The sailors come off the ship after months out at sea. They come
to a bar sign, walk down a short flight of concrete steps and enter a dark,
dank establishment. There is loud and foul language in the air. The
establishment does not smell clean. An aging barmaid with excessive,
perhaps garish make-up, clearly looking older than her real age, is serving
shots of booze and beer. When we hear her speak words we detect a crudeness and
probable lack of education.
This is the woman that was sitting across from me, on public
assistance, needing a plan for reemployment. It was Friday the end of a long
work week. It was early in my career. My experience and skills were very
limited. Since she had not finished high school, I ask her if she wanted to
attend the Learning Center for a GED. She laughed and asked me if I was
serious. No one had ever offered her further education or even suggested
training. I told her, "Of course. You can go over to the community college,
take the placement test and begin study on Monday." She took the referral.
When I entered my office Monday morning, the phone rang and the
director of the learning center began rattling off reasons why my latest
referral could not be accepted.
- She is barely reading at a fifth grade level.
- Her math skills are extremely limited, despite handling money and making change continually in her past work.
- She would be taking up space preventing other students with real potential from getting into the program.
- She has no chance of being successful.
- She was not appropriate.
I felt a little anger swell and it prompted me to threaten to
pull out all of our business and financial support. We paid when our
customers got into the Center. My client got to start that day.
By the end of the week I was becoming increasingly nervous,
thinking the director might talk to my supervisor in the Department of Labor
Special Programs Office. I was the newest counselor in the WIN program fresh
out of graduate school. I did not have the power to carry out my threat
and I did not want to be chastised for an inappropriate behavior. I visited the
learning center to see how my client was doing and found her reading a book
that looked much like the ones we used when my son was first learning to read.
I made the decision to visit the Learning Center often, so that I could pull
her out the moment she got frustrated.
Every time I visited, she was in her chair focusing on her work,
day after day, week after week and the journey turned into months. I told her
if she was feeling too much stress we could look for other options. She chose
to continue the journey and did nothing that would cause removal. I
witnessed a transformation taking place. The Barmaid began to dress better, I
suppose because of the environment and increasingly looked more and more like a
student. It was nearly eight months after we first met that my client was
accepted into Casino Security Guard Training. After passing her High School
Equivalency exam, her options had expanded. She was placed easily into an entry
level Casino Job and her first year income tripled her best year as a Barmaid.
She stopped me on the street in Atlantic City and gave me a big hug.
Maybe her counselor experienced second thoughts and the Director
was sure she could not succeed. But, not my Barmaid. She had no idea that she
was incapable of earning a GED.
I had to make a decision about whether it would impact how I
felt about trusting people, and I decided I wasn't going to allow it to impact
my outlook on trust, because I believe trust is a choice. I've always
given people the benefit of the doubt until they prove me otherwise. So, it
just made me stronger in my conviction about that, but it also taught me never
to put anything past anyone. ~ Boris Kodjoe
#GCDF #Get Certified #Michael C. Lazarchick
#GCDF #Get Certified #Michael C. Lazarchick
