My Love Affair with Writing

Joanna Young at Confident Writing has challenged us to write about My Love Affair with Writing. She said:

It might be a love affair that’s lasted many years, a brief flame of passion or the heartbreak of unrequited love.

My love affair with writing began nearly a half century ago, but it’s been an on-again, off-again affair.

It started in high school, perhaps my junior or senior year. The high school I attended in a small, rural community had one English teacher for all four grades. She gave our class an assignment to write a short story. My story was a humorous account of a girl trying to introduce her date to her family. I had five siblings, and getting all of them plus my parents (especially my father who was usually working somewhere on the farm) together in one place was a challenge. In my short story, the girl would get a family member or two into the living room, and one of them would disappear before she could find the next one. Eventually the date disappeared …

It doesn’t sound very funny now, but the teacher raved about it when she returned my paper with a great big A+ on the top. Then she asked my permission to read the story to every English class. I don’t recall any compliments or comments from other students, but I do remember the students in my class laughing in all the right places when the teacher read the story. At that moment, I felt like a real writer.

I never considered writing as a career. In college, I majored in sociology and minored in psychology. I didn’t write any fiction, but I wrote a lot of research papers. I also wrote a lot of letters to my future husband as well as to my family.

The first poem I ever wrote – and one of only a handful – was to my future husband on the occasion of our engagement. That poem is handwritten on a card stock picture frame beside my photo used in the engagement announcement in the newspaper, and the photo with the poem, now in fading ink, sits on the headboard of our bed to this day.

For the first few years after college and marriage, I don’t remember doing any writing. After I opened my interior landscape company, I wrote a lot of business proposals that generated sales for my business. I also wrote a few articles for national trade journals; those were inspired by both my love of writing and a desire to build my reputation in the industry.

Journaling has been part of my life through the years – sometimes every day, other times there have been long periods when I didn’t journal.

Throughout my life, I always dreamed of writing “someday.” Then at age 45, I suffered a stroke as a result of a chiropractic manipulation. I knew then that “someday” had arrived. It took a couple of years for me to recover sufficiently to be able to sit at a computer to type, but as soon as I could I started my first novel. Like many first novels, a lot of it was autobiographical about my stroke experience, but I wrote it as a romance. I had been married to my own romantic hero for nearly 25 years at the time and wondered how someone without the kind of support I had could overcome the challenge of a stroke.

I joined writers organizations, attended workshops and seminars, participated in a critique group, wrote three novels, and started another novel in the next few years.

When my first novel was accepted by a publisher after many rejections, I was so excited I didn’t even look at any other books from that publisher (different from my current publisher). When I did start reading, the errors in the books appalled me. I contacted my editor and pointed out the number of mistakes. Fortunately, instead of being offended, she appreciated my interest. She said they were a new company, and they realized their first few books were poorly edited … and she offered me a job editing them!

That experience made me realize I love editing even more than writing. I haven’t written anything new – except journal entries, articles for my church newsletter, and blog posts – for several years. My second novel is scheduled for publication as soon as the publishers are healthy again (the small press is run by a husband and wife and both have had health problems recently). I’m thrilled that it will finally be published, but my greatest joy is helping other writers bring their own books to fruition.

A large part of my freelance business involves work for business clients: proposals, industry articles, resumes, brochures, and manuals. My favorite job, though, is working with authors to prepare their manuscripts for publication. A couple of my clients are submitting their work to major publishers, but most self-publish.

I like to work with my author clients from the beginning of their project, but usually I get involved when they have a completed manuscript. Most of my clients are better storytellers or subject matter experts than writers, and I love to help make their stories and information better. I make their work sound like them … only better. I edit the work, often doing major revisions (like removing the first four chapters of a novel and incorporating the back story that was pertinent into the book where it was needed).

In addition to editing, I offer a wide range of other services: formatting the manuscript for printing, hiring a cover designer and coordinating between the author and the designer, negotiating with a printer, soliciting quotes, writing the back cover blurb, designing and maintaining the author’s Web site and editing the blog, and creating and distributing press releases and other promotional materials.

I’ve called myself a book midwife – helping the author to birth his/her book. Maybe I’m more of an author’s assistant – or the author’s right hand.

My love affair with writing has had many twists and turns, but the passion is still as strong as the day it began, way back in high school when my words first got a positive reaction from my teacher.

What I Learned from Rejection

Like most people, I’ve experienced plenty of rejection.

 

 

 

 

Here are a few examples:

• When I was in college, I was engaged – for a short time – to a guy who told me when one of his buddies saw me for the first time, the buddy said, “That’s the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen.” At the end of the semester, my fiancé decided we should be free to date other people during the summer because he wanted to have fun back in his hometown.
• At the end of my first week on the job as an employment counselor, my boss asked me for a report I was supposed to have turned in. When I answered that I’d never heard anything about such a report and didn’t know how to prepare it, he answered, “I had things running pretty smooth around here, and you’re so stupid, you’re destroying my smooth operation.”
• After I finished my first novel, Stroke of Luck, and started submitting it to agents and publishers, I was told over and over again – even to my face as I sat in a wheelchair, “No one wants to read about a cripple.”
• In my interior landscape business and in my network marketing business, more prospects rejected me than did business with me.

However, the rejections weren’t the end of the story:

• While my erstwhile fiancé was enjoying his summer of freedom to date the girls in his hometown, I met Jack on my summer job. When we returned to school, my old flame was ready to put the engagement ring back on my finger, but by that time I was wearing Jack’s ring. We were married the following summer and have lived happily ever after – for more than forty years.
• As I learned the job with the employment commission, my boss decided that, rather than being the stupidest person around as he thought, I was the smartest. Of course, it didn’t necessarily make me popular with my coworkers when he said, “Why can’t you do your job like Mrs. Ammann?” But I felt vindicated when I received outstanding performance evaluations – from that supervisor and the ones that succeeded him.
• After I’d given up on Stroke of Luck ever being published, I found a publisher who was actually looking for books with handicapped characters. Though sales of the book have been modest, I’ve had some wonderful reviews, and, more importantly, have heard from readers that they or someone they loved found encouragement in the story.
• My interior landscape business grew to become one of the three largest in the area, and I eventually sold it to a national corporation. I earned some nice extra income in the network marketing business and have experienced health improvement from the products.

So, what have I learned from rejection?

• Rejection by one individual represents only that person’s opinion. My husband didn’t see the same “ugly woman” my college fiancé rejected. He saw me with different eyes.
• Rejection isn’t permanent. My boss with the employment commission came to judge me on my performance, not on his first impression.
• One YES can make up for a lot of NOs. No matter how many publishers rejected my story, it took only one acceptance to get the book published.
• Success is a numbers game. All of us will face rejection many times in our lives. If we pick ourselves up after each rejection and try again, we will succeed. Failure is quitting, giving up, believing the rejections. Success is moving forward (no matter how slowly), getting back up when we fall, and never letting the naysayers have the final word.

Related Posts:
Every “No” Is Just One Step Closer to a “Yes”
Rejection: Your Baby Is Ugly!

This post is a part of Middle Zone Musing’s What I Learned From … group writing project.

A Different … and Special … Family Vacation

The Family Vacation Group Writing Project at Babylune made me think of one of the best family vacations I’ve ever had.

The theme of the project is to:

…write a post about a family vacation that you have taken as a parent or as a child. What are your memories of the main event, your favorite parts, the successes, the advice for others, the fun factor and/or the mishaps?

I’m not sure this post qualifies because the vacation I’m writing about started out as a business trip, and, although it was taken with my parents, I was an adult at the time. But I want to share this precious memory, whether it’s appropriate for the group writing project or not.

My family didn’t take vacations when I was growing up. My father was a real homebody, but even if he had enjoyed travel, it’s not likely we would have been able to go on vacation. Daddy was a chicken farmer, and you can’t leave tens of thousands of chickens while you take a trip. The chickens had to be fed and the eggs gathered, cleaned, graded, and packaged every day, and delivered two or three times a week. And the income from chicken farming didn’t stretch to taking a family of six children on vacation.

My husband is a lot like my father in many ways, not the least in being a homebody. So through our forty years of marriage, we have taken only a few vacations together. Most of the traveling I have done has been to conferences and business meetings.

About twenty years ago, an organization for women business owners offered a seminar onboard a cruise ship. The schedule allowed plenty of time for pleasure and enough training to qualify as a business expense. I’d always wanted to take a cruise, and the seminar seemed like the perfect opportunity to enjoy a new experience, gain some new knowledge, and save money. Seminar attendees and their guests received a significant discount off the price of the cruise. Since my husband had absolutely no interest in the trip, I invited my grown-up “baby” sister (she’s the youngest and I’m the oldest) to go with me.

Shortly after we made our reservations, my father called me and asked, “Why didn’t you invite Mama and me to go with you and Nancy?’

I had no idea he would even consider it and told him so. He said they wanted to go, so I made reservations for them as well.

Daddy absolutely amazed me … and wore me out. I went to bed at night before he finished playing the slot machines in the casino. He and Mama enjoyed the unlimited – and often exotic – food. He even had fun shopping in the island markets when the ship docked. I enjoyed lying on the deck reading between seminar sessions, but my parents were constantly involved in some activity. Mama, Nancy, and I all marveled at how much fun Daddy was having.

One morning while I was attending a workshop and Nancy had gone off on her own, Mama and Daddy were walking around exploring the ship. Mama got tired, and the first place they found to sit was in a theater. They didn’t know what was happening in the theater - they were just looking for a place to rest.

What was happening was the Men’s Knobby Knee Contest. A woman came out into the audience and pulled my father up on stage to participate in the contest. Several women judges felt the “knobby knees” of Daddy and other “contestants,” and Daddy was declared the winner.

My sister and I thought Mama was joking when she told us the story over lunch. My daddy was shy and reserved. No way would he let himself be pulled up on stage, much less let a bunch of women feel his knees! Yep, he had done just that. And when Mama was telling us the story, Daddy got the cute little grin that always meant he was really having a good time.

That vacation was one of the best times I’ve ever had with my parents and my sister. We spent more time having fun together than we ever had, and I saw my father enjoy himself more than I could have ever imagined.

Not long after we returned from that wonderful trip, we started noticing that Daddy was forgetting things and becoming easily confused. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and began to lose more and more of his abilities. After he had a heart attack, he could no longer communicate with any consistency. Though he had moments of lucidity for some time, he was totally incapacitated, physically and mentally, for several years before his death.

Unbeknownst to us, he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s when we took the cruise. One of his first symptoms was the loss of his inhibitions. Our family vacation happened at just the right moment for him to be spontaneous and outgoing without any loss of mental ability.

After Daddy died, my mother gave me the little plastic “First Prize” trophy that he won in the knobby knees contest. Every time I look at that tacky little trinket I say a prayer of thanksgiving for the precious time we had together before we lost him to that horrible disease.

Updated 9/1/07: I am thrilled that Kate selected this post as the winner! Thank you, Kate, for sponsoring the group writing project and especially for choosing my post as the winning entry.

It’s Funny NOW, But Then … It Was Frightening: MRI Horror Story

I tend to write about my stroke often for two reasons:

1. That one incident dramatically changed my life forever.
2. After fifteen years, I have the perspective of time and experience to see the lessons – and in this case the humor – that I couldn’t see at the time and that I may not see in my present circumstances.

This post is part of the group writing project: It’s Funny NOW, But Then …

Recently, I was chatting on the phone with a friend who had a stroke about a year ago. I have encouraged her by sharing my own experiences with her. She started laughing on the phone and said she just thought about the story I told about my MRI.

Back then, the hospital I was in did not have an MRI machine but used a machine that traveled from hospital to hospital in a trailer, sort of like a bookmobile except an MRI machine replaced the books. The MRI was due at the hospital a couple of days after I was admitted, so my doctor scheduled an appointment.

Two nurses’ aides showed up in my room with a gurney. I couldn’t do anything for myself at that point, and as heavy as I am, it took several people to transfer my dead-weight body from the bed to the gurney. The aides called for help and when help finally arrived, they transferred me to the stretcher. The other two people left, and the aides prepared to transport me to the MRI.

Oh, no,” cried one. “There’s no rails or safety belts on this stretcher. We can’t take her outside through the parking lot on this.”

“We don’t have time to change,” said the other. “You know how long it took to get help to put her on this one. We’ll be in big trouble if we’re late for the appointment. They schedule those appointments so close together, it’ll throw the schedule off for the whole day.”

“We’ll be in more trouble if she falls off on the way over.”

They debated back and forth for several minutes about whether they would be in more trouble if they spent the time to get more help or if they risked taking me outside on a gurney with no safety equipment. They never mentioned anything about the effects on me – only the trouble they would be in. I wanted to remind them that they were supposed to be concerned about the safety of their patient, but I still couldn’t communicate well enough to participate in the conversation. Finally, they decided the risk to them was less if they didn’t waste any more time.

So off we went, with the aides positioned in the way they thought would be best to catch me if I started falling. Through the door, bumping into the frame, down the hall, onto the elevator, down several floors, through the lobby, and out into a parking lot –a parking filled with potholes.

As we bounced along, the aides kept up a running conversation.

“Watch out!”

“Hold her – there’s a big one coming up.”

“I sure hope she doesn’t fall off.”

Although I couldn’t communicate, I certainly agreed with that sentiment!

Finally we made it through the first parking lot, across the street, and to the far end of the second parking lot where the MRI machine awaited us. I can’t really describe what it looked like, because I was flat on my back unable to see much except what was right in front of me. The MRI technician and the aides had to lift me a short distance into the machine … and then the pounding started.

If you’ve ever had an MRI of any kind, you know what I mean. Since then, I’ve had MRIs of various parts of my body, and I can assure you that a brain MRI is by far the most unpleasant. I’ve never been claustrophobic, but that experience just about made me that way. I couldn’t see anything, and the walls seemed to be closing in on me. Pounding, reverberation, clanging, rattling, banging … I thought it would never end.

Eventually, however, it did end, and it was time for the trip back to the hospital. As they lowered me from the MRI-mobile, I expected to land on a stretcher equipped for safety. After all, I’d been inside that metal cylinder being bombarded on all sides for nearly an hour, surely enough time for the aides to exchange the unsafe flat table on wheels with a gurney with side rails or safety belts … preferably both.

But no. As they started pushing me back across the parking lot, the two women continued the conversation as if there had been no interruption. About halfway across the lot, though, something changed. It started to rain!

“Oh, the pavement’s getting slippery.”

“Careful! She almost bounced off on that pothole.”

“Look, she’s getting all wet.”

“We can fix that.” The aide pulled the sheet that covered my body a little higher and covered my head.

“At least she won’t get too wet that way.”

“Yeah, but we’ll still in trouble if she bounces off when we hit these potholes.”

I lay there, covered from head to toe with a rain-soaked sheet, listening to the aides’ worries – not about me, but about getting in trouble – and praying for this to end soon.

The chatter of the two aides had distracted me from any other sounds in the parking lot, but after we crossed the street and were back in the main parking lot, I heard other voices.

“Oh, my gosh! Look – they’re carrying a dead body through the parking lot!”

“That poor lady.”

“Shh. Show a little respect. Stand still and be quiet till they get the body inside the hospital.”

Bouncing over potholes, hearing I might fall off the gurney, the horrendous noises, the claustrophobia in the MRI machine … all paled when I realized I wasn’t dead!

Although I said a prayer of thanksgiving that I was alive, the whole experience had been traumatic. Only after a couple of years did I begin to see the humor. Now all my husband has to do is pull the covers over my head and say “That poor lady” to get us both giggling like teenagers. The incident became one of the best scenes in my novel Stroke of Luck. I’ve laughed over the story with friends more times than I count.

It’s funny now, but then … it wasn’t!

Group Writing Project: It’s Funny NOW, But Then …

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.

- Lord Byron (English Poet)

In a recent conversation, a friend reminded me of an incident that had been frightening when it happened but now seems hilarious. We all have those experiences that are frightening or embarrassing at the time, but, when seen through the perspective of time, become funny.

I decided to post about the experience my friend and I shared a laugh over. Then I thought it would be fun to hear other bloggers’ “It’s funny NOW, but then …” stories, so I came up with a group writing project.

• Write a post about something that you can laugh about today but that didn’t seem humorous at the time.
• Link to this post and notify me in a comment or e-mail so I can include your post in the roundup of all the entries.
  
• Deadline is midnight Central time on Tuesday, September 4^th.
  

You can write about something that happened at home, school, work … anywhere. As long as you can look back on the situation and find the humor that you couldn’t see before, it’s fair game. I’m looking forward to some good laughs.

Take time to laugh – it is the music of the soul.

- From an old English prayer

What I Learned from My First Vacation in a Wheelchair

Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings has another “What I Learned From …” Group Writing Project underway. The topic this time is vacation:

Hey, even if you’ve never taken a “formal” vacation, then surely you’ve taken a little “self” time, eh? Well, that qualifies as a vacation in my book. So go for it!

I’m going to take a little artistic license with the word vacation and talk about my first venture away from home after my stroke to attend a writing conference.

At the time, I was using a motorized scooter, so I made elaborate advance preparations. I arranged to ride my scooter to the door of the aircraft, then have the scooter gate-checked. I could walk down the aisle with the support of the seat backs, so I didn’t need any special help inside the plane. I had to present certification that the batteries in the scooter were the kind that could be carried as cargo before the scooter could be checked. I even made reservations for a handicapped van for the trip from La Guardia to the hotel.

Our flight was delayed out of San Antonio, so I barely made the connection in Atlanta. Since my scooter was checked all the way to New York, I had to have a skycap push me in a wheelchair down the concourse. My friend Grace Anne Schaefer was on the same flight from Atlanta to New York, and she was getting worried when I wasn’t onboard minutes before take-off. But I made it just in time … I thought. The doors closed behind me, the last person on the plane, and we prepared to lift off.

Then the pilot announced that there was a problem with the plane. We were told to keep our seats, as the maintenance crew was working on the problem and should have it corrected momentarily. More than an hour later, the pilot announced, “We regret our maintenance crew was unable to repair the problem. This flight is cancelled. See the ticket agent about changing your ticket for a later flight.”

Since I had to wait for a wheelchair, Grace Anne took both our tickets and went to stand in line to exchange them. When I finally de-planed, an agent told me they had already made arrangements for the next flight for me. When I explained that I was traveling with a friend, the agent bumped someone from the flight to let Grace Anne travel with me. There are some advantages to being handicapped! All the other passengers were standing in line for much later flights.

The other flight was in a different concourse, and the agent asked if I could walk a few steps to and from a car just outside the building. When I said I could, he arranged for a car to take us across the tarmac. The driver dropped us at the door, and we went inside a small lobby with an elevator and a flight of stairs to the main level. But there was a sign on the elevator “Out of Order.” I could not walk up a flight of stairs! There was no place to sit, and my balance was so precarious I knew I couldn’t stand long. Grace Anne took my purse and my ticket and went upstairs to find help. I leaned against the wall and waited.

Soon, the elevator doors opened. The man inside said, “I’m still working on the elevator, but it’s safe enough for me to take you upstairs.”

 When we reached the main floor, I looked around for Grace Anne and couldn’t see her anywhere. A skycap approached with a wheelchair and said she would take me to the gate. When I hesitated and told her I was looking for my friend, she said lots of flights were being delayed because of bad weather, causing a shortage of wheelchairs. If I didn’t get in the chair right then, I might not get another chance. I dropped into the chair and told her the gate number. She whisked me through the concourse, mentioning several times that people didn’t always know they were supposed to tip a skycap for pushing them in a wheelchair. She even told me how much I should tip her. Well, she didn’t get any tip out of me because I didn’t have my purse.

When we reached the gate, she hurried me out of the chair and disappeared. I was sitting in a waiting area with my back to the desk. I twisted around to look for Grace Anne … and discovered I was at the wrong gate! This was a flight to Chicago, not New York.

I was still weak, and the trauma I had been through had totally exhausted me. I sat there wondering what in the world I was going to do. The gate across the corridor was empty, but after a while, an agent walked up and started looking through some papers. I dragged myself up out of the chair and staggered over to the desk.

“Please help me. I’m at the wrong gate, and I don’t know where I’m supposed to be. I don’t even know the flight number. I’ve lost my friend, and she has my ticket and my purse.” I leaned against the desk for support and tried not to sound as desperate as I felt.

The agent patiently looked up the information on his computer, flagged down a cart, and told the driver where I needed to go. On the way through the concourse, I found Grace Anne, who was looking for me. We finally got to the right gate, only to learn that the flight was delayed because of weather.

We spent several hours in the airport. A couple of times I had to go to the restroom, so Grace Anne went looking for a wheelchair each time. We didn’t dare leave to find something to eat, as the agent kept telling us they would be boarding the plane any minute.

The flight was finally called, and we made it to New York without mishap. But, of course, when we arrived, we had missed my handicapped van by many hours. We had to call and wait until one was available. The trip through New York City traffic during rush hour was something I’d just as soon not experience again. I swear on many occasions we were only a couple of inches from other vehicles.

We arrived at the hotel after 6:00 PM, and we had tickets for a Broadway play at 7:00 PM. The tickets were supposed to be at a booth in the conference registration area. So Grace Anne went to find the tickets while I went to the room with the bellman and our bags. Shortly after all our luggage was in the room, Grace Anne called and said the registration area was closed, and there was a sign that tickets were at Will Call in the theater. Fortunately, the theater was next door to the hotel – we had carefully planned to avoid having to deal with  handicapped transportation again. Grace Anne went for the tickets, and I scooted on over to meet her in the lobby. I parked my scooter as arranged and walked the few steps down the aisle to our seats just as the curtain rose.

Although I enjoyed Les Miserables, I could barely make it the few steps to the scooter at the end of the performance. We went back to our room and agreed that no matter how much it cost, we would order room service. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it close to 10:00 PM by this time. Grace Anne placed the order while I got in the shower to try to ease some of my aches and pains from the difficult day.

Dinner was delicious, and after a hot shower and a good meal, I decided I would live. Surely I wouldn’t face any major challenges at the conference.

The next morning, I discovered that the Marriott Marquis had meeting rooms on the second through the fourth floors – with only an escalator connecting the floors. I had selected the workshops I wanted to attend but had to completely revise my plans because I was limited to those on the second floor.

At the end of the day, one of the elevators was out of order, and the others were so constantly full that the bulky scooter wouldn’t fit. Time after time after time after time, elevators stopped, then left again because they were already full. Finally, I managed to fit in with the help of some nice folks.

One day there were four conference attendees in wheelchairs trying to get into the elevators. The others were in regular wheelchairs and got in sooner than I did since my scooter took up more room.

The last day of the conference, though, was even worse. I sat waiting for an elevator for nearly an hour. There was no one else on the floor. I felt so weak I was sure I was going to fall off the scooter. Finally I rode around looking for help. A young man was setting up a bar in one of the rooms. I asked him to call help for me. I went back to the elevator and waited … and waited … and waited … and waited. I went back and asked the young man again to get me help. He called Security, and after what seemed like a lifetime, someone came and escorted me through the kitchen, to the service elevator, and upstairs to my room.

Grace Anne had been wondering where I was, and she was so upset when I told her what had happened that she called Security and demanded an escort to the banquet that night. I was so exhausted that all I wanted to do was go to bed. But Grace Anne insisted I go to the banquet and awards ceremony. After a short rest and a shower, I felt a little better. Security escorted me to the main elevator, made room for me, and led me to the banquet room. At the end of the evening, my escort was back to see me safely to the room.

The trip and conference were physically and emotionally draining, but I still learned more than I ever imagined. I took reams of notes that I referred to over and over again long after the conference ended.

I learned five important lessons from this vacation aka writing conference:

1. No matter how well you plan, you can’t cover every eventuality. Weather, mechanical failures, poor design, other people’s actions, and many other things can disrupt the best-laid plans.
2. Never let yourself get separated from your purse and your ticket.
3. In spite of challenges, frustration, and exhaustion, you can still be productive, as I learned so much about writing.
4. Friends like Grace Anne are blessings to be treasured.
5. When you think you have reached the absolute limit and can’t take another step, you can keep moving if you don’t give up.

What I Learned from Working for the Government

Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings has instigated a group writing project. The rules for the project can be found at What I Learned from … The topic has to relate to the world of work.

In my first two jobs after college, I worked for the government. First, I worked at a military base as an inventory manager for crankshafts for an aircraft that was an important part of the Air Force at the time. Then I found a job related to my degree in sociology, as an employment counselor for the state employment commission working in the federal government program back in they heyday of the War on Poverty.

I learned similar lessons in both of those jobs. The specific things I learned about working for the government also apply to life in general.

1. Many workers take advantage of the Civil Service system that makes it difficult (impossible?) to fire incompetent workers. In the Civil Service job with the Air Force, I was given more responsibility in my first year on the job than some of the workers who were nearing retirement. When someone else made a serious mistake, that person was given easier work, and the botched-up job was turned over to me or another of the workers who took our jobs seriously. Government employees aren’t the only workers who don’t always give their best; many people do the least they can get by with.
2. Many supervisors are too willing to cover up problems rather than take any risks. As an inventory manager, I noticed a pattern of increasing condemnation rate of crankshafts when engines were overhauled. I raised questions, but my supervisors told me just to accept the failure rates turned in by the government contractors and request additional funds to purchase of the $5,000+ items (in late 1960s dollars). As an employment counselor, I suspected applicants were trying to get into the government program (which paid a small stipend while the “hard-core unemployed” were receiving training to improve their employability). My boss told me we weren’t authorized to investigate – we had to take the applicant’s word for everything. We’ve seen lots of cases of corruption in business, education, and just about any field you can name because leaders or peers don’t want to get involved or are afraid to rock the boat.
3. One determined (also known as stubborn) person can make a difference. I raised enough questions to enough people (and other determined people with their own suspicions were doing the same thing) that, unbeknownst to me at the time, the FBI launched an investigation of the engine overhaul facility. The owners of the facility and the government inspectors there were indicted and convicted of condemning crankshafts in good condition and selling them to Israel. In the poverty program, in spite of my boss’s instructions, I was able to find evidence of fraud by several applicants who used phony names and experience to get in the program more than once simply to draw the stipend, with no intention of ever going to work. I refused to admit them to the program. There are always people willing to stand up for what they believe in any situation, and they can make a difference.
4. Some people don’t like to have their plans thwarted; some just have no respect for the law or the rights of others. I had my life threatened by one applicant that I turned away from the program. He said he would be waiting for me at the end of the day with his “piece” – my boss sent me home early, and the guy never came back. Another time, the wife of one of the counselees came to the office asking to see me, but when the receptionist saw a gun in her purse, the manager told her I wasn’t there. Once again, she never came back. Our office was located in the block that was notorious for having the highest crime rate in the city, and my car was broken into and vandalized. All of our offices had openings rather than doors that closed so we wouldn’t ever be alone with the clients. Crime exists everywhere, and the world can be a dangerous place.
5. Many of the “hard-core” unemployed have serious problems that interfere with their ability to work. I was working in the poverty program in a minority neighborhood around the end of Vietnam War. I saw way too many young men who came back from the war with serious mental problems and many more addicted to drugs. We were supposed to be working only with people ready to go to work, but since we weren’t allowed to access records or ask for any documentation, young men told us they had no problems only to demonstrate their problems almost immediately. One disturbed young man didn’t show up for class all week, and when he came to pick up his check on Friday, he was required to report to me for counseling. He told me had been to Houston to try to get his wife to come back to him – she had left him because he didn’t have a job or any money. Based on the behavior I had observed in the short time he had been in the program, I was sure she left him because he was mentally unstable. I referred him for counseling; it was late on Friday afternoon, and his appointment was early Monday morning. That Friday night, he went to a fast food restaurant right after closing. He had worked at the restaurant for a short time, and when he knocked on the back door, the manager let him in. He pulled a knife, slashed the throat of the manager, and stole the day’s receipts. The manager lived, and though he couldn’t talk, he identified his attacker in writing. I seemed to be the last person to see this troubled man before the robbery, so I was interviewed about his state of mind. I didn’t have to testify in court because he was sent to the state hospital for the criminally insane as a result of a plea bargain. People like him needed more and different help than our program was equipped to give them. The world is filled with people with serious physical and emotional problems that need treatment, not a handout.
6. Even programs that are supposed to be for the benefit of people in need don’t always serve the needs of those they are designed to serve. All of the participants in the poverty program went through a two-week training program on how to find and act on a job – employability training, it was called. During that time, the counselor and the client created an employability plan for the client to reach his or her goals. Unfortunately, specific job training classes were scheduled based on funding. We had to fill the classes when they were held, and we couldn’t offer training when there wasn’t a class. If an auto mechanic’s class was scheduled, we were pressured to come up with students, whether or not we had anyone who had the interests and aptitudes for that career. And if a few months later, we had an ideal candidate for auto mechanic’s training but there was no class … too bad. That person either got no training or had to fit into a different slot. One time, everything seemed to come together. A class in clerical training was being offered, and I had three ideal candidates. One was a Vietnam vet who had returned from war addicted to drugs but who had been through a program and was clean and sober as well as being very intelligent, extremely interested in working in an office, and highly motivated. Another was a welfare mother who had been through a series of medical problems and surgeries but was now in good health and eager to build up her minimal clerical skills to be able to support her children on her own. The third was a high school dropout who had gotten his GED and had an excellent work history in unskilled jobs who was ready to learn skills to advance to a more secure future. I spent time with each one, telling them that in spite of the challenges they had faced in life, things were now changing for the better. They were all excited and ready to improve their lives. Then on the Friday before the training started on Monday, the funding was pulled from the class. No explanation – just a message to inform the students they wouldn’t be getting training after all. Although I was not typically defiant, I flatly refused to break that disheartening news. I told my boss he would have to tell them because there was no way I was going to go to them and tell them to forget I’d told them their life was changing for the better. My boss did talk to the clients for me … and I decided I could no longer stay in this position because I believe we helped too few people and damaged too many. Good intentions don’t always translate to effective programs, actions, or laws.
7. In spite of flaws and inefficiencies, sometimes we made a difference … and every time we made a difference, we made the world a little better. I had one client who had worked for one company for several years but had been out of work for quite a while after her employer went out of business. One day she didn’t show up for class, and later in the day I got a phone call. She was in jail, arrested for probation violation. That was a shock, because I had no idea she was on probation. It turns out that she had been convicted of marijuana possession and been given probation (five years if I remember right). She had failed to report to her probation officer once – I don’t remember why. But then she was afraid to report the next time because she feared she’d be arrested for not reporting the last time. So she just quit reporting. She had not been in hiding – she had lived at the same address and had worked for one company for several years. Then about a month before her probation ended, while she in our program trying to get back into the workforce, she was arrested. While I certainly don’t condone her failure to report to her probation officer, I could see no reason to throw a productive member of society who had stayed out of trouble during her probationary period in jail. I was determined she wasn’t going to go to prison for five years. I contacted the state representative for her district, and he and I went to visit her in jail, and I went to court and testified on her behalf. She was released, given credit for successful completion of her probation, and placed in a job. Even if there were more failures than successes, I’m thankful for the successes we did have. No matter how small, any time we help someone in need or stand up for what we believe, we make the world a little better.

And that’s what I learned from working for the government.

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