Mental Illness and Finding Work

So many people have asked me why I don't just get a menial job, like working in a supermarket, that I have decided to write a document on the subject. This will be published hopefully and I will also maintain copies of it and will hand it out to people who ask.

Essentially, for the past number of years (about 7 actually), many people have approached me and as soon as I finish answering one person's query on the subject, someone else just pops up and finishes off from where the last one stopped.

Today, August 4, 2008, I was asked by 2 people in one day, this was a record by the way, and one of them was my shrink. Even she doesn't know. I felt that instead of getting mad or getting even, I would simply turn the answer into one of my illustrious and insightful writings.

Let's start of by analyzing my current situation and then backtrack. First of all, I no longer have a driver's license. I was in the psychiatric ward the last day I could have renewed it and I intended to do so, but well, G-d intervened and the Torah says, "Many are the thoughts in the heart of man but it is the counsel of the L-rd that will endure."

I go to the library, where I upload my content to Associated Content on foot. I have no license and also no car, logically as a result. I can only get to the library when the weather permits. I can't get there on a rainy day, if it rains too hard.

Furthermore, I have extensive injuries due to weight lifting and I can't haul a palette jack or lift heavy boxes. The injuries affect my lower back (pinched sciatic nerve and also some problems that have escaped identification), chest, knees and also my left bicep tendon. So, I am out here too.

As far as slicing and wrapping meat in a deli department, I am terrible with my hands and would probably kill myself trying it. I am really in a pickle.

Now, I am 49 years old and I know what I am all about. I have taken quite a few psychometric tests and m profile is very unique. While I have extremely strong abilities in English (97th percentile) and math (90th percentile), my clerical speed and accuracy is only 30th percentile. Now, you may ask what this means. I will explain the score as follows. In any group of 100 people I am the 30th person up from the bottom. Fiftieth percentile is average and I simply am exponentially slower than anyone as the 40th percentile and even more so in comparison to someone at the 50th. Also, anyone at the 90th percentile would just blow me out of the water.

The above-mentioned test also scored my abstract reasoning at only the 60th percentile but in fairness to myself a technical school I went to gave me a test, which said that the real figure is 85th percentile. This type of strength is needed in computer programming and if I didn't score well on it, I would have taken up computer programming.

My organizational ability is only 60th percentile also. My first boss at AT&T hauled me over the carpet because I was so disorganized but I can't do anything about it. It's a really bad situation.

When I was 18 years old, I used to work for Time Square Stores, which was a department store, in Huntington, LI, NY. I had a job in the receiving dock. This was before I injured myself lifting. They wrote me up twice at TSS, once on my 19th birthday. So, I left when they wrote me up a second time, as I felt my luck was running out and they had 3 strikes and you're out as a rule.

Some times, I had to check in fine glassware that came in to the store and people were always breathing down my neck to work faster. I got into a scrape with one of the store managers over it and it was soon after that, when I decided to scrap what I was doing and go to Israel for a stay over there.

I made so many enemies at TSS it was amazing. I really had a hard time there. My test scores on Tickle's Internet site claim that I have 6 career paths to choose from and working on a loading dock isn't one of them.

On the summer after I was in 6th grade, my father beat me so badly that I incurred extensive brain damage. My memory and thinking was messed up. My grades fell about 15 points in school. I had to drop out of advanced classes in science and math. I really flopped. I only graduated high school with a 78 average.

In an effort to solve my problems, I turned to various religious organizations for help and became a Christian when I was 14. The church I joined became the Ben Yishai cult, later renamed Shoresh Yashi or Shoresh Yishai depending on who writes commentary (see my writings on http://forum.rickross.com) and I then wound up in Chabad and the Carlebach movements. All of this is in detail on Rick Ross's site where I have over 620 postings.

I can't add up a large column of numbers and I failed a course in accounting because I couldn't type fast enough. I am really a mess.

After that, I held various menial jobs. I never performed well. I had problems working at Finast Supermarkets where I held my first full-time job to support myself when I was living with some friends of mine.

I waxed the floors at night and never did a good job. The first day I went there, I walked in and spoke to the manager and he noticed my extremely muscular physique and told me he was sure I could handle the job, by the looks of me. Well, the next morning it came out that I missed some garbage that was under a fixture and they told me "Don't tell us how good you are, we will tell you." So, that was my first failure on a job.

They took me off that job and had me working days at the cash register loading bags. I went looking for another full time job. I found one (it was the one at TSS) and I quit on a moment's notice.

While I was in college, I worked for TDS Barbell (now called The NY Barbell Company). I redesigned the line of equipment to upgrade their wares and I was a salesperson too. They were never happy about my sales performance though.

I got paid (off the books too) $100 a week. I figured it was just a job I had while I was in college. Quitting like that generated a lot of bad karma for me that has come back to me over the years.

After I went to Israel and finished my Master of Science in Management degree in '86, my father attacked me and smashed me up against the brick wall of our apartment in K'far Saba, Israel. I felt like I broke inside and I was messed up. My logical thinking ability was impaired and I had many problems at work when I finally landed a job as a computer programmer. My judgment is impaired and it still hasn't gotten better.

Ego comes into play too. If you think I am going to put my talents to work, filing cards, you can forget it. I am tired of this lousy situation I am in and I refuse to hold a menial job. Not that I have transportation there anyway.

And as far as going back to computer programming, that is out too. All the languages I know are old and outdated. I am only able to work on small programs anyway and the last time I worked in computers was 14 years ago and I don't want to open up this can of worms again.

I never wanted to be in computers anyway. I thought with my MSM degree that I would become a financial analyst or a marketing research worker. Well, this didn't happen.

People have to understand that I know what I am doing with my life and I am the captain of my own soul. G-d knows that I will put myself in His hands and with G-d all things are possible. It is all a way of His building up my strength and character. My rabbi, Yitzchak Fried told me to tell people that I know what I am doing and to tell them to let me live my life, as I know I should.

To wrap up, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this piece. My writing this was long overdue.