"You deserve to work!" said Tipper Gore, back in November 1997, at the Training for the Future graduation ceremony at Sargent College, Boston University. (Training for the Future is a year-long computer course, constructed for people with mental illness, at the BU Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation.) At the time, I was applying for a job as an editorial assistant at a BU magazine, and I needed proof of my journalistic writing skills. So I was there to write a succinct account of the graduation ceremony. Once I got to the job interview, it turned out that it required layout skills, too. I had no idea of this beforehand, I was unprepared, I blustered my way through, and I left ASAP. I assumed I hadn't got the job. About 4 months later, a letter arrived that confirmed my assumption. The point being, yes, I also think I deserve to work, and yet when I look for work, I hit obstacle after obstacle:

• My resume reflects a spotty employment history: short periods of employment, no clear trajectory, few discernibly marketable skills (I can write a killer movie review!). So much for jobs that require resumes.
• Temporary employment agencies mostly require skills that I don't have, e.g., word processing or accounting. They also require resumes -- see 1).
• Then there's "pounding the pavement." That mode of job search usually turns up retail -- and the last time I worked in retail, as a teenager, I ended up with the unshakeable belief that the customer was always wrong.

Anyway, point made. This employment, which we so deserve to have, seems almost impossible to get. Meanwhile, vocational rehabilitation counselors are well-meaning but ineffective. Activists rally around an issue like outpatient commitment but do not address unemployment. Training programs for people with mental illness are either costly, like Training for the Future, or narrow, like the TEP program. Consequently, I feel blocked and angry. . .and poor.

Thomas Gagnon

Return to main page