Perspective on disability requested

Jag1 · October 30, 2021, 6:59pm

Current version with technical info is much better to me, nerd to nerd. Next is you need to lose or substantially rewrite your opening paragraph. Current wording makes it come across as a combination of boastful but desperate, not a good combination. Instead talk about what you want to do, and why you can do it based on skills and experience.

Would it be possible to be rehired at oati? Your stay there was cut short by covid, but it was the only programming job I see on your resume (if you were doing programming at any of your other jobs, then make that clear). Looking for a job while working there re-hired would be best case for making your career path make sense. If that isn’t possible, then OK, but if it is possible I think well worth exploring.

mohe0001 · October 30, 2021, 7:30pm

I’ll take a look at that and give it a go.

OATI is a no go. Its a dead end. I took it because it’s physical proximity to home and I knew covid was coming and I needed to stock pile money. It seemed not scary because it was close to home and I wasn’t sure what would happen when covid hit. That was during our three months of bull market.

mohe0001 · October 30, 2021, 7:38pm

Ahhh, I see it. Deleted that sentence. All the odd stuff I added in the other day during a “I’ve been interviewing for 2-years” induced mental breakdown has been deleted. Thanks you guys.

Your totally right. I just added that the other day to try and not pigeon hole myself into healthcare. I’m not married to healthcare. I’d like to expand to different opportunities. I was listening to the audiobook, “Art & Fear.” He talks about always leaving some loose ends to explore in your work, so you don’t run dry and end up with ‘writers block.’ That’s where I’m at with healthcare. Nothing about it seems to interest me anymore. The well has run dry. It will interest me again. I’m just temporarily sick of it, maybe.

The only calls I get are from healthcare companies. We have to be super specific in order to get calls. Because I did so much free work related to healthcare, I think I’m stuck there. There’s no escape at this point.

That was a bad pigeon hole during covid. They were trying to send me into the VA hospitals to repair the ventillators on the covid wards and stuff. All offers were dangerous offers. I would have taken the jobs, had I got through all of the interviews, but I was scared shitless.

mohe0001 · October 30, 2021, 8:10pm

Maybe I’m being too cautious. The guys will take the really bad jobs in order to launch. I’m afraid of those jobs. Grad students talk and we know which are the bad jobs. Even the guys have been in positions were there was sexual improprieties, embezzlement, employers telling interns that either they did what they demanded or they would make their green cards go away, etc. There’s a LOT of that in entry level positions. I’ve been avoiding that stuff like the plague. But that just might be how people launch. Maybe there is no way around it. Things were like that long before covid started.

Prior to grad school, I took an entry level programming position where there were a lot of bad things going on and I can’t even put it on my resume. They got hauled into federal court, so I don’t even mention it. Its as if that experience never existed and I’m back to ‘first job’ status. So, I won’t work at disreputable companies. I won’t move outta town because I don’t know if the companies are disreputable.

mohe0001 · October 30, 2021, 9:23pm

I’ll do it. I’ll move out of state.
I’ll move somewhere where the market is not saturated with programmers.

Crap. No, I can’t. I’ll loose my health insurance.

I found a promising lead from back in January. This is a promising lead. Epilepsy is gonna help me find a job. I keep extensive records because I’m afraid of forgetting everything after a seizure. I need to use those records to help me, not just help everybody else.

This is a good phycological strategy to try and help get a variety of candidates through the door. When people hire, they are instinctually attempting to avoid risk. I thought I had a 33% chance the other week when it got down to only 3 candidates. I was optimistic. But it might not have been 33%, it might have still been 0%. You should never have a final candidate pool of 3 people, you should only have 2. If There’s Only One Woman in Your Candidate Pool, There’s Statistically No Chance She’ll Be Hired

I also found the organization that sponsored legislation where the State pays small companies to get developers new to industry through the door. Its intended to keep our highly education workforce from leaving the State for California. I found the parent organization. Every time they do that, it launches a career and I’ve utilized their services to help get others through the door. The difficulties arose when small companies established that relationship with the State, the State agreed to pay half of their developers wages $15/hour - $7.50 from the State and $7.50 from the company), they hired my guy, he worked 60 hour work weeks for them doing full stack dev, and then they still didn’t pay him. I had to get involved again and get the State involved. It sucked.

I’ll go talk to those guys.

MM1 · October 31, 2021, 4:25pm

Can you explain this? I think insurance is available in all states, through Marketplace if you need between jobs.
Or Cobra to extend employer coverage after you leave prior job.

Scott_A · October 31, 2021, 5:31pm

There are a lot of small online contract jobs around. Plenty of sites hooking up people who want a job done with programmers. Any chance you could do that for a while and establish yourself that way. You might get ripped off of your work initially, and might be underpaid, but you will get experience and establish yourself (might even like it). Then federal jobs give a points preference with disability (I think), so those might be some to apply for.

Timothy · October 31, 2021, 6:55pm

My company has a ton of programming jobs. Actually we are having a hard time filling lots of jobs.
And our vaccine mandate kicks in later in November so we might be losing a few more.

I’m pasting a job here I don’t know if it fits you or not, but we have lots that are all over the spectrum entry level and up.

https://www.google.com/search?q=perkinelmer+programmer+job&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari&ibp=htl;jobs&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj2kc_iqPXzAhVvDzQIHTHsDggQkd0GegQINhAB#fpstate=tldetail&htivrt=jobs&htiq=perkinelmer+programmer+job&htidocid=spFiI0tc-tJhjO9GAAAAAA%3D%3D&sxsrf=AOaemvJZYGGBodKZtcVlxjIlJ7zYok4oZg:1635706289253

Many are remote jobs too even if there is a geographical location

Marie20 · November 1, 2021, 12:25am

BTW…that non American male turning you down could be a cultural thing, unfortunately women are not treated with the same equality in a lot of countries. That I’m sure is the same with disabilities. That is not true for everyone but we get a lot of recruits from certain countries that it would true of. That is still apparent if you ever watched Amazing Race at what some of the women faced in what we would normally thought were more progressive. countries That might even get worse as the big tech companies have pushed for unlimited green cards for ten years to hire cheaper labor.

2&3) Whether it’s illegal to hold a disability against someone, people just don’t want to hire people they know will cause possible issues or problems. Whether you think that it won’t cause issues, the person hiring doesn’t know that. and explaining won’t help. The only plus would be a job that it could help you get hired at, as in helping at a type 1 clinic type thing, working at Medtronic etc. So personally talking about your disability at a job interview wouldn’t be the best thing. You are trying to sell yourself as the best hire. If you feel like you have to mention it, don’t dwell on it and give it very brief mention. Turn it into the tech stuff you helped solve issues with. There probably are a few jobs out there that it might not matter and you could talk about having a disability up front…but you need to find out beforehand. There might be a few companies that even give you points up front for a disability. But if you dwell on it and talk about it a lot, it becomes a bigger issue in the interviewers mind too.

My two cents…In hiring and in your case wanting to be hired. Remember you are there to promote yourself as being the best in the job they need filled. Never talk about why you were let go or fired or why you didn’t like the job. Those are all negatives they don’t want to add to their workforce. Most of the time a job interviewer can only find out if you are on rehireable status. if you have to talk about why you left a job, you need to think of a plus twist that’s not detrimental. Like the new job had a training program I thought would be really good to add to my knowledge to help me do a better job…etc. Work on promoting your plus points and what they would be for each job you are being interviewed for. Remember, only positives!!!

I did not consider myself a great interviewer…First I would ask some specifics about their application or resume. Any questions I might have from the information given. I had specific information I wanted to find out. But then the thing I would do is to get the person to talk about themselves so I could learn about them and that “chat” would yield all sorts of information I found invaluable for figuring out if the person “fit”.

There are lots of people that can’t do all sorts of things. So unless it’s brought up in the interview that you will be doing a technical problem at the same time as talking to someone, you should be able to say something along the lines of. while you are trying to solve the technical issue and they are trying to talk to you… you just say sorry I am one of those that focuses completely on the problem I am solving…something like that and I bet most of the time people will say something like I understand. And unless it’s a job that will require you to be on the phone with someone and talking to them while solving an issue it probably won’t be held against you.

And I know you like to go outside the box…but a lot of the time the job is not outside the box…they want someone that fits in the box. So it comes down to how much you want a job versus how much you want to play outside the box. It’s possible to take the job that’s inside the box and find out what training it will take for you to be able to get a job more in line with playing outside the box like you enjoy…

Updating your resume for what fits to what they are looking for currently. Do you know someone at a tech firm can can help you find out how to rewrite your resume? Maybe try to talk to someone recently hired and what was on their resume to see what the difference is? Make it positive. I was not in the tech industry but I think per your resume needs some work. Change of pictures, the About paragraph feels a little jumbled. I have mixed feelings about the type 1 paragraph, some of it might be good information, but it is also telling up front you are a type 1. You need better input on this to see ifs it’s pertinent to the jobs you are trying to get. The pros and cons.

But telling them you have been an advocate is a very scary thing for an employer to hear…stay away from that unless you are applying at a job to advocate. No one wants their employees stirred up.

If you are getting an interview something is working but then it is getting stalled in the interview process. So it could be the information provided is ticking off the boxes for what they are looking for to get you the initial interview(s), but then an interviewer is dismissing you during one of the interviews. So the information might be hurting you at that point. If you are making it through several interviews look at what is changing during that 5th or 7th interview. Are you giving more information? Are you being different? Are you trying to find out more about the workspace or company and something you are asking is setting off a red flag? Are they asking you about different things?

Sometimes we settle because we want a job…that’s not a bad thing. Just apply yourself the very best and sometimes things open up for you or things become clearer about what paths to take. It’s up to you to get the training to be able to get the job you will be happy with!!!

mohe0001 · November 1, 2021, 3:01pm

Good question, @MM1. Someone needs to validate my thinking on this. Let me try to step through it and see if understand it, myself.

1.) Knowledge of my policy and my State protect me here.

I’m scared to change policies OR States of residency because I’ve been troubleshooting where the system breaks for soooo long that I know where to anticipate failures and where to start fixing them. Say that the pharmacy wont sell me insulin - I know where the hang ups in the pharmacy computer systems and the medical clinics lie. I can generally differentiate if their doing something asinine, or if they just made a mistake, or if I made a mistake. I know what laws and safeguards and resources exist here. It took me decades of accumulating knowledge and experience to know where and why the system breaks. If I leave MN, I loose all of that. I will be back to square 1.

I might get a new job in a new state with a new policy, but I will have to re-learn everything through trial and error. Difficulties managing the system will accumulate and compound faster than I can troubleshoot them. I will make mistakes. They will be expensive mistakes. There will be dead ends. I will be working 60 hours a week in a new job where I need to learn constantly. If I need to stop work and troubleshoot an insurance problem for 20 hours, it could be the end me professionally. If I have to stay up all night trying to access insulin or giving myself little tiny bolus injections of R, it could ruin me professionally. I could have a resulting seizure and loose 2 weeks worth of memory. I would not be able to recover professionally. I could pass out in a snow bank and need to have my hands amputated. There’s no professional recovery from that. I would simply never be able to work again.

2.) My friend who moved to the East Coast says that he need but walk down the block to find another programming job should he hate his current one. He says I should come there and all of this would go away. He has chronic medical problems, so I am watching him closely throughout his transition.

Right now I have a privately held, low deductible plan (one of the last in existence). I thought that HIPPA was supposed to make the plans ‘portable’ over State lines. It doesn’t. I loose the plan if I leave the State. If I loose the plan, I will never get a price/quality comparable plan again. Rates will be much higher (especially after they bump up premiums in Jan due to covid). My current low deductible plan is unaffordable to me now, but much more affordable than anything I could hope to replace it with from the private marketplace.

Worst case scenario: Lets say I move out of State, get a new job, get a new plan, loose my State residency, loose my current plan…and the new job is just a giant scam where they are stealing money and they get shut down (which happened last time I tried this during the recession)…

If the ■■■■ hits the fan here, in MN, I can always go on the State’s ‘poor people’ plan. We have excellent coverage here for Dexcom, pumps, etc for people with no income. That’s not going to exist in other States. Last time I took a scam programming job out of State (the Dakota’s are ripe with computer companies doing illegal stuff…but I didn’t know that then), I avoided serious penalty. I maintained my MN residency and private policy by living right on the border and commuting hours each day to physical office location.

That strategy won’t work if I move to the East Coast, as my grad school friend is suggesting. If the job ends up being a scam, I will return to MN with no safety net (no residency) and no privately held policy. I will have hung myself. I will have 3-6 months of no insurance until I re-establish residency. I could probably handle the diabetes care (now that I eliminated that drivers license requirement in State law). Worst come to worst, I just go back on NPH and R MI for 6 months. That’s manageable. If I, however, have a Grand Mal seizure during that period, I will owe thousands of dollars because there will be a ambulance ride and a hospitalization that could last days or a week.

Cobra might cover me for a while, unless I get fired, right? If I get laid off, I’m ok. If the company goes under, I’m not sure what happens with Cobra coverage.

I don’t expect to be able to afford coverage through the Marketplace in this scenario. I would go without insurance in all likelihood, for 3 - 6 months. I might be able to do that just fine.

I would then be in a position of employer sponsored medical care, which has always made me nervous…especially after covid. That’ why I have never taken insurance through an employer and I just maintain my private policy. But, it might be time to entertain this.

mohe0001 · November 1, 2021, 3:05pm

I gotta re-read through everything you all have written and make a checklist of new things to try. I need to use your perspectives to try and re-evaluate my risk analysis.

Yes, this is possible. Thank you, I forgot about this option and I haven’t explored it in a long time.

mohe0001 · November 1, 2021, 3:31pm

This is all really valid perspective, Marie. I only talk about diabetes in the context of my technical work. That’s often why people call me - they just want to hear about that. They don’t even have a position for me, they are just curious, LOL. People are curious about us, Marie. Isn’t that interesting? We are an interesting patient community.

“Advocacy” IS a bad word. Employers talk about their own advocacy, but I don’t think I’m allowed to. Your right. It was a positive as an EMT. Its bad in a cooperate environment. Makes them squeamish. Someone just wrote me a letter of recommendation where they used that word. It made me nervous, but it was the most ‘gushing’ letter of rec anyone had ever written for me. I bumped into a professor yesterday and he gushed about my work (but he’s a diabetic). He told my dad that my brother and I were the most memorable and fascinating students he had ever had. I wish employers would just ask around town. We are such a small community. This would be so easy for them.

Terry4 · November 1, 2021, 5:56pm

Don’t sell yourself short here. I suspect that learning all these issues in a new state will be fairly short work for you now that you’ve done it once. Your efforts to learn it the first time are not wasted.

Again, I think your previous experience, even if learned painfully through trial and error, will serve you better. You know what questions to ask because of your experience.

Looks like potential ally to help you break into a new market!

Don’t let your skepticism (a healthy attribute in measured amounts) prevent you from moving forward. You need to rely on your future self to deal with any surprises and make good decisions. Life is risky and standing pat entails a certain amount of risk as well.

mohe0001 · November 1, 2021, 8:31pm

A couple possible developments have occurred, leading to one possible strategy.

As of today, every restaurant in town is calling me for server positions. Some really, expensive prestigious ones where I could make a lot of money fast.

A women who runs an awesome startup responded. They are low on cash flow currently and need several experienced heavy hitting developers. She says that once she gets a couple of those on board, maybe she could take me on, several months from now.

Current strategy:
Get some cash flow through restaurant work.
Start learning her tech stack because I will have a couple months to do that.
That’s a good lead time. In a couple months, if I have some income, I might be able to do work for her for free or a small amount of money (startups appreciate that). I like her mission well enough to feel good about that arrangement, if I can pull it off. I think that I could.

I will look for paid programming projects related to her tech stack. That will build my portfolio and her confidence.

If things remain grim, in January or February, I start applying to my friends recruiters. I go visit my friend on the East Coast and conduct some surveillance of the place. Then, I jump. I’ve helped get him a couple jobs. Worst come to worst, he could prob hook me up with something. Maybe once all the dudes I went to school with are senior engineers (which some are already), they can get me in as a junior engineer - I’ll start calling in favors because they know I deserve it. I taught a lot of those guys a lot of stuff to help get them through school.

mohe0001 · November 2, 2021, 5:01am

Expanding on your guy’s suggestion that I actually build something.
Since I need to get a new endo and establish care soon, AND because I’m afraid of loosing coverage during a move out of state and loosing my Dexcom.

Maybe I use her tech stack and just build something simple to do data collection (how you all know I like to format it) for the doc that could be used if I had to switch to manual blood sugars. I like A LOT of manual blood sugars to feel safe if needed.

That would have use for me. maybe just having a tool would help me feel safer in the event of loss of insurance.

mohe0001 · November 2, 2021, 5:05am

Its not the loss of a pump that scares me. It the loss of the dexcom that scares me.

Firenza · November 2, 2021, 5:05am

That sounds like a great plan @mohe0001 , building up some savings and skills while you wait for this new opportunity to flesh out sounds like a sound strategy.

However if the startup doesn’t get to the point where they can hire you then moving is not as terrifying in reality as it is in your mind. I’ve moved from state to state several times (admittedly as child but insurance switching was still necessary) and all insurance issues were manageable.

mohe0001 · November 2, 2021, 5:06am

Ok, if you guys think it might be OK, I believe you. Its possible that I have totally inflated the fear regarding loss of health insurance coverage.

mohe0001 · November 3, 2021, 4:16pm

While I’m waiting for large downloads to complete, I am researching.
I guess that a lot of working relationships depends on where in India men are from. This is more complicated than I imagined. Some of the Muslim guys in school were the best in the world to work with - collaborative and honest and sweet. But, I could tell in body language that other ones hated me. They refuse to work with me. All Pakistani men seem to hate me.

Software is going to be culturally complicated…

Timothy · November 3, 2021, 6:10pm

Any kind of minority requires you to be an educator.
The best defense to being discriminated against or marginalized it to show everyone what you are made of.
It’s not going to change everyone’s mind. But it will
Move the needle forward a little.

When I was a kid. All doctors were men and all nurses were women. Now it’s mixed a little bit.

All firefighters were men nearly all police were men.

All elementary teachers were women.

Just keep moving the needle.