By Rob McInnes, © Diversity World, February 2004

I don’t believe that there is any aspect of human existence that is devoid of a spiritual dimension. This is true for all of us engaged in issues of employment and disability. In this context, I don’t use “spirituality” in a spooky or religious way. I am simply asserting that there is a dimension that goes beyond the mundane and practical routine of our lives - a dimension that is comfortable with words like “purpose”, “meaning”, “gifts” and “calling”. Individually, in every aspect of our lives we are equally capable of ignoring or embracing its reality. It is like an underground stream that we can draw from or disregard. What I know, however, from many years of work and experience in this field, that it is from this spiritual realm that our greatest champions arise, our most significant allegiances are formed and our strongest personal commitments are made. Nevertheless, in professional circles, we tend to give it little or no formal recognition. In this brief article, I hav e decided to explore it just a little.

First of all, we must understand work as a primary and profoundly influential vehicle for the journey of the human spirit. How can it not be? As creatures with limited life spans, time is our most precious commodity. It is all within our limited allocation of time that we are able to follow our dreams, find our meaning, share our gifts and savor our life experiences. For most of us 40 – 80 hours each week (35% - 75% of our conscious existence) is given to our work. The nature of our jobs and the work that we do can greatly impoverish or greatly enrich our life experience. Note that I made a distinction between our “jobs” and the “work that we do”. I believe that this is and important distinction. Every one of us needs to be conscious that when we have a job to do – we also have an astonishing range of choice about how we perform that job.

When, I referred to work as a “vehicle” for the journey of the human spirit, I chose that term deliberately. The broad spectrum of makes, models and features of automobiles, enables us to choose vehicles that best meet the needs of our personal lifestyles – be they considerations of speed, style, comfort, reliability, economy and/or safety. The spectrum of jobs available to us is even greater – and they will all have differing capacities to match with our needs, desires and lifestyles. However, pushing the vehicle analogy to an important second level, we get to be the drivers. The car is just the car. The job is just the job. The steering wheel, the gas pedal, the gear shift are all in our control. The CD player or radio tuner awaits our selection. The passenger seats await our chosen companions. Seat covers, racing stripes and bumper stickers invite further personalization. Similarly, our jobs readily await our deliberate actions to bring them to life for us and for those ar ound us.

Each of us who is employed, whatever our job, has the power to make it profoundly more meaningful and fulfilling than our itemized job descriptions. Last night I watched the Trumpet Awards on television – the annual awards ceremony that honors African-American achievement in politics, business, law and the arts. It was a very moving and inspirational event. (It made we wish and wonder about a future event of this kind honoring the achievements of people with disabilities.) Producer-director Norman Lear was awarded the Humanitarian Award for his ground-breaking work in dismantling attitudinal barriers through such TV series as "All in the Family," "Good Times" and "The Jeffersons". Norman Lear has excelled in his basic career as a producer-director but he has added immeasurable value to his job by consciously using it as an opportunity to further social equality.

My partner Denise Bissonnette wrote a wonderful poem entitled “The Puppeteer”, which portrays our often-neglected ability to make our jobs work for us. Speaking to Work, she says “You’re just a puppet on the floor in front of me! … You are waiting for me to pick you up and let you dangle like a hanged man, or to wrap your strings around my nimble fingers and set you to dance!”

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to hear Yolanda King speak. She is Martin Luther King Jr.’s eldest daughter. Ms King is committed to keeping her father’s dream alive – the dream of equality and opportunity for everyone. She was primarily speaking to the employees and students of a large educational institution. She painted an inspiring picture of how that institution could be changed, how people could be valued and respected, how lives could be changed if each employee would, in addition to just following the routine of their jobs, begin to act on principles of inclusion and equality - in the classrooms, the cafeterias, in the bookstores, the transportation services, the administrative offices… everywhere. It is a wonderful challenge to us all – in whatever job we have. It isn’t just a challenge about how to do our jobs better. It is a challenge about how to use our jobs to live our lives better.

What does all this have to do with disability and employment? For those of us who are employers or “helping professionals”, we have wonderful opportunities to further craft our jobs in ways that will make more and better employment opportunities available to people with disabilities. And, in so doing, we will enhance our own spiritual journeys.

As Job Developers/Career Counselors, etc., it can’t hurt for us to develop a little more consciousness about the “sacredness” of our work. In helping people with disabilities find employment, we are engaged in something bigger than helping them pay their bills. We are influencing where and how people are going to be spending a major portion of their lives – whether or not they will be employed to do what they “can do” or what they “love to do” – whether they will be engaged in jobs that fulfill and nurture their spirits or in jobs that are oppressive and demoralizing.

Just any job with a paycheck is not good enough. The lives of job seekers are too precious. We cannot neglect qualitative considerations in the pursuit of employment. Too often, in securing jobs for people, we have neglected qualitative considerations. Too readily we have committed what my partner Denise calls “vocational violence”. In our efforts to help people with disabilities find employment, we need to be conscious about enabling them to secure not just jobs but livelihoods. We have a responsibility to be deliberate in our efforts to help people with disabilities to find the kinds of jobs and workplaces that will draw on their talents, enhance their skills, and give opportunity for their personal growth and sense of fulfillment.

As employers, we need to respond to the issue of employing people with disabilities with more than just a willingness to hire the best candidate for the job, whether or not they have a disability. We need to be motivated to be more deliberate about our efforts to find and hire applicants with disabilities. We need to be aware that in our society people with disabilities are routinely and needlessly denied the opportunity to have a place in our workplaces. We have an opportunity to make a difference. We need to find the courage to step out of our safe routine – to do what we know is right, to do what we know is good, and to become a part of what we believe in. In choosing to proactively employ people with disabilities, our own work will become more interesting, more meaningful and, ultimately, more important.

I was recently visited by my friend Ernie who owns his own small company. Over coffee, he told me about how he built up his business over the past nine years. He also told me about how he selected his employees. While, of course he selected folks who were capable of doing the jobs he was hiring for, he also consciously selected people who needed help – people who had employment barriers – people who would likely be passed over by other employers. The result? Ernie’s business is thriving. Through the opportunity and support he has given them, the life experience of his employees has greatly improved and they have blossomed with new pride and self-confidence. Ernie readily tells how his own life experience has been enriched – by what he has learned about life from his employees and by the sense of personal fulfillment he has from having helped others. He admits that his business isn’t thriving any more than it would if he had hired the “best qualified” applicants for the job; b ut it is thriving no less – and it is much richer on a spiritual level – as his choices have significantly enriched his own life and those of the folks he has hired.

Amidst the chaos and pressures of our lives, it is very easy to lose our connection to the spiritual reality of our existence – to our “higher calling”. Demands for making hires or reaching placement quotas can readily overshadow the true importance and potential of our lives and the decisions that we make. How greatly our own work and the livelihoods of those whose lives we influence would be enhanced if we were able to remain conscious of the notion, as expressed by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, that “We are spiritual beings having a human experience, not human beings having a spiritual experience.”

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As a disabled PWMI (Person With Mental Illness, one of the many cautious euphemisms for "the mentally ill"), I can attest to the validity of Rob McInnes' comments -- with a touch of bittersweetness. I have been working in the field of librarianship and information science here in Israel, for the past 12-13 years. I have come to discover 2 things: First, that I think I'm a damn good librarian. Second, everybody in this small country knows everybody else. And while I have fine interpersonal and networking skills, I am leery to stick my nose out in professional associations, due to my irrational fear that..."someone" there...might somehow have known me or heard of me from...one of "those" places (psych hospitals).

I know only I am responsible for this attitude and feeling, although the social phenomena at the root -- stigma -- is still real and valid here. I know I could also list several more valid causes why I don't network more among librarians -- such as distraction from various physical illnesses, failure to stay in touch with other librarians, and lack of important skills such as Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint mastery -- but I still think these are basically in my hands, with a little help. The "bittersweet" part is my slow realization of my lack of job options. A little downsizing on my employer's part and I could easily be pounding the pavements with short notice. And, then...

A few words on job accomodations: The part I just left out in this pep talk was the need for job accomodations for disabled people, something just getting off the ground here in Israel. So help me God, but there is no way I can make it to a job 5 days a week, 9 to 5 -- the meds I take fatigue me way too much. Would the director of a large library understand this? And how far can I walk the line in revealing the reasons why? Tune in 5 or 10 years down the road -- and keep up your wonderful work at diversityworld.com.

Elliot Lazerwitz Tel Aviv, ISRAEL

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Wow! I just love the ideas from this article. I must admit, even though I am a career counselor and provide job search techniques, that networking has always been difficult for me. Not only personally but on a professional basis. I never quite know how to explain it or get the message through. I love for my clients to be able to experience and better understand, wether it's the resume, inteview or networking. I'm always looking for new ways to explain and new activities; this is certainly a starting point for me. Thanks.

It's true about the networking statistics. When we do job search clubs at our Center, we look at how individuals found most of their jobs. The great majority is done through personal contacts. I don't have a percentage, but I know that it outways job ads.

Brigitte Landry, Conseillere / Counselor, Life-Work Connexions Vie-Travail, NB Canada

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The idea of dinner is great if the job seeker has a parent willing to cook and entertain guests. Many job seekers do not have parents to perform this function and are not skilled entertainers, cooks or even housekeepers! Also, the job seeker must know some people first and know them well enough that he or she can invite them to his or her house. Having to worry about what kind of people now know where he or she lives and what he or she has can be a concern to a job seeker in a new area! A disabled person will need to expend the money, which may not be available also. And will the networking individuals expect more dinners after that? Sometimes the expectation is there for another dinner if a good time is had.

I think this article assumes the best kind of neighborhood and best kind of network connections.

I do think that with the particular scenario of parents able and willing to offer this dinner environment to people already established in their lives, a disabled job seeker would do well though! The network is likely to respond in kind when they are treated to excellent company, food, and entertainment! It takes a special person to perform this function and they are out there in some cases such as perhaps the example the author presented here.

Karen McClure, DVOP Representative #082, Chico, CA

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My name is Burrell Adams and I am a Job Developer who loves helping not only people with disabilities, but anyone who is in need of a good job with benefits. My theory of exposing an employee to a potential employer, is to have a Grand Open House of the training facility that trains both the disabled person and the long term unemployed (whom in my opinion has a disability based on the economic job market that are all turning to At-Will contract hiring practices.). The purpose of giving a Grand Open House is to let the potential employer not only view and tour the training campus and see the students in the classes, and discuss with the instructor the class curriculum, but to have the student perform actual job functions. Example: Say you have a student studying accounting, and you have invited an accounting firm representative, you would ask the rep. to give a hypothetical accounting problem such as accounts payable or receivable and let the student solve that problem or an! y other hypothetical problem and let the company rep. ask some company entry-level questions. Another example would be in the Computer Operations field of training, you again have the student perform a task using his or her knowledge and let that company representative ask questions. The company rep. should understand that the potential employee will not know the company's policies and procedures because the new employee will have to learn that, and be trained to do that company's program. But this would give the rep. a better understanding of what the students could do in an actual job setting. Use your top graduate students that are just about ready to take the plunge into the real world of job hunting and networking. This method of exposure to the students will give them and make them feel more confident in themselves and build higher self esteem within their daily life. Isn't this what it is all about!!

Thanks for letting me give some suggestions, I hope you can use them, guaranteed to work...

Sincerely, Burrell Adams

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This booklet provides information about the ADA, hidden disabilities and workplace accommodations. The booklet also includes an extensive list of resources related to this topic. To obtain a free copy of the guide, contact Cailín Pachter, Muhlenberg College at 484-664-3170 or by e-mail at cpachter@muhlenberg.edu

The guide is also available online at: www.muhlenberg.edu/ocdp/emplguide/
 

Directed at a California audience, Disability Benefits 101 (DB101) helps workers, job seekers, and service providers understand the connections between work and benefits. It brings together rules for health coverage, benefit and employment programs that people with disabilities use. These programs may be administered by the state, the federal government, or private organizations; here, we discuss them under one roof, in plain language.

For More Information: www.disabilitybenefits101.org
 

The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars announced a new initiative to help increase employment for students with disabilities through an academic internship program – a total of 50 competitive scholarship awards in the amount of $7,430 for students with disabilities interested in working in the executive, judicial or legislative branches of the federal government during the spring 2004 and fall 2004 semesters. Application due date: June 14, 2004.

For More Information: www.twc.edu/diversityingovernment.HTM
 

For More Information: www.diversityworld.com/Disability/career.htm
 

"At Your Service: Welcoming Customers with Disabilities" is an online course developed for people in customer service positions. It teaches basic practical and legal considerations for interacting effectively with customers with disabilities.

For More Information: www.wiawebcourse.org/
 

Drawn from data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study (NLTS) collected from 1987 to 1990, this brief report provides rare and important insights into the employment patterns of youth with disabilities.

For More Information: www.ncset.org/publications/viewdesc.asp?id=1310
 

Quick tips for Employers from the Job Accommodation Network – on how to make online employment applications accessible to people with disabilities.

For More Information: www.jan.wvu.edu/corner/
 

This isn't employment realted; but we thought it might be a useful resource for some of our readers. All inPlay is a Web site where, through the use of accessible design, the blind, low vision, and fully sighted can play games together as equals. All inPlay levels the playing field by creating completely accessible online games. No special accommodations. No special rules. No special handicapping. Just well-designed games providing fun, community, and friendship, worldwide. (Note: For prolonged use, this site is fee-based.)

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