
Happy, but drunk. Very, very drunk.

Then, on the day they were supposed to film, this being video project, he show up .
At all.
And he was supposed to bring along the video camera they needed to film the project.

Nor did he respond to the 27 texts they frantically sent him.

I told Sarah, "You should have realized that you could not depend upon him, when he showed up for the work meeting drunk."

This is when, in telling me this, that I realized I had the first part of the story wrong.
It was not just one of the two men who was a bit too interesting, it was both of them.
You see, the guy who showed up drug to the work meeting DID show up to do the project.
It was the OTHER young man who did not show up. Drunk or otherwise.

As a result, Sarah and the other student - the one who had been drunk. but is, at least for the moment, sober -
are now frantically scrambling to put together backup projects to hand in, this Thursday.

Sarah, though, first had to finsih her paper for her history class; so today, she has started on the new project.
A 30 page script.
As a result of this last minute rush to complete the project, I am being texted, right and left.
Sarah is checking out ideas, asking the names of codes, etc.

She is also trying to use idioms correctly.
English is Sarah's second language and she has a very good vocabulary, but she sometimes, because she is Deaf and she has never heard English spoken, will slightly misuse an idiom.
She also likes to use references for which she has no reference.
Like references to music, which she has never heard.
Many people who are deaf have enough residual hearing to hear and appreciate some music.
Sarah does not.
She can hear a hand grenade.
Not that she ever has.

Twice, over the many years we have gone to professional basketball games, she has "heard" the crowd. Both times because her chest vibrated from the level of sound.
As far as her ears went, it was still silent.

So, she is writing away, frantically, and putting in references.
And she decided she wanted to use a band's name in it.
The band called " Rock and Roll."
I had to inform her that was not the name of a band, but she was sure it was.
She hears them referred to fairly frequently.
"No", I told her, "It is a genre of music."
Genre, like fiction, drama, mystery.
"Oh.
I am not sure if it had ever occurred to her, before, that there were different kinds of music.....

But she has, now,remembered the name of another band that she can use.
The name of a band that is actually a band, "The Rolling Stones".

And she has come away from this project having learnt something.
That she can rely on the drunk guy more than upon the one who is sober.
Okay, maybe not, but it was the only moral I could get to fit the story.