In Alliance

Visiting the In Alliance website I discovered that they wanted two years experience in the field and two years of college. I immediately volunteered to work with my friend Steve at The Short Center, an art therapy program for folks with developmental disabillitites. I hoped they’d settle for two weeks of experience and that my being smart enough to drop out of highschool would be good enough. Miraculously it was.

Durring the interview, Ruby who ran the program that I was hoping to be a part of asked me what I’d do if I was coaching somebody who was developmentally disabled and they said they wanted to be a doctor. I told her I’d encourage them. I’d find out what they liked about the thought of being a doctor and if it was the white coat I’d see if we could find them a job that involved a white coat. I could tell right away that this was the answer Ruby was looking for. I got the job.

I was a job coach. This meant I would work alongside adults with developmental disablilities and help them to learn how to do their jobs, how to communicate/put up with their bosses and customers and just overall how to keep from getting fired.

It was an interesting line of work. I had more to teach the various managers and co-workers than I did the people I was being paid to train. I found myself explaining to the manager of a major retail store that playing titty twister with his employees was a bad idea. No, I couldn't teach Jim, the very strong young man that I was job coaching, not to twist the titty quite so hard. I would have to teach Jim not to twist the titty at all, and to report to human resources should his titty again receive a twist.

I loved the guys I worked with. We called our clients "consumers," a title I still don't understand or agree with. Clients works much better for me. We placed our consumers in competitive, non-segregated employment and our goal was that the consumer, with the extra training of their job coach, would do the job as well as an non-disabled person in the same position. The truth is our guys usually did better. I had one woman I trained who worked for the state and she was quite fond of letting me know that he made more money than me. Why she wasn't the one doing the training I'll never know.

I did have a few occasions where I was helping someone to do a job that I wasn't sure they could do. Kevin got a placement on an assembly line. If Kevin fell behind the line stopped, meaning everyone stopped, while Kevin caught up. His co-workers didn't pull out their knitting and make small talk while they waited for Kevin, nor did they offer assistance and encouragement. The gang members and ex-cons that kept that line moving believed in negative reinforcement, and when the machinery came to a close and the little flashing light came on above the station that was to blame the insults and projectiles came flying in.

Management did nothing to discourage this because management was terrified of those they managed. On each run of the assembly line a few work stations would not be used. It was difficult explaining to Kevin why he had to sweep when his station wasn't running, but if he'd been wise enough to have had his face tattooed in high school he could catch a nap during such times. Ultimately Kevin lost that job, I think more because he wasn't the smiling, happy guy that people with developmental disabilities are supposed to be than because of his ability or inability to do the job. I felt guilty for being so relieved to be off that line, but I was openly cheerful at being able to cancel my appointment to get "19th Street Crew" tattooed across my forehead.

I heard many stupid things while working as a job coach. "Oh, I love retarded people, they're so happy."

"Sometimes I wonder who is really retarded, them because they're simple, or us with all our silly problems."

These kind of well intentioned comments made me want to over share. I would love to have told the exercise woman at the old folks home that that happy, simpleton she worked with was on anti-depressants after several suicide attempts. I had to bite my tongue not to share that the always smiling, pleasantly plump salad making consumer was struggling with sexual addiction and related compulsive behaviors that made me glad his job involved wearing an apron.

The public response to these disabilities often made for not so simple, happy, go lucky lives. Segregation, exploitation, sexual abuse, there were many fun aspects to being developmentally disabled. And even well intentioned parents who shield their child with disabilities from all harm can end up encouraging a sort of perpetual childhood that again does not make for a well balanced or happy adult.

I had an older consumer who resisted my help with all his might. I had no problem being patient with him, as I could only imagine what he’d been through in his life before landing in the comfortable situation he now found himself in, a position he clung to for dear life.

It felt great to be part of a program that helped people with disabilities get out in the world, earn their own way and participate in the community, and that helped the community get to know itself in all it’s diversity.

The other job coaches were a real mixed bag. My co-workers were mostly college graduates, or so I assumed. Most had gotten useless degrees in art or philosophy, or they were folks who were working within their field of study but were just starting out, on their way to bigger and better things, that is to say higher paying things.

One coach, Don, was a Promise Keeper. The Promise Keepers are a conservative Christian group of men who will keep their promises to their wives, their family and their god. They scare the hell out of me. When the promise keepers held a rally (they probably call it a convention) in LA, they advertised with giant billboards portraying pictures of the crusades, with the words "The Promise Keepers are Coming!" You see why this is frightening. Their is a fantastic essay on line by a Promise Keeper about Eye Bouncing. After meeting the Christian woman of his dreams this guy ditched his floozies and his porn and got right with god. But his marital bliss was diluted by his continued need to look at underwear ads in the paper and his lust after tight, lycra shorts worn by joggers. He describes these shorts in great detail. The day is saved when our hero discovers Eye Bouncing. He explains how repetition breeds habit, and he begins averting his eyes rapidly when he sees anything that could be sexually stimulating. In no time his eyes are actually trained to be deflected by anything that could turn him on. He's recommending this to his Promise Keeper buddies. He's sure he's made a breakthrough.

Such was the extent of my exposure to the Promise Keepers until I met Don. Don is the sweetest guy you ever want to know. He is hard working, a dedicated father to his two daughters and a devoted, loyal husband. The only thing not to like about Don and his family is how nice, how good looking and how happy they all seem to be. Don cared about the consumers he worked with like they were each a part of his family and he cared equally about his fellow job coaches. Don was a great guy and we got along fine, until the morality test.

We had a department meeting. These meeting often involved trust and team building exercises, many of which were pretty goofy, but being paid to act goofy is not a problem for me.
The job coaches and the office staff circled up the chairs and we each received a photocopied hand out on which was printed a story and a series of questions about the story.

The story told of five turtles starting with a female turtle trying to bring a present to her boyfriend. Let's assume the present was some sex. It becomes clear as the story goes on that the present was just that, but it's a fun assumption either way. So, female turtle goes to boat owning turtle who is happy to help her across the river to her boyfriend, if she'll give him the present. She says no way and runs to citizen turtle, who upon hearing what boat boy proposed opts not to get involved. Female turtle, desperate to get to her boyfriend, and forgetting that turtles can swim, gives boat boy some shell on shell action. Boat boy takes her across the river to her boyfriend's house. Well boyfriend can see the scratch marks that he didn't put on her shell and he calls her a whore and slams the door on her. Distraught, she runs to yet another turtle, let's call him Promise Keeper Turtle (yeah, I'm taking liberties). This turtle is so disgusted by her tale that he goes straight to boyfriend turtles house and kicks boyfriends ass while girlfriend turtle looks on approvingly.

The instructions on the attached page called for us to rate each turtle on who committed the most immoral act, the second most immoral act, etc. It seemed a no brainer to me that the Promise Keeper was the only one to actually commit a violent act against another turtle, therefore he was the most immoral.

Don of course didn't see it this way. Don, scored this violent asshole of a turtle at the most moral. Don saw this hard shelled little bastard as a hero. The most immoral? The boyfriend. For not forgiving. The next most immoral, the girlfriend, for being a whore, of course. Then citizen turtle for doing nothing and lastly the boat boy.

I was aghast. Promise Keeper turtle resorted to violence. He beat someone up for doing something they had every right to do.

"But slamming the door in her face was wrong." Don defended his position.

Sure it was, but he had every right to do it. And she has every right to decide he's a jerk and to go give away her present to any other woodland creature. Boat boy was slimy, but girlfriend didn't have to give it up. She wasn't forced. And yes, citizen turtle could have been more caring, boyfriend more forgiving, girlfriend more discerning, but none of them did anything that actually violated the rights of another. So Promise Keeper turtle is the most immoral. And girlfriend is second most immoral, but only because she approved the beating, not because she is dumb enough to whore herself out for a boat ride.

"It isn't moral to be unforgiving or to cheat on your partner or to make people do things because you have something they need." Don was just not seeing that big of a problem with the ass whooping part of the story. I'm guessing Don never had his ass whooped, nor, I figured, had he ever whooped an ass.

"Sure. Agreed. But it's not moral to beat the shit out of people. That's the worse. That's the most oppressive. This is scaring me."

Don was making me crazy, but I was bothered more that the rest of the staff would rather water down their own answers and views to find a common ground than to take a stand. I could see clearly that almost everyone else had chosen this turtle as the most immoral, but the only ones who spoke up tried to see both our points. There is no democracy in truth. The truth is not conveniently located between the two most extreme points. This kind of reasoning makes me want to commit a violent act of my own.

One little helper of a co-worker even tried to add to the story. "Maybe Promise Keeper Turtle knows something that we don't know. Maybe boyfriend turtle has been handing out his present left and right?"

"Yeah. And maybe it was just a figurative ass beating. Maybe what they really meant was that he fired off a nasty e-mail. You can't add to the story! Besides, that still wouldn't justify violence." My volume was increasing. "How can you possibly not see that this Promise Keeping Neanderthal is the immoral one here. The rest of the turtles you can mix and match and make a good argument, but it's not even debatable that one is the worst, the one that got violent. "

At this point our boss stopped us. Don's face was red, and I was beginning to foam at the mouth.

I still think Don's a great guy and that's the part that bothers me the most. He's a good person. I don't think he'd get violent against anyone, ever. But he'd approve of violence. It's a jump in logic I just don't get. This kind, sweet man can worship a god that smites and burns and is vengeful. He can vote for presidents that bomb and war. He is gentle and loving and would probably die before he'd fire a gun and he is in full support of our country's violent role in the world.

I give the morality quiz my friends and I'm so relieved that to date, nobody else has chosen any other turtle than the Promise Keeper as most immoral.

The ringing phone woke me up.

“Hello.” I answered, not hidinng my grumpiness.

“Keith, are you watching television?” it was Allen.

“No dude, I’m sleeping.”

“Somebody just crashed a plane into the World Trade Center.” I turned on the TV and Allen and I both watched as the second plane found it’s mark. The tears started flowing. I woke Bryna up and we watched for the next couple of hours. Another plane hit the Pentagon and we wondered if this was just the first wave of a bigger attack. We were helpless to do anything but watch.

I drove into work after awhile and called all my consumers who all seemed to be handling the crazy news okay. I drove back home, and as I looked around me on the freeway I saw that everyone around was crying as they drove. The free way moved at a steady fifty miles per hour. I was in a daze as I parked and opened my door into a passing bicyclist.

“Fucking asshole.”

“I’m sorry.” I yelled after him, meaning it. The next few days and weeks and months and years would all be colored by this day. But as it always does, work went on. Business mostly as usual.

Being a job coach meant tracking your time in fifteen minute increments and writing a novel each month describing what was going on with your consumers. On the one hand it seemed ridiculous to spend as much time as I did on paper work, especially when the bearocracy requiring the paper work kept us from being honest about how much we did. But, on the other hand, there wasn’t always that much job coaching to do. I loved when I could work with someone brand new, but a-lot of my trainees were good at their jobs and I mostly just checked in on them waiting for the monthly crisis that I could help with. I started feeling guilty about the time I spent writing or working on my comedy while on the clock. This guilt and stress about my paperwork were with me always.

Arnold Shwarzenegger became our governor in a recall and the State’s budget was already tight before a republican took office. The bearocracy at our state funded agency would be getting better not worse.

Still I was reluctant to give up the job as it felt like a career, just as working with aquariums had. And Social Worker was a career I was proud of. But as I got more involved with my comedy and various projects I realized I had a career. My career was doing weird shit that made people laugh. It might not ever pay the bills but it was the only career that would ever get my full attention. I hope to live long enough to regret this decision.

Allen offered me a job working in the office of the roofing company that had employed him for the last 11 years or so. I was sad saying goodbye to all the folks I’d job coached but I was able to introduce them to my replacement and I welcomed them to keep in touch.

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