A Word from Jack

Hello. My name is Jack, and I have cerebral palsy. Sounds a trifle AA-ish, I know, but it's what defines me and the majority of the life choices I have made. It has also limited the kind of employment I could physically manage these past 45 or so years.

Back in the day, 1961 actually, the loftiest goals a young college grad could aspire to were to earn $100 a week and own a Corvette. Oh, and then there was Annette Funicello! None of them seemed impossible, at first, but the reality of having a disability in those pre-ADA days eventually dawned after the ninth or tenth rejection by a kindly Personnel Manager (HR to you). As if from a script, they'd say, "We'd love to hire you, BUT...," and there always followed some excuse about their insurance wouldn't permit it for liability's sake. Liability? For what? A DESK job? Geez!

After a few months of these rejections, I started getting job offers from various United States government agencies as a result of a dimly recalled Civil Service examination a number of us took as a lark just prior to graduation. Heck, it was just another test as far as we were concerned, but it proved to be life altering.

Turned out that the IRS, SSA, OPM, CIA, BLM, and a host of other anonymous bureaucracies care little about anything but your test scores. Who knew? How long had THIS been going on?

Eventually, I responded to the recruiting efforts of the Social Security Administration. They seemed dedicated to helping people help themselves, had extensive promotional possibilities and, most important of all, had a starting salary of, you guessed it, $100 bucks a week! Oh happy day. Now, if I can only find a way to get my power wheelchair in a Corvette...