A Workin' Girl

The cold hard truth is that my disability has severely limited my career options. I can't do retail. I can't flip burgers and I can't carry food and beverages. I can't stock shelves, and I can't really file papers. I realized this as a kid when I decided I wanted to earn some money. Try finding a part time, entry level job as a manager, executive, or any profession that provides a secretary, as a teenager.

My parents were terrific, though. From the first moment that I told them I wanted to get a job--at the green young age of 9--they obliged me. First, my dad let me help him process payroll at his farm. But I think even as a kid, I knew that accounting wasn't for me. "Mommy, Daddy, I want to start my own business," I insisted.

"What do you want to do, Darling," my mother gently asked.

"Well, I could take care of animals. I like animals," I suggested.

"Ok, then. Why don't you put an ad in the newspaper?" she offered, assuming that by the time I got around to writing an ad, my whim would have passed.

"PET SITTER AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE HIRE. ON VACATION? WILL COME TO YOUR HOME AND CARE FOR YOUR PETS."

When I got my first phone call, I was ecstatic. "Yes, can I please speak to Nora?"

"This is she," I squeaked.

"Um, yes. We need a pet sitter to feed our two dobermans while we're on vacation. Do you do dobermans?"

"Yes, of course," I quipped expertly.

"Mommy, Mommy," I yelled after I had closed the deal. "I got my first pet sitting job! What are Dobermans?"

In my excitement, I didn't notice her concern. "Great! Well, your dad can drive you over."

What that meant was that for the ten days of my one and only pet sitting stint, my dad drove me to the client's house, and carried me on his shoulders as we quietly approached the snarling dogs. "I'm scared," I whispered during our first visit.

"Don't look them in the eye, and whatever you do, don't act afraid. Dogs can smell fear," my dad replied.

Luckily, neither of us lost any limbs during my job, and I cherished my $20, or however much my earned pittance was.

Since my parents thereafter discouraged pet sitting as my kid job, I was a bit out of luck. I did more work for my dad's farm, and then when I was in high school, I got a summer job in an office answering phones

Unfortunately, I realized that these limits to my hire-ability didn't end after college. (Yes folks, those days when you could get your trusty four-year, and then step in as a young, wet-behind-the-ears executive ended about 50 years ago.) After graduating with my Bachelor's degree in tow from a well respected college, I found that in order to "make it" in business, politics, entertainment, or any other career that I might be interested in, there was a long path of minion-ship.

As is noted above, I am a terrible minion! I interviewed for a "personal assistant" job with a political communications director a few weeks into my first real job search.

"I am an excellent writer, I have excellent communication skills, and, oh, excuse me? Coffee? Oh, well Sir, I am an excellent delegator. Would I have an intern?" I mean, seriously. Who would hire a personal assistant who can't even pick up the coffee and dry cleaning? In the end, I lucked out and placed at a slightly-higher entry level research/writing position and decided that law school was the only option.

It is still a real concern, though. What if this law thing goes south? What if I hadn't gone to college in the first place? At some point, businesses must stop hiring you just because you're a cute kid and need a job. At some point, you must have to bring value to your job. As a pet sitter, a burger-flipper, a receptionist, and 90 percent of all other common jobs I can think of, I would be of terrible value! As a personal assistant/minion/lackey, I would be a waste of space. I wouldn't hire me. Even jobs that demand more mental/social labor than physical labor usually require their executives/managers to start at the bottom, whether it is filing, stocking shelves, bussing tables, or making coffee.

What do people do who have physical disabilities that make them unable to do physical jobs? I really don't know. Surely there are some options, but the reality that was always in the back of my mind is that there are basically two paths for a person like myself: (1) don't work so that I can live off of government programs, or (2) find a way to get someone to hire me to start off at a post-minion level (law school being my best bet--not that law firm associates aren't minions, but at least they are hired for knowledge/legal/writing ability rather than proficiency with Coffee-Mate). That's a lot of pressure!

I guess right now I am somewhere at 1.7, hoping to reach the second path at some point in the next year. It is a scary prospect, though. I guess telemarketing is always an option. So if you get a call from a "Nora," asking for the head of the household, have a little pity on me. It'll probably mean that I didn't pass the bar exam.