If it is, and I am, I really will sue someone's ass off...
As some who write here might know my most recent contract of employment came to an end May 11th of this year - a little over two months ago. In those intervening months I've been busy. I have a couple of hundred job applications on file, for jobs in just about every region of the USA from California to Ohio to South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama (I'm willing to relocate). I've also had four face to face interviews (all for positions very well within my capabilities and experience). And I've begun to notice a common thread that has me more than a little perturbed.
Before every face to face meeting I've had, be that with an immediate employer or with technical recruiters, all those with whom I've had such meetings have, to coin a phrase, been hot to trot. "Oh we just love your resume" they say. "Your experience is pretty much ideal for this vacancy... we're looking forward to interviewing you" they say. Or the most recent case in point, an interview with a technical recruiter working for A*****K (let's not be hasty and libel anyone here...)
This young man contacted me a couple of days before my trip to New York, having received a copy of my resume through Thingumajob (one of the dozens of online recruitment services that have copies of my resume). This young man (we'll call him 'Bob') was a fountain of enthusiasm; apparently there were at least a half dozen CAD-based opportunities in Richmond, all with employers who'd be delighted to talk to me. His enthusiasm, even after my telling him that I'd be unavailable for a week while in New York, was highly infectious and put me in a very positive frame of mind for the trip - at least as regards the possibility of rapid re-employment once I got back home.
I got back in contact with Bob almost as soon as I got home and we arranged an interview for a few days later - he had business commitments that prevented our meeting any sooner. The day arrives, I get to the local office 15 minutes ahead of time, I'm well groomed and well prepared, and to all apparent intents and purposes all goes well. Agencies such as A*****K like to meet with possible contractors to make sure they're not idiots who will provide a poor impression of the agency itself. At which point Bob, like everyone else, becomes aware that I have a physical deformity of the left hand and arm.
The arm itself is six inches shorter than it should be and at the end of it is a flipper (my flipper is called mademoiselle an' she speaks wiz a French accent). It's grotesque, because it's a contravention of one of the basic rules of conformity - how many functioning limbs you're supposed to have. And there is undeniable shock and discomfort in the faces of those who encounter it for the first time.
I'm not disabled, I'm deformed. I've never allowed myself to be spoken of as being disabled, nor allowed myself to be classified as such, nor claimed to be such in official documents that allow one the opportunity of saying that one is disabled. Simply considering the possibility that my persistent failure to gain employment for which I'm qualified and in which I have extensive experience is due to any kind of discrimination makes me deeply uneasy. Because there's nothing I can do directly to change the situation. If I have a bad attitude I can change it. If I'm lazy I can be industrious instead. But this? I'd far rather attribute my lack of success to poor interview technique.
But the trend I've noticed is startling in its consistency. Those who prior to meeting me were all agog as to how soon I was to be employed, and how excellent a candidate I am, immediately take the opposite position after doing so. Like Bob. A week after meeting me the 'dozens' of opportunities once available have vanished. Apparently no one in Richmond is currently hiring after all. Which is a patent lie, as can be discovered by searching Craig's List for current CAD vacancies in Richmond.
Why not just use Craig's List and apply direct? I have. I do. That's not the point. The point is that this... situation... pertains whether I work with agencies or apply direct. All is sunshine and roses before a meeting: all misery and disaster afterwards.
It's long been my position that 'the disabled' too often use their deformities and conditions as a justification and an excuse for the limitations of their lives (just as Blacks do) - and merely raising the possibility that I am being discriminated against on the basis of a repugnance that I myself feel makes of me, in my own mind, a hypocrite. At the same time I've never allowed my deformity to function as an excuse for not doing something (as in rock climbing, caving, or eventually getting employment in my chosen field) or as a justification that others do something for me. So great is my aversion to even the appearance of such things that I've deliberately foregone benefits to which I was legally entitled in Britain in order to do, for myself and by myself, what I have it in me to do.
I loathe dependency, whether on agencies of the state or on other people.
I am an absolute believer in meritocracy: the man most able to do the job gets the job, irrespective of any other consideration. Be he Black, White, or Martian, with one head or four: if he has the necessary qualifications, ability, experience - and if there is no other better qualified, more able, more experienced man available or willing to do the job for the money - then the four-headed Martian guy ought to get the job, as a matter of simple natural justice. And if there are those who, through being subject to a natural repugnance, refuse to accept that natural justice in my own case then they ought to be held to account for that natural injustice.
As yet I have only a suspicion - and a tendency in events that seems to substantiate that suspicion. So I've devised a modest test to see whether there is any kind of ground at all to that suspicion. I shall simply fold the end of my left shirt-sleeve around my flipper and pin it back, after the manner of an amputee. Everyone is familiar with amputation; amputations may excite sympathy, but they rarely excite that repugnance, or disturbance of mind, that results from encountering something unnatural and improper - which is what a deformity is.
I'm vividly reminded, in all of this, of an interview I had years ago in the UK. It was for yet another mapping job, this time mapping fibre-optic cables for a telecomms company (telecomms experiencing a wild boom at that time in Britain). All seemed to be going wonderfully - until I made the mistake of letting the interviewer know that I'd noticed the unbroken fascination (and the unwilling attempt not to reveal it) with which he'd been staring at my left 'hand'. I said something to the effect that he should feel free to ask about it - at which point he turned chalkwhite, then blushed violently. He brought the interview to an abrupt end shortly afterwards and I heard no more concerning that job.
Which, I suppose, is the origin of my strategy of not mentioning it at all in such situations. Which, I can equally well suppose, may lead to some unconscious attempt at concealment on my part - which might, conceivably, further lead to body-language that could be interpreted as aggressive or hostile, which might in turn reduce my chances of getting a job.
I'm feeling charitable at the moment, so I'm willing to entertain such a suggestion. We'll see how I feel after my little experiment. If I get a job on the basis that I'm an amputee, not a mutated freak, I'll know what to think, and what to do, in the future.
One thing I already know, quite clearly. This is an extraordinarily litigous society - and there's always a lawyer willing to take a case on grounds of discrimination. If it turns out that I have some basis for my suspicion after all I shall be contacting Americans with Disabilities and the EEOC. And if they tell me I'm right, some of the fools I've dealt with so far are going to regret they ever had anything to do with me.