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zenmaster
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

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Joined: 12 Nov 2011
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 3

07 Dec 2014, 11:22 am

Ok, here'es my story. I am a 31 year old male, single, living in subsidized housing for the time being, I hold a Bachelor's degree in Sociology-Social Services, an Associate in Social Work. My current occupation? Part time overnight maintenance associate at the local Walmart, and I am also a substitute teacher and substiute paraprofessional. I was fulltime at Walmart until this October, when i got to the point that i could not handle 5 nights of overnights. I was getting to the point where i did not at times get adequate sleep, and had to give up any semblance of a social life. My diagnoses, to the best of my knowledge, include both PDD-NOS AND ADHD. I am nowhere near organized. I lose things constantly, and my houskeeping skills, given time are none too great. I am doing OK at the walmart job, but there have been some issues with job performance, and have come too close to comfort to getting let go..however things have improved since i dropped to part time. As far as subsitute teaching, I do well enough there as well. I have good days and bad days with classrooms; days where i am prepared to teach and days where im not as prepared to teach. Lack of organizational skill does make things difficult. Forgetting where i set down the lesson plan and spending a good 15 minutes looking for it is one example. But, despite that i do well enough. I have been doing it for 4 years, and enjoy it, even though it doesn't necessarily use my education. I also have been a camp counselor at a special needs camp, or more specifically, part time support/backup counselor, part time dishwasher in the camp kitchen, which i also THOROUGLY enjoy.

Here is my dilemma... finding a job that is fulltime that I can do that uses my education, but also allows for my disabilty, and not being organized all the time. As my mom put it, I have the intellingence for a Bachelor's degree, but not the organizational skill. I also am somewhat physically clumsy/uncoordinated, which makes it difficult to hold positions such as direct caregiver, etc. I would really enjoy a direct care positon, becuase i love helping people and making a difference, but if it involves lifting or transferring, or meal preperation, then I would not be doing well.

I really don't know what i want out of life, as far as marriage or career, and I had dreams of a career, but the above limitations limit my choices and have quashed more than one dream.

Does anyone else face this situation? Having education and certian skills but not being able to use them to find an actual job? What do we do? It's like im caught between two worlds... The professional and the unskilled...



martianunicorn
Butterfly
Butterfly

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Joined: 14 Mar 2014
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 16

09 Dec 2014, 9:12 am

yea no kidding social work requires a lot of detailed administration and organisation skills for that load of casework.

i'm also in a situation like that. I am digital art trained but i can't actually do it well when in a stressful environment (animation and games studios have tight deadlines) and not working on project of interest. Am currently a SPED teacher and doing games on the side with friends. Doing quite okay, supervisor very happy with everything except... you guess it, organisational skills can be improved.