posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
maelorin at 12:41am on 30/03/2005
maelorin at 12:41am on 30/03/2005made a decision today. next time i get an interview, unless i have advice to the contrary, i'm gonna break the prepackaged format.
it just seems stupid that i have to successfully compete on an equal footing with others before i can get accommodations for my disability. if i was physically disabled, it would be less of an issue. and not being intellectually disabled is why i am qualified to actually do the kind of work i'm seeking. but socially disabled (at least socially different) means i am put in a position where i have to show i don't need assistance before i can get in the door - then i can get access to support in the workplace.
i'm applying for the disability support pension. the basic qualification being (at the moment) that i am unable to work 30hrs per week for at least two years because of my disability. well, i have no idea. i haven't worked 30hrs in any week in the past decade. any week. unless you count university study - and then, well, i get by nicely thank you without doing so much work - as much because of how i compensate for my differences as my amazing intellect. (if i didn't have to compensate so much ... well, i have no idea how much more effort i could put into other things because i put so much intellectual effort into meeting the 'normal' expectations of behaviour.)
the government is talking about changing the rules for dsp to require a person be unable to work at least 15 hrs a week to qualify. this is because so many people are on the payment now (about three quarters of a million people apparently) because the stupid little boxes they provide in other payment categories are not meeting the needs of many people who need assistance. everything is about employment for this government. and while that is an important consideration, being able to work is one thing: actually being able to get it in the first place, and then to keep it for long periods of time ... are equally important.
seems our government is all caught up on the 'if you can work, you ought to be working'™ thing, when a significant chunk of its 'problem' is actually about those people who possibly could be working, if they had enough support in other areas of their lives.
our government clearly considers disability to fall into 'intellectual' and 'physical', because while the dsp assessment process does recognise other kinds of disability it is very difficult to qualify. if i was blind i'd be on in a snap. if i was in a wheelchair i'd have a good run. auties, particularly autism spectrum disorder types like me have a difficult time meeting the criteria of the screening process (twenty or more points). and having had a long hard look at the 'criteria' in question ... i can understand why.
<sarcasm> fantastic. </sarcasm>
it just seems stupid that i have to successfully compete on an equal footing with others before i can get accommodations for my disability. if i was physically disabled, it would be less of an issue. and not being intellectually disabled is why i am qualified to actually do the kind of work i'm seeking. but socially disabled (at least socially different) means i am put in a position where i have to show i don't need assistance before i can get in the door - then i can get access to support in the workplace.
i'm applying for the disability support pension. the basic qualification being (at the moment) that i am unable to work 30hrs per week for at least two years because of my disability. well, i have no idea. i haven't worked 30hrs in any week in the past decade. any week. unless you count university study - and then, well, i get by nicely thank you without doing so much work - as much because of how i compensate for my differences as my amazing intellect. (if i didn't have to compensate so much ... well, i have no idea how much more effort i could put into other things because i put so much intellectual effort into meeting the 'normal' expectations of behaviour.)
the government is talking about changing the rules for dsp to require a person be unable to work at least 15 hrs a week to qualify. this is because so many people are on the payment now (about three quarters of a million people apparently) because the stupid little boxes they provide in other payment categories are not meeting the needs of many people who need assistance. everything is about employment for this government. and while that is an important consideration, being able to work is one thing: actually being able to get it in the first place, and then to keep it for long periods of time ... are equally important.
seems our government is all caught up on the 'if you can work, you ought to be working'™ thing, when a significant chunk of its 'problem' is actually about those people who possibly could be working, if they had enough support in other areas of their lives.
our government clearly considers disability to fall into 'intellectual' and 'physical', because while the dsp assessment process does recognise other kinds of disability it is very difficult to qualify. if i was blind i'd be on in a snap. if i was in a wheelchair i'd have a good run. auties, particularly autism spectrum disorder types like me have a difficult time meeting the criteria of the screening process (twenty or more points). and having had a long hard look at the 'criteria' in question ... i can understand why.
<sarcasm> fantastic. </sarcasm>
contemplative
(no subject)
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great meaningful jobs like reshelving books in a library. i did some research on occasion too. but neither has potential for a career. and both were prefaced, by my employers, with: "this is all we have - you should look elsewhere for full-time work". to go further in the library i'd have to do yet-another-degree/diploma™. and the research work dried up last year (i'm considered to be overqualified - that's "para-legal work").
i'm looking for full time work, five days a week. 38-40 hours or so. and pay commesurate with my qualifications and skills. earning $17-$20 hour sounds great, until you figure it for six-eight hours per week. and i could be on $40k+ ... instead of $7-$12k. even part-time i'd be on $20k.
and i have been applying without mentioning aspiness. so far, the only interviews i've got have been with govt - and disclosure.
what i'm trying to figure out is how to best describe what asperger's actually is ... it's not as though i'm incapable of lawyering - i've just gotta get past the damn door sometime so that i have a chance of showing it.
if anything, my 'disability' probably makes me better suited to certain kinds of lawyering ... [oh please, not the tax office, oh please]
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My own recent experience after my bout of meningitis highlighted the gap between what the welfare system does and what pretty much any other government department does. I fell sick, and went from my DEWR small business support payments to Sickness Benefit. DEWR cancelled my money immediately, but it took a month to prove to Centrelink that I was eligible, during which time I was flat out broke. Going back the other way, DEWR wouldn't accept me back into their program until I had a medical certificate saying I could work *at least* 30 hours per week. But Centrelink stops paying you Sickness Benefit once you can do more than 8 hours work a week.
So anyone with a long-recovery-time illness is boned. In the end I had to feign a 'miraculous' recovery to explain the ability to go from doing less than 8 hours a week to more than 30 in under a fortnight.
I believe you *can* do lawyering, maelorin. Despite your aspie-ness, you have never struck me as being anything less than a fully professional, highly intelligent, considered, personable and competent individual. So whatever you are doing to manage it works. Employers will see that, if you can avoid scaring them with medical terminology that they probably interpret initially as "Wierd psychopathy that will destroy our organisation at the worst possible moment when this otherwise perfectly appropriate applicant suddenly turns into a 400lb. silverback gorilla and eats the clients"
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luckily, it is staffed by people (for now) - and many have some compassion left after the beatings.
i know a few people with chronic fatigue syndrome (by any other name it still sucks) - we share war stories from time to time.
Employers will see that, if you can avoid scaring them with medical terminology that they probably interpret initially as "Wierd psychopathy that will destroy our organisation at the worst possible moment when this otherwise perfectly appropriate applicant suddenly turns into a 400lb. silverback gorilla and eats the clients"
i'm in a classic catch-22 position. if i mention my diagnosis, it can get me in doors otherwise barred - but i have the difficulty of explaining how i'm not gonna be that gorilla. if i don't, i have to compete with others for whom selling themselves at interview comes naturally.
i can do the job. and better than most of my 'competition'. i'm just having trouble getting the chance to show it.
[clients taste bad anyways. and you never can be sure where they've been.]
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Centrelink is trying to claim she is.
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go for it. i'll be asking questions about the criteria they choose to test me on when it's my turn to get down and dirty with clink.
[remember, they are not trying to find her eligible - their job is find ways she could be capable of working. stupid cost-cutting crap. particularly offensive when the federal government has billions of dollars of 'surplus' tax income sitting around not helping anyone.]
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often.
bless her.