My last work was managing up to 30 CDL drivers as a Crew Boss in the Tractor Trailer Auctions. Part of my work also included picking the most experienced oldest drivers in the group and place them with the old iron. Takes them back to memory lane in no time makes them very happy. I also taught newbies straight from CDL schools with brand new CDL's how to operate the comptuers, automatics and systems in modern tractors and taught manual to the same newbies who do not know them and now must drive them in 3 minutes. Easy as 1,2,3. Off you go. Sometimes my bosses give me trouble trucks. Really bad junkers with serious problems. I make them run long enough to be sold.
Arkansas does not care about me being deaf. I have had mountains of work here. Important work. One company had us run Blood Plasma by the reefer load between LA CA to Avenel NJ teamed with my wife who was hearing. She drove also. These loads were across the USA in about 50 hours give or take 2 back and forth straight through regardless of weather. That human blood comes out to roughly 40,000 pounds or so or around 5000 to 6000 gallons in boxes. It has to be in NYC asap. They would fly it there but it takes too long to load into cargo then fly and unload and so on so forth. Team truck is faster straight through in 3100 miles twice a week.
Maryland in the workforce you were discriminated against. I lived in Westminster near the PA line and drove into VA, PA and WVa, NJ etc to get work. If I ever worked at home in Maryland its as a minimum wage diswasher for a long john silvers or something. Menial work unimportant work that anyone can do. Anywhere else I applied to showed discrimination. Two exceptions. One was a paving contractor who had two or three of us friends involved with them and I worked for him for years and had lots of fun doing it. They also had a hay farm with cattle so I was also in the farm work as well. A city boy like me can learn.
The one other oppertunity to be in the workforce and doing something important in Maryland is through state agencies that work with the handicapped and provide them with government jobs that pay well, have outstanding bennies and so on. One where you can build a life and future without your hand out. Ive worked for the State, Ive worked for the Counties and so on at one time or another through Maryland's agencies. Once you are in a major Government Organization with few exceptions you only go up in promotions and get more responsibility and power over people. Sometimes your job is replaced by a computer. My ex worked for the Government Federal and she found that her entire department was closed down and replaced by computer now only. So instead of making say 120,000 dollars a year with mountains of benefits and more stuff than you need in life you have no job at all. A computer takes care of that. A robot essentially. Your pay is now ZERO and unemployment. Thats why she escaped and went trucking with me.
If you cannot find useful work, fulfilling work important work you move to another state and find it there like I did. My last biggest work in life was running Pharmacy Medicines. High dollar loads in excess of a million dollars out of McKesson in Memphis to all points east of the Rockies to the East Coast overnight. Memphis is extremely dangerous and not everyone can do that work when your own life is forfiet. But as a deaf and used my eyes and skills to read people near my truck and make sure they do not get a chance to kill us and take the truckload of narcotics or very expensive cancer medicines, snake antivenom and surgical stuff you learned to be very good at avoiding trouble. The money takes care of itself. You can make a very good living doing this. Or you can get killed and thats that.
Being deaf or HOH or whatever IS NOT A BARRIER to living a good life the way you enjoy it and having a bright future UNLESS you are in a State that which it's toxic discriminatory culture denies you a chance to get hired on. Maryland is such a state. I pick on them very much. But I abuse all States equally. Ive found zero success in that state's workforce and they can take that job and shove it. I wont be back. There is nothing there. /semi rant.
With technology today and information flowing with the right attention to your specific work there isnt anything the deaf cannot do that a hearing can do. The problem and discrimination IS the problem within the workforce people who hire and fire wherever it may be found. Some areas of the USA are very bad at this. So you move to a free state without discrimination and enjoy your life. But you have to dare to move and build your future. ive gone into Canada and Mexico on important work as well in trucking. Sometimes they want to hire me up there and make a future there. Its tempting, believe me. But in the end The south is my home because it has provided everything in my adult life that Maryland failed to do so. Being away from DC is also a good medicine. Such a toxic city and area anyway.
I did not sit down to write this in too much bad stuff. You would think a State that has built a deaf community and other handicapped communtiy at the State Legislature Level working down would be a powerful state in which any of those people can find work. The last time I was in Frederick and met up with about 40 of my former Deaf School Classmates in person across town, over half were dishwashers, the rest were either on unemployement or working at charity type workshops that for them has no future to build a life, get married, buy a home and lands and raise a family. There is no money for all that. So they grind away in the darkness of their life content that it should be so. Dont be that way.
What do you do now for work, if I may ask?
