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I wouldn't make that assumption. I work in spite of my disabilities because I want to. I could collect SSI and get Medicare but I prefer to earn my own living.
A lot of disabled people do want to work and make something of themselves.
And working at Walmart is not all disabled people strive for.
I'm blind, have a job as a translator, and am in school with the goal of becoming an interpreter for deaf blind people. I'm the first hearing blind student to be accepted at the only liberal arts university in the world that is completely in sign language and geared towards deaf and hard of hearing people. They accept 5% of hearing students into deaf-related fields such as deaf education, sign language interpreting, and deaf studies.
Among my friends, I have...
...one that is deaf and in a wheelchair, and she just made it onto the Dean's list with one of highest GPA's ever, and has a job on campus...
...one that is deaf and in a wheelchair, getting a graduate degree in hearing sciences and linguistics...
...one that is deaf and blind and working on a graduate degree...
...one that is deaf and blind and is getting a master's in psychology, after serving as the president of an advocacy-related organization for deaf blind people...
...one that is deaf and in a wheelchair, who has a graduate degree in linguistics, and is going to have a killer job at the front of research for augmentative speech programs, and is planning on getting his Ph.D.
Believe it or not, some of us not only want to work, but we dream big!
nimchimpsky, you are the first person I thought of when I first read this thread. I always enjoy reading your posts and find them insightful.
Many people such as yourself overcome insurmountable odds to live a full life, something should all strive for.
Working is an outlet for many, it's keeps people busy and feeling good about themselves. There are programs that place handicapped folks in jobs, all the baggers at my grocery store are come through a program like that. Everyone likes to have something to do whether they need the money or not, some people get that through working and some people get that through other means. I'm glad she has this opportunity.
nimchimpsky, you are the first person I thought of when I first read this thread. I always enjoy reading your posts and find them insightful.
Many people such as yourself overcome insurmountable odds to live a full life, something should all strive for.
Obviously they're not insurmountable!
The only thing that is insurmountable is the limitations we impose on ourselves. I know people who cannot tie their own shoe who are getting Ph.D.'s in neurolinguistics to examine, millisecond to millisecond, how the brain processes languages.
People are impressed that we become baggers...I have to remember not to feel insulted because people don't realize we can do so much more! Lol.
I'm just like everyone else in this thread, the only difference being that I use a cane to know where I'm going and I use my fingers to read. Other than that I'm no different! Here's a video about blind people with all kinds of dreams.
Transcript
[music]
[female] My goal for the upcoming school year is to prepare myself for studying overseas in Portugal during my senior year.
[male] My goal for the upcoming year is to get sponsored by Active Ride Shop.
[female] I’m going to be the first member in my family to graduate and go to college.
[shy sounding female] I think it’s important to go back to China because I really want to visit my friends and my foster family.
[male] My goal this year is to do some awesome stuff with my band, and just make major progress and get some stability.
[Mark Maurer, President of the NFB] I tell blind teenagers that their lives belong to them.
[male] It’s all about mental perception, because, being blind, I can piece things together really well in my mind.
[male] Like I can do, most anything a sighted person can do. That doesn’t really affect much. It’s just—I do it differently.
[female] I think it’s important with a person with a disability to have a dream. It will motivate them to pursue that one thing they want to do.
[background music comes to the forefront]
[male] I think it’s important to get away from this idea that blindness means living in the dark. Does a blind individual dream, visually, the same way that a sighted person does? They do have a certain image in their mind.
[female] My dreams are rich, and detailed, and full. I see life differently than a sighted person, therefore, I do dream differently than a sighted person.
[male] So it’s basically just the same thing as when I’m awake—just, I’m not awake.
[male] I skate better in my dreams because that’s what I strive for.
[female] I could see, like the colors, the shapes. If I remember someone’s face.
[male] I think you learn from dreaming if you go deep enough, that your life has a bigger story, it has an origin and a purpose.
[male] So just simply closing your eyes, and thinking that that’s what a blind person is going through, I think, is really an oversimplification. [cheery music turns to gloom-and-doom music]
[female] The reason sighted people underestimate blind people is because they underestimate their own abilities to function, when they close their eyes and have no training.
[male] Most people have been wondering, you know, you’re blind, how do you skate?
[female] I feel like having a visual impairment is really hard for your peers to understand.
[music gets doomier]
[female] Underestimation is wrapped up in stigma.
[Mark Maurer] The educational opportunities for blind students today is horrible.
[female] They had said that geometry was inappropriate for me because it was too visual, and I probably wouldn’t do well.
[male] They’re not given the resources that they need. It’s a lot easier to let the students like Karina go.
[male] I felt anger, because I felt like I should have the right to go to school. And it’s sad because it’s like, hey, everyone else is in middle school. [pause] Um…what about me?
[female] 13-year-olds don’t know their rights. Their parents think their school district is doing the best they can.
[male] We’re talking about the education of a kid, that’s going to have lifetime consequences.
[female] That’s it, you get one shot.
[music]
[male] Our unemployment rate is an excessive 70 percent.
[female] If any other segment of the population had that figure of 70 percent, there would be—it would just be a scandal.
[male] We’re not having a lot of success overcoming society’s biases.
[rock music]
[male] Blindness is just one more facet of the normal human condition.
[people cheering] [background noise of man saying “Yeah that’s what I’m talking about!”] It’s not some aberration, it’s not some experience which is lacking.
[more cheering, cheerful music]
It is just one other way of being human.
[empowering music continues]
And now let’s get on with life.
[woman who opened the video]
I believe that there are very few impossibilities in this world. I do believe that nearly everything, is possible.
[end of video]
Walmart Bagger? Please. These people are dreaming way bigger!
Anyone with a disability can draw disability. Duhhh...
Most people who have legitimate handicaps actually WANT to work, while lazy people make up excuses not to.
A lot of disabled people want to do something. It makes them feel good. I know a relative of mine has MS and does direct selling. She likes doing it and seems more confident. She does it to supplement her disability payments.
I knew someone who came down with a disabling neuromuscular disease and was devastated when he could no longer work.
I saw a woman in at McDonalds sweeping floors. She had Down's Syndrome. She was smiling and loving every minute of it. It was good for the workers there too, because they seemed to admire her attitude.
For every employee that you see with a handicap, there's usually a social worker paid by the county that worked hard with both the employee and the employer to help train and place her.
For every employee that you see with a handicap, there's usually a social worker paid by the county that worked hard with both the employee and the employer to help train and place her.
No social worker trained me in my braille skills or computer skills (with braille output), cause they didn't know how to teach a deaf person braille. I'm self-taught, from using the Internet and ordering children's books (and eventually adult-level books) through the NLS. I picked up sign language from friends. Both of those directly led to me getting jobs and enable me to post on this forum. I have since gotten my hearing back but nevertheless retain those skills in my translation job and to get through school. My sign language skills are crucial to my success since all the classes I am taking now are in sign language and my goal is to become an interpreter. Again, no one taught me those because they didn't know how to deal with a deaf blind person in the rural town where I lived (at the time, when I went deaf).
I know someone people want to just make us out to be moochers, but that's not always the case. Sorry we're not all the negative depressing image you were looking for to help justify your prejudice.
A lot of disabled people want to do something. It makes them feel good. I know a relative of mine has MS and does direct selling. She likes doing it and seems more confident. She does it to supplement her disability payments.
I knew someone who came down with a disabling neuromuscular disease and was devastated when he could no longer work.
I saw a woman in at McDonalds sweeping floors. She had Down's Syndrome. She was smiling and loving every minute of it. It was good for the workers there too, because they seemed to admire her attitude.
I know someone with a disabling neuromuscular disease that makes her unable to lift anything heavier than a small cup of water and requires her to use a power chair to get around. She has assistants to help her shower and get dressed, but she is getting an education so that she can contribute to society in a wonderful way. She's getting not one, but two, graduate degrees. She works in a clinic. Who said anything about not being able to work?
If your friend wants to work, encourage him by letting him know that he can! There are jobs out there for anyone. When you have a severe physical limitation, you have to think creatively, but where there's a will, there's a way! He might have to gravitate towards a field that involves more thinking than doing, but I'm sure there is something he'll come up with if he truly wants it!
Cool story bro. I was just trying to drum up support for the underpaid, overworked social workers that do help people like this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nimchimpsky
No social worker trained me in my braille skills or computer skills (with braille output), cause they didn't know how to teach a deaf person braille. I'm self-taught, from using the Internet and ordering children's books (and eventually adult-level books) through the NLS. I picked up sign language from friends. Both of those directly led to me getting jobs and enable me to post on this forum. I have since gotten my hearing back but nevertheless retain those skills in my translation job and to get through school. My sign language skills are necessarily since all the classes I am taking now are in sign language.
I know someone people want to just make us out to be moochers, but that's not always the case. Sorry we're not all the negative depressing image you were looking for to help justify your prejudice.
Cool story bro. I was just trying to drum up support for the underpaid, overworked social workers that do help people like this.
Oh, okay.
I don't know how well they get paid. I do know that the social workers I have dealt with weren't that great, because they kept trying to set my limitations instead of letting me set my own. (They literally told me to "sit inside my house and do nothing" when I went deaf because according to them, a blind person could cross a street, but not a deaf blind person. I have crossed many streets deaf blind since.)
I'm sure there are some great social workers out there, too, but I just wish a lot of the ones that are working now had more faith in their clients' potential.
Maybe if they got paid better, they would?
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These people are dreaming way bigger! 
