Preface
This will be a two-part series dealing with my past experiences with disability employment services from 2009 to 2016. For these articles I will not use the exact names of the specific organizations and service providers mentioned and I will not reveal the identities of those mentioned in order to preserve their privacy.
For part one, I will go over in detail my history with disability employment services from early 2009 to late 2016. And for part two, I will go over my personal feelings and recollections of how I felt about the experiences, what my mind-set and attitude was, how I feel about the ordeal in hindsight, and then offer suggestions to how to possibly improve disability employment services.
2009-2013
After finishing high school in 2008, I began going to a small government service provider specializing in disability employment. The staff, from my recollection, was relatively small, and I along with others with disabilities would meet at the offices of this DES provider for an annual weekly meeting.
Because many of us were young at the time, the meetings consisted mostly about instructions on how to properly format a resume and how to present and conduct yourself at a proper job interview.
The staff were kind, pleasant and patient, and helped us get small unpaid job experiences gigs to help pad up our resumes. However, they were nonetheless limited at their capacity to help find us proper employment. I wagered that this was due to the fact that the world was still experiencing the global recession (2007-2009) at the time.
Luckily, however, my time with them was short lived for in early 2010 I got my first job through a family friend. I worked happily at that job until a year later in 2011 when I was offered an even better job, also through a family friend.
For three straight years I happily worked multiple nights at the other job. It was honestly the best employment I have ever had. Unfortunately, however, in August 2013 I and my fellow workers would be informed that the company we were working for would be closing down permanently by the end of the year.
2014-2015
In 2014, I found myself back into the world of disability employment services. In late October of 2014, I was able to find part-time work through a DES.
It was one of those small businesses that sell organic fruits and vegetables at a designated stand at a farmers’ market they held on weekends. My job was to assist in unpacking and unloading the produce off the truck in the morning and spread it out for display, and then assist in packing the unsold rest of it at the end of the day back onto the truck.
From 2014 to 2015, I worked at this stand every Saturday. Because it was located in Bondi, I had to get up at 5:00AM, take a bus into the city, take a train and then another bus to make sure I got there before 7:00AM. I would then assist in unloading the truck and spread all the organic fruits and vegetables. For the duration of the day, I would help in replenishing and restocking all the fruits and vegetables that were sold, mingle with customers, and then at the end of the day at 1:00PM, we would pack away back onto the truck everything that wasn’t sold.
While it may not have been a job I particularly enjoyed, it wasn’t the worst. I didn’t mind getting up early and traveling far for my job. It was something I had to do in order to earn a living. However, the problem with that job was the fact that they weren’t allowing me that living I was earning, for it turns out that the employer was short-changing me.
This became apparent when our family accountant was doing our taxes and requested from my employer a group certificate or a certificate of my earnings, which she refused, informing our accountant that she apparently didn’t have to. This is highly illegal. Ater this, my mother, along with our accountant, checked and realised that the employer had short paid me nearly $900.
Incensed, she then informed the DES I was with – the one that got me the job – that my employer had two weeks to pay or else she would go to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority and report them. The DES did nothing for two weeks, which left my mother with no choice but to report my employer to the ombudsman.
For the next 2-3 months, she collected all the information needed. They had to go to mediation with a third party. My employer claimed that I didn’t work on certain days (even though I did), to which my mother showed that I did in-fact work for she had a tracker on my phone. Eventually, my employer gave in and eventually paid me $700 of the $900 she owed me. We decided against trying to get the rest. At that point, we couldn’t be bothered.
2016-2017
After I was dismissed from my job at the stand, I had to continue seeing the DES I was with. For many months I would have to go once a week and fill out an employment form, which basically meant I had to look up an employment site, make 10-20 applications, and write them down to prove that I had done it. Only then would I be allowed to leave.
Everything was quiet until one night I got a message from one of the employers I had sent my application to through the employment website. They asked me if I would be willing to work the next day at 7:00AM. Nervous, I answered yes and then asked for their exact location.
Afterwards, I looked up their location and they were miles away. I looked up how to get there and I had to get at least two buses and a train. That wasn’t an issue for me, for at that point I was used to travelling far distances.
Because I had to get there so early, I went to bed early that night. However, due to the excitement and nervousness of getting a job so suddenly, I couldn’t sleep at all that night. For the entire night I was wide awake, tossing and turning.
Finaly, when it was time to leave, I got dressed and headed out the door at 5:00AM. I went t the bus stop and to my horo I discovered that I had made a grave miscalculation with timing. It appeared that the bus I needed to catch wouldn’t begin its routine until hours later, an hour after my shift would begin.
To say I panicked would be an understatement. I tried desperately to figure out how to get to my new job. However, not wanting to waste anymore time, I bit the bullet and got a taxi. That taxi ride would cost me over $90, but at that point, I didn’t care, I just wanted to work so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the DES anymore.
The job was basically an assembly line for medical supplies. I and others wore hazmat suits and just placed items in small carboard boxes, to essentially make subscription packages, for hours until the day was done. When we were finished for the day, I asked my employer if he could have a set day for me every week, that it would be much better for me to have some kind of roster as opposed to something spontaneous. He agreed.
A week went by and this time I was ready; I had looked up a better travel route that was properly timed this time, and I would have a much better sleep because I knew what to expect this time. Nervously, I waited with my phone in my hand for the message, waiting for my employer to ask me to work the next morning. The message never came. Hat night waited eagerly, assuming he would text me later. By midnight, I decided to give up and go to bed.
Every night for weeks, I would nervously watch my phone for the employer’s message, waiting for them to contact me. Weeks turned to months and I became less and less nervous, as it appeared that it was unlikely that I would get called again.
Looking back, I now believe how I asked my employer for a set day may have contributed to them no longer seeking my services. As I asked them, I remember being on the verge of tears due to a sleepless night and a net loss of $90 (although the money I got for that one day would pay it back).
After that debacle, the DES I was with would soon fine me another job, coincidently another organic fruit and vegetable stand that was miles away.
They took me out there and introduced me to my new employer who gave me a rundown of their operation, which was no different then the last fruit and vegetable stand I worked for – i.e. unload and unpack produce and then pack away the leftovers and load onto the truck afterwards at the end of the day.
For this job, I was informed that I would work from 8:00AM to 12:00PM every Saturday and Sunday. I was okay with this. It was more hours and definitely more money than the last fruits and vegetable stand I worked for.
Much like the other places of employment I had worked for in the last few years through DES, my new place of employment was very far out. I had to get up at 5:00AM to catch a bus into the city and then take a nearly hour-long train ride out to get to a giant jack-packed stadium-sized farmers market that was under a dome roof. It was surreal, like a large, stadium-sized bazar that was very loud and incredibly humid.
The first day I got there, my first shift, I was told by my employer to go home and come the next day for an eight-hour shift instead. I had travelled an hour and a half only to be told by my new employer to leave because he changed his mind about the hours he initially set. Sighing, I just left and did as he asked. This would happen multiple times to the point where I stopped bothering showing upon Saturdays and only came in on Sundays.
Up until that point, I could have said that I never had a job that I particularly didn’t like. Even the past two jobs I had through DES, though imperfect, were not jobs that I couldn’t do. The work I did at the other organic fruit and vegetable stand and the one-time gig as an assembly line man were bearable.
However, I can honestly say working for my new employer was incredibly unpleasant. You know you have a bad job where even though you only work one day a week, you dread every day as you get closer and closer to that said day.
Would work at that job until the end of the year. Luckily, however, in January of 2017, I would be offered another job by my brother that would be much better and way more appealing. And so ended the last job I had through a DES.
Epilogue 2017-2024
I worked with my brother at a new job until we left a few months later. For the next few years, I luckily stayed under the radar, undetected by any other DES provider. I would eventually get another job through family in early 2019, and I am happy to say that I have been working there ever since.