My Triumphant Return

...To blogging and the frustrations of job hunting

Oh my! You thought I died in a plane crash on the way home from Milwaukee last summer, didn’t you? Well, I did not. I’m still alive, though I can’t really say “well.” I’ve been going a bit insane looking for a job over the past three months. I have a degree! I can write. I can edit. I can organize. I can use a copier, a fax machine, a scanner, the internet, and all your basic Microsoft Office programs. Now will somebody please hire me? I’ve had all kinds of things I could have written about in terms of my experience as a young person with hearing loss over the past few months, but I was either too busy working or too busy trying to find work and better techniques for doing so.

I’ve been attending workshops at the One-Stop (a place for job seekers organized by the state) and they all say that staring at job boards all day is not the way to go about getting a job. The real trick is networking. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, and I do the best I can using social media sites and whatnot, but what about real, human, face to face interaction? Let’s say I go to a job fair. There are a hundred people in one room, most of them trying to get a job, and all of them talking at once. My head is reeling. I try talking to a few people, but I just end up nodding as if I heard what they said, when I really didn’t hear more than a few words. The one thing I do understand is that they aren’t looking for English majors. I even joined Toastmasters and used this phrase in my first speech: “Job fairs aren’t exactly hard of hearing friendly, but then again they aren’t exactly English major friendly either.”

I can’t even manage turning ordinary social events into networking opportunities. I was at my cousin’s wedding reception yesterday. They had a DJ booming music inside. Most of the people outside were busy supervising children in the bounce house. Before the wedding I made a few business cards to hand out, but with my hearing loss and introversion I found it nearly impossible to talk to anyone who wasn’t already familiar with me and my hearing loss. It was quite frustrating.

Don’t even get me started on the difficulty in determining how much to disclose about my hearing loss to potential employers. I know the laws, and I know that they all claim to be “equal opportunity employers,” but I can’t help but wonder how much of an influence my hearing loss may have on their decision, consciously or unconsciously. My hearing loss (and my introversion) are what the people at the One-stop call “barriers to employment.” That isn’t to say I’m not in the midst of trying to overcome them, but it’s sure been a challenging ride.

New Year!

I am terribly sorry to have let this blog go during the holiday season. There's been a lot on my mind what with Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, looking for a job and sorting through my resources. Now that I've apologized for the absence of new posts over the past month and a half, let the new blog commence.
What do I plan to do this year? In 2010 I hope to continue to get more involved with the young adult movement in the hearing loss community and attend the convention in Milwaukee, to maintain this blog more consistently, and to use my resources wisely towards landing a great job.
Although, I’m having some issues sorting out the resources I have available to me. I have connections with the Department of Rehabilitation, but the state of California is flat broke right now. I went through the rigmarole to try to get them to pay for a new hearing aid for me, but I’m still claimed as a dependent on my parents’ tax return so I’m not considered impoverished enough to get help. Although I have to rely on my parents right now monetarily, I’d really like to start becoming an independent adult, which is what most of these services are supposed to help me do.

I am realizing more and more that I need to practice my ASL. I am usually sent to "deaf services" departments and the people who help me are sometime interpreters but sometimes they're deaf themselves, and I feel kind of bad when I start talking more to an interpreter than the person I came to see.

I feel like some of these services were meant to improve on the independence of people who are poor and people who have mental or mobility issues. I am simply hard of hearing. I am a highly intelligent young lady, a college graduate, and a self-advocate as much as possible. I merely lack money and some of my hearing. Do I really need these services, or do I just need some cash and a confidence boost?

I’m supposedly getting help obtaining interview clothes. There have been some issues with this, however. I have been authorized to receive a couple of outfits, but setting up an appointment has proven difficult. The organization has called me and left a message telling me to call a certain number and set up an appointment. I called said number and was informed by a recording that I was to leave a message with my phone number in order for someone to call me back and schedule an appointment. I’m hard of hearing. I don’t always hear my phone. Even if it’s right by me I may not figure out exactly where it is until it’s too late. You can imagine how this goes on. Not being a fan of phone tag, I informed my job developer at Goodwill about the situation and she has agreed to help me get this sorted out. Still, the issue has not been resolved… yet.

Anyway, it sure is nice to have a couple other people at various agencies helping me look for appropriate jobs and work on my resume. It’s also nice to have a back-up advocate, just in case. I suppose that’s it for now. I’m still recovering from New Year’s Eve/Day. I camped out for the Rose Parade with a group of friends. Now I can say, “Never again.” I don’t actually recall having too many hearing issues. In fact, if I could hear even less maybe I would have been able to sleep a bit more. Of course there was the ever-present “group” issue, but that wasn’t too bad. All in all it was exhausting and- in my opinion- not worth the effort and lack of comfort and sleep.

Happy new year, everyone! May 2010 be a great year for the advocacy efforts of young adults with hearing loss in California and across the nation!