I don’t know if I am writing for me or anyone else. I just have to get it out and try to organize my thoughts in order to make progress some days.
Dane left his job at the pizza shop because - and I quote verbatim what he said to his boss - “I only want to work full-time. Maybe I will come back when you let me work full-time.”
So it begins, again … he acquired a job at Orchard Supply Hardware in October while I was in South Africa. He is to work one day a week for 4-½ hrs. He went for training with his job coach, did the drug testing and started work.
It’s now April and our job coach found other full time work and so I had to fill in.
The first week was a nightmare. I never really realized what went on in a hardware store. I’ve worked retail but only in a women’s store. There is so much in a hardware store. Just the size of it! The fluorescent lights, the concrete floors, the high ceilings.
Dane was moved to the garden section after a few months of bagging and retrieving carts. I wasn’t told why, I just know that it happened. The garden manager is VERY small and VERY fast. He expects Dane to be right behind him and keeping up with everything he wants. He instructs Dane with tasks such as “fronting the shelves” or “pulling dead flowers off of plants”. He sweeps, collects the empty boxes from the coworkers who are stocking shelves. It’s an endless list of things to do.
While doing all of these tasks, customer interaction is always a risk. When I worked in retail, I was taught that if a customer makes eye contact you are suppose to say ‘can I help you?’ At Orchard a woman made eye contact with Dane, and he just stared back. The woman didn’t speak. Dane didn’t speak. Then the woman started yelling “Why is he staring at me?” Well lady you’re looking at him!” She says “Why isn’t he talking? Oh is he one of those?” I thought I was going to die.
So Dane after 5 months is not comfortable in this workplace - not with the customers, or even with his coworkers. He’s filled with anxiety and stress and a desire to please but with no clear instruction on how to do it. I all of a sudden starting seeing the behaviors that lead us to leave public school years ago. Dane was freezing up under the pressure and as a result people think he’s non-verbal.
So week 2:
All of my suspicions were confirmed. There had been some resistance from Dane’s supervisors and coworkers about him being employed there. Dane is now insecure and uncomfortable. He’s left on his own too much and is experiencing failure. Coworkers and customers walk past him without acknowledging him. Dane is confused.
The big question … Dane quit having seizures when I pulled him out of school - the other environment that caused so much stress. We had six wonderful years almost seizure-free. Is it a coincidence he’s under similar pressure and is seizing again?
Can I undo this? Can I be his job coach and bring him to a place of success?
He wants it so bad. He wants more hours. He went down on his own and asked for his job back at the pizza shop. I went with him to work yesterday. It’s like NIGHT AND DAY the difference - the comfortable person he is at the pizza shop and the stressed out mess he is at the hardware store.
My observations of the pizza shop; it’s small and cozy. The boss laid down a ZERO tolerance of anyone not being nice to Dane on day one. He is treated as part of the team and a brotherhood. I watched him in the kitchen having conversation with the cook and the pizza maker. Just talking.
I came home and cried out of sheer JOY.