I took a forced break from the Ye Olde Pie Shoppe today as I was actually doing my work and other stuffs.
From time to time I will talk about my job and rarely get to mix it in with other stuff but today ain't one of them days and when it's all done I need some of my people to fill me in.
It has been a little hairy around here lately and now with Kos doing the moderation after our interestingly enough ever so pragmatic moderator moved on, I have to be honest I'm a little nervous. Kinda feels like big brother is watching....segue...
I create jobs for a living. Many of them since 2009 all praise due to Obama who provided funding and many different creative ways to get some of our most vulnerable and impoverished citizens back into the workforce. Seen it first hand so I don't wanna hear no BS, ya heard, it's just how it is. In fact I'd bet if you knew about some of these programs and the things they do for people you might slap yourself once or twice for saying nasty things about Obama, but I will get back to that in a minute.
I went to prison today, twice a week I go to jail but today I went to prison to take part in some mock interviewing for men being released within the next three months. Those drug charges are a bugger you guys, seriously. Anywho, the way this works is that I get a bunch of resumes, the guys sit in these chairs staring at a bunch of us at desks, we stand up and they come for their interview. They have a schedule of who they are going to see at what time and we take care of business.
It's a federal prison so the chance that I am going to see someone from the state of MN is usually pretty small, I think it was one out of 30 when I went in February and I think it was about the same this time around. Lots of IL, IA, whatever Idaho's deal is, MT, WY, and NY.
I stand up to do my third interview and the next guy walks up to me and calls me by a name that means without a doubt this is someone who knows me. Not only does that name mean they know me but it means they've known me damn near my entire life(34). It was my cousin, who I haven't seen in fifteen years, met when I was six, slept head to foot with two other cousins in a twin bed and had smelly feet. In a small town, a small world, in a place where I wasn't supposed to be except someone switched days with me and a place I was going to which I was going to cancel my trip because of the second half of this story. He touches down in two weeks and heads back to the east coast to a job with my stepbrother.
Keep your fucking nose clean, your head down, and your feet planted son, we're not animals, we're beasts....
...Mind officially blown I make the hour and a half drive back to the Twin Cities for the reason I almost missed seeing my cousin.
If you were to look up the word motivated in the dictionary the person that I picked up on my way to the office would be the featured picture. I have mistakenly pointed out that I am a large man on this site, my hand shake is firm. I have shook the hand of many a strong men, and shaking hands with this guy is like taking three of the strongest handshakes I have ever experienced, put them together into one hand shake and then turning that hand into a rock before shaking it. He literally almost got violated for shaking someones hand.
It is my personal belief that this person has determination running through his veins, not blood, and I'm pretty sure his real last name is MacLeod and he gives me a fake name for my own safety.
I've been doing my job for the past ten years with people that have different disabilities and criminal backgrounds. This person happens to have a combination that are two of the most difficult for squares to wrap their minds around. I use the term squares because it's hard to say "people". It's hard to say people because to understand what this person goes through on a daily basis requires daily interaction which is what I have had with him for the past 6 months.
He's a story teller, he tells lots of them and most of them are pretty fantastic, meaning hard to believe. Even though I work with him everyday I am still skeptical about many of the things he tells me cause it just sounds ridiculous. Well this week I learned what I suspected to be true. He wasn't bullshittin'.
Over one thousand job applications.
1k push ups a day
Ran in the Boston Marathon
Things like this are just a snippet of what he tells me and the rest of it is so crazy that if I told you, you just wouldn't believe it, but after watching him today, I believe every word.
He got a job today...and I watched his amazing skills and abilities along with the person who hired him in amazement. I was confident in his ability but not seeing him at work made it tough to tell if he really could do what he said he could do. We weren't 2 minutes in to the interview when the manager and I looked at each other and realized how amazing this person truly is.
You think you got unemployment problems, 90% of this guys demographic is unemployed and you know who he blames? Sadly he blames himself. I understand it on one level because of his actions but that is not what stopped him from getting a job. What stopped him was his disability and he literally blew my mind for the second time in one day. I'm going to ask his permission to post a video of him one day so you can see who he is. My wife is getting sick of hearing about him because I always thought he was amazing now I have proof it's only going to get worse.
Congrats good buddy, you are an animal...in the kitchen that is.
Obama provided the money that gave me the job that allowed me to work with him over the past 6 months after 16 years away. I don't take credit for him doing the work. I do take credit for preparing him for life on the outside and teaching him how to interact with people that have no understanding of his life and how to deal with people that are ignorant to the enormous challenges he faces on a daily basis. I give Obama credit for putting the money where it really needs to be and there is plenty more exactly where it came from.
Then I get back to this place and see Adept2u is gone?!?!?! WTF is going on? And some Dumb MF'r is calling me an Uncle Tom cause Obama's trying to kill black men?!?!?! I mean when I tell you that fed money is helping some of the least among us, you just don't know. I'm talkin' bout people that WILL go back to prison without those funds period, disabilities and felonies all rolled into one. I'm in Federal prisons, State prisons, County jails, and Obama has been straight makin' it rain on these people for a few years now, with programming before they get out. Yall just don't know the good work this man is allowing me to do, and I get blessed with having my mind blown twice today.
I'm in dem trenches biatch, can't tell me no different.