Friday, January 16, 2009

I Have a Job

Governor Paterson often calls attention to the staggeringly high unemployment rate among the legally blind: nearly 70%, by some accounts. But, as a friend recently reminded me, we are not statistics.

I got a call this afternoon confirming that I have been hired for a job.

It's not full-time work, but as a teaching artist, my goal is to cobble together enough part-time work to support myself as I write plays and participate in theater. Sometimes, I get paid to do all three.

Most organizations that hire teaching artists keep a roster of them. I already belong to one such roster. Getting onto this one involved a highly competitive interview process, two separate stages of training, a third stage of training (if you make the cut-off), and a trial teaching unit, where they send you into the schools. This process started when I interviewed way back in the spring.. It ended today.

This still means that I have to spend a good amount of time looking for work, but I'm guaranteed a certain amount of employment now, which certainly takes off some pressure. Interviewing for jobs is hard enough, even if you don't have to deal with the whole, "I can't make eye contact, but please hire me anyway" thing.

I think I can actually relax this weekend.

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