Synergy

Forward Thinking for Boomers and the Disabled:
Job Share for the Public Sector

Synergy means creating energy by bringing together a new paradigm by combining action or functioning of energy. In brief, it’s a useful way to look for tools for change.

We know that this country needs change. And our minds return to the same old ruts when searching for the mechanisms to accomplish that change, particularly the minds of the folks who enact most of our legislation. If you don’t believe me, just try reading the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/arra_public_review/. Most of the proposals are couched in terms that reference previous legislation; governmental shorthand that demands such expertise that one has to wonder how the legislators knew what they were voting for.

We, as ordinary citizens, have to figure that our elected officials were just trying to give our President some tools to craft change in our country, as quickly as they could because of the urgency of the need.

As a simple-minded member of this citizenry, I worry. And while there are many things one could worry about, I choose to be simple minded and worry about my own interests, because I feel they are representative of a segment of concerns that are not being met. My concerns and the synergist approach I have developed to create a personal and a segmental solution for economic survival and benefit to the nation may constitute just a small piece of the jigsaw puzzle of how to reassemble this country and I want them heard and addressed.

I believe that my ideas are important keys to solving some of the problems we as a nation seem to grapple with only in the privacy of our homes, with dread, in our sleepless nights. I am searching for others who see these problems and are interested in the solutions I am proposing because THIS IS THE TIME to get these issues on the table, before the opportunity presented by the ARRA is lost.

So I welcome all response to this blog, whether private (live.wire2@comcast.net) or public.

I read with great interest an article in the Washington Post published this day, March 3, 2009, “Many Hires Needed for Budget Goals.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/02/AR2009030202935.html?wpisrc=newsletter

My thoughts as I read this article were simple:“What about me?”

More and more today the aging and disabled population needs to work, and would relish viable part-time employment. The nation needs us too. Many thought they had enough salted away, or enough forthcoming in pensions to retire comfortably and find that these funds have vanished. Others are still working full time into their seventies.

For many of us, a part time job would make a huge difference. Our society regards us as a “burden,” when many of us would leap at the opportunity to be useful, and have years of expertise to contribute in just those areas where workers are overwhelmed by low pay and staggering workloads, like teaching and social services. If only someone would agitate to make a portion of those jobs part-time! Then they could be filled by people who find it physically overwhelming to work a full day, but who would come to their jobs with a sense of gratitude and the desire to serve.

It would not be too hard to find a mechanism to reserve a portion of the new need for governmental workers this segment of the population. Our numbers are known: relative to the larger population and by income levels. We count. We have skills. We even have medical insurance. Nonetheless, we find it a tremendous challenge to find the part-time employment that would fulfill the yearning we have to be useful and create the small piece of income we need to survive with greater choices.

There is such a crying need skilled service workers of every stripe–particularly in today’s economy. But there is no one negotiating on behalf of a solution.

Personally, I have been searching for year-round stable part time employment for 3 years. The best solution I have been able to patch together is seasonal and fragmented and doesn’t allow me to use my skills in a consistent fashion. I am always worrying about the next job. During the last year I have worked as a tutor in the public schools, a great job for my tutees, and me but only funded for 23 hours per student per year. I have also scored “No Child Left Behind” tests –even though this work is also seasonal and the only option for part of the season is to work full-time, which depletes my small fund of “ticket to work” months. I have no comment about the nature of this work other than to say I would not do it if I had other options. Next, I registered 500 voters for Acorn at minimum wage. I could only do this because most of the time I could sit, and I could stop when my pain made me cross. I only did this because in order to work for the most dynamic Presidential campaign of my lifetime I needed to have financial support, minimal though it was. Next, I worked for the Board of Elections for a month and a half, until the full-time plus workload shot me down. Then, in November, I resumed work as a tutor. Put plainly, while I performed valuable service and learned a lot, this scatter-brained approach to obtaining some semblance of economic survival really sucks! Do you hear me???

Please join me or help me find allies in bringing this idea to the attention of the pertinent state and federal legislators and agency administrators. The need of the boomers and the disabled (who are not infrequently the same population) for part-time employment has, in my view great potential as an untapped source of public sector skills.

Sychronicity and Mad Perils

I got an email from Kate Waterbury today, another wonderful woman who writes, and she has been blogging too! http://earthairfireandwaterbury.blogspot.com Last time I saw her was in the very early spring of 2008, when she did her first round of chemotherapy at my home here in Albuquerque. She writes that she is planning to return and "maintain wellness for the foreseeable future!"

It was particularly good to hear from her as I have been struggling within my own matrix of vulnerability during this last week. Sometimes the universe hands us dilemmas that are particularly vexing, and I think that for people who are accustomed to solving problems and dealing with life from a position of relative internal strength (even if we have little "power" in the "real world"), the process of ageing really taxes our resources. It's hard to learn when to let go, acknowledge that there are some things we just can't fix and that struggle is probably fruitless, and move on to what we are able to do.

I have severe spinal stenosis, which means, like I told my doc, that I am beginning to feel like "all the lights are going out below my waist." This really pisses me off, even though it's a common side effect of ageing. It angers me because, as the day goes on and time moves forward, I am losing sensation, energy and the ability to stand and walk for extended periods of time. By dinner time I cook for myself in little bursts between sitting, and cooking used to give me so much pleasure in my life.

I recently took a part time job working for ACORN http://www.acorn.org registering voters. I wanted to do this because I believe that organizations like ACORN are really vital to progressive movement in this country, and I wanted to make a contribution. My supervisor told me day one, after I informed her of my disability and my concerns about my ability to perform as a canvasser, that I would not have to work the 29 hour week required of canvassers and that she would try to accommodate my disability by letting me do other tasks as well as canvass for voters.

I thought this was working out well, and I was excited to be a part of gathering voters for the upcoming presidential election! I made official looking registrar badges for my fellow canvassers. I went out and bought two visors and printed red tags to affix to them saying "Register to VOTE!!!." These were just a couple of the ideas I executed and brought to my supervisor, based on the problems we were having in the field (some of our registrars are essentially "street people" and have problems establishing credibility, many of them had been asking for badges for weeks). I drove fellow canvassers from location to location. I scanned for events we might canvass, took one of my fellow workers to Jazzfest on the Civic Plaza here in Albuquerque. My supervisor appeared pleased with these ideas. I also kept her informed when, on at least two occasions, I was simply in too much pain to continue standing up to solicit registration. The heat of the day is also very difficult for me to cope with as I have had a quad bypass and take meds that make me more susceptible to heat than some folks. I worked for 6 days and was told by her assistant, quite suddenly, that I was being "suspended" for not producing enough registered voters. Somehow the assistant organizer expected me to perform at the same rate as able-bodied folks who were registering voters full time.

That was Tuesday.

Mind you, I am not sure I can be of any help to ACORN even if they DO let me resume work. This is not because I lack skills or ideas or commitment, but because I just don't fit in the "box." What annoys me to the core is that I suspect that part of the reason I was suspended is because I DO have skills, ideas and commitment and ACORN could not make the effort to find a way to use them.

I think the next time I am told I am "overqualified" I will poke some one's eye out!

Yesterday, Thursday, I went into the office prepared to make a proposal to my supervisor. I had tried to call her twice and she did not answer. She wasn't in the office. Her assistant told me, when I requested some registration forms so that I could try to get some more voters lined up while waiting for a position to open up in the back office where they do quality control, that I could "go to the Board of Elections and get some forms if I wanted to 'volunteer'." I didn't even bother trying to explain to this woman what I wanted to propose, a sort of self subsidy, where we could agree on what constituted a "reasonable" rate of registrations per hour and I would only charge hours for registrations returned. When I asked her to please help me find out how many registrations I had returned in the previous week, so that I could compare them to my hours worked, she told me she wasn't "authorized" and had no time to do that. It seemed apparent that my needs would not get a hearing with her. So I left the office, and am still waiting to hear back from my supervisor.

All I really want is an opportunity to be of service where my talents will be used pursuing objectives I can support. I want to be treated fairly, and to have a good understanding of what is expected of me. I think I may have to just let it all go and move on.....just a little disillusioned, hurt and frustrated.

The only comfort is knowing that I am not alone.

P.S. Apologies are due to Stop the War Machine (Albuquerque) and to Peter Neils for not attributing the photos on my Patriotism piece properly. Stop the War Machine does an irreplaceable job of keeping the information circuits open here in Albuquerque regarding progressive events and actions: http://www.stopthewarmachine.org/events/past.htm.