What Kind of Jobs Can Blind People Do?

What Kind of Jobs Can Blind People Do?

Future Reflections Fall 1988, Vol. 7 No. 3
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WHAT KIND OF JOBS CAN BLIND PEOPLE DO?
Editor's Note: One of the damaging
sterotypes about blindness is the belief that the
blind are limited to a specific and finite "list" of
jobs that "blind people can do." Even when we hear about ablind person who is doing something
new or novel (new to us, anyway), we either discount
it (she is the exception) or we just add one
more "job that blind people can do" to our list.
Seldom do we rethink our erroneous assumptions
about blindness.
The real tragedy is that we--parents, teachers,
friends, enemies, relatives, and yes, even other
blind people- teach this flawed thinking to blind
children. These blind youngsters don't think,
"What do I want to do?" and "How am I going to
do it?" but, "What can blind people do?" and
"Which one of these things that blind people can
do am I most interested in?"
Now, there is nothing wrong with occupations
that have been stereotyped as "jobs that blind
people can do." There are blind people who are
happy and satisfied as medical transcriptionists,
piano tuners, social workers, packagers and piece
workers, computer programers, and lawyers. But
the presumption that one is necessarily limited to
these professions because of blindness is absolutely
false.
The following articles are about blind people
in different kinds of jobs. Some fit nicely into our
stereotypes, others do not. The point is that these
blind people have found jobs that suit their interests
and abilities...regardless of whether those
jobs fit anybody's notion of what a blind person
can, or ought, to do.
BUILDING MY PIANO BUSINESS by Al Sanchez
Editor's Note: The following article was found
in the NFB of Illinois newsletter, The Month's
News.
In November, 1985, I moved to Spokane to
begin a piano service business. I had just completed
20 months of training at the Emil Fries
Piano Hospital in Vancouver, Washington. I
chose Spokane because it had a good public
transportation system and was a big enough city
to offer good prospects for my business. I had an
opportunity to learn more about the city when I
attended the annual seminar of the Piano Technicians
Guild which was held in Spokane in April
of 1985. At that time I met some people who were
already engaged in the business here, and they assured
me that business prospects continued to be
good. After I got started, some of them referred
me some business, which I appreciated very
much.
It took a few weeks after my arrival for me to
find a place to live and work. I needed and found
a house on the city bus line with enough space for
me to do some work at home. I also had to get the
proper licenses and tax identification number.
I put up notices on bulletin boards
everywhere they could be found: grocery stores,
bowling alleys, laundormats, etc. I began to get
some calls to work on pianos. I walked into Music
City Spokane, which is the largest piano store in
the area, and explained to them that I would like
to tune and repair pianos for them. Before long,
they began to need me for a day, a week, and now
it is sometimes more than that. I contacted churches
and got some contracts for one year, which
generally means at least two service jobs. Now I
am getting referrals from satisfied customers.
I feel good about the way my business is growing.
The most pianos I can handle in one day
should be four, although I have done as many as
five by working into the evening. I am willing to
work six days a week (fifty or sixty hours). Of
course, I must have some time to do bookwork.
I hire a person to drive me four to five days a
week. The best way to find such a person I have
found is generally to run an ad in the paper. That
person drives, reads, and if not busy, does certain
assigned tasks during the servicing of a piano. I
do 20 to 30 percent of my work using public
transportation and my white cane or dog guide, I
do not think it is wise to take the dog into people's homes. You never know how they or their cats
may feel about it. I do take the dog to the music
store, to schools, and to churches. It is important
to be flexible in one's ability to travel.
I am now tuning from two to three pianos a
day. I have not done everything I might have done
to get business, because I want to build right and
keep my customers happy. The volume of calls
continues to grow, and I believe I am keeping up
with it. I am now beginning to see some profit
over all expenses and can safely say that there is
no question that it will continue to increase. It is
a good business for me because I do not like to
be cooped up in the builing all day long, and
blindness has not been a major problem.
LEGALLY BLIND WOMAN WORKS AS
BARBER
Editor's Note: This article was orginally
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, April 19,1987.
Hickman, KY. (AP) ~ Dawn Wiseman says a
lot of her customers are going to be surprised to
find out she's legally blind. But the handicap
hasn't kept the 24-year-old woman from pursuing
her dream--working as a barber.
"I just wanted to be a barber. They cut hair,
not just do perms and styling," she said.
Howard Faughn, barber instructor at West
Kentucky State Vocation- Technical School, has
nothing but praise for his former student.
"When I found out she was coming into class,
I went to an eye doctor and had him set his
machine so I could see like she sees. I couldn't
see anything," he said.
Faugh taught Wiseman to cut hair more by
feel than by sight. "She had real acute feeling in
her fingers anyway," he said.
But pupil and teacher agreed that class wasn't
all smooth sailing. Wiseman said she was
tempted to turn in her scissors and go home.
That's when Faughn decided to do a haircut
blindfolded. "She said if I could do it, she could,
too."
Wiseman did, finished the course and earned
a state barbers's license.
Wiseman credits Faughn for allowing her to
take the class.
"A lot of teachers probably wouldn't have
taken me or would have given up, but not
Howard," Wiseman said. "I wouldn't be doing this
if it wasn't for Howard."
Wiseman has been in business for about two
years in her little shop, known as Hilltop Barber
Shop, in this far western Kentucky town.
One of her regular customers, Donna Darnall,
says she knows why other people keep coming
back for haircuts.
"It's simple. They go to her because she does
very, very good work. If she didn't I wouldn't
come back."
Wiseman cuts hair for both men and women,
as well as children.
"Children never look at you to find something
wrong. All they want is a good haircut," Wiseman
said.
MY "OPTION"
by Gwynne Widhalm
Editor's Note: This item was found in News
From Blind Nebraskans, the newsletter of the
NFB of Nebraska.
On November 18th, I received a telephone
call for a job interview. Naturally, I was excited,
since I'd been out of work for quite some time.
The job involved working with an autistic child. I
was well informed about this program, because I
had been asked in May if I would be interested in
working with the boy. However, I couldn't cornmit myself at that time, since I was expecting our
second child.
I went in for the interview and received a full
job description. Brian is seven years old. He is
about the size of a child of nine or ten. When he
wants to run and jump around the room, the
worker must do these things with him. The idea
of the "OPTION" Program is to repeat the things
that he does. This will, hopefully, eventually draw
him back into the external world, out of his inner
self. If he says something, the worker must pick
up on the cue. For example, he might say, "Go A
Team!" In this case, the worker would show him
a picture of the "A-Team"glued to the wall in his
special room.
I will take a moment to say that I am working
with Brian now, and therefore, I will finish this
description with myself in the role of the worker.
He has one room in which we work. The only
time I take him outside this room is when he requests
to use the restroom. He has a shelf containing
food and drinks. He will usually either
take my hand and point to what he wants or he
will say "drink of water" or "hungwe, nana." If he
starts saying things like "Hy- Vee, K-Mart, Alco,"
I either repeat these things or I may sing the HyVee,
the K-Mart, or the Alco jingles.
At times Brian likes to hit and pinch. This was
very hard to get used to at first, because of course
we cannot retaliate. We must redirect his attention
to a toy or place an object between ourselvces
and his hitting/pinching hands. The idea
is to present as few negatives as possible.
I have really had to change my way of thinking
with this program. It is a very positive approach
to treating autism, for which I am very
glad. I am honored to be a part of the "OPTION"
process.
There are just two more points I would like to
bring up. First of all, this is only the second such
program in the state of Nebraska. And finally,
Brian's mother keeps in constant touch with the
"OPTION" Center in Massachusetts, and she has
learned that I am the only blind person involved
with "OPTION". This gives me a real lift, and I
am proud to be a pioneer in this area.
NAPAN MAY BE BLIND, BUT HE CAN FIX
BICYCLES
Editor's Note: We found the following article in The Blind Citizen, the NFB of California newsletter.
They had, in turn, reprinted it from the NAPA
REGISTER, July 20,1987. The article was written
by Kevin Courtney.
Put George Blackstock in a windowless
bicycle shop crammed with broken bikes and
turn out the lights.
In the pitch black, Blackstock would be able
to tear apart every bike, diagnose every ill, make
every repair.
Amazing?
Not for Blackstock, who is blind.
Blackstock does the seemingly miraculous
every day of the week at his Fix-A-Bike shop in
the Napa Valley Shopping Center on Freeway
Drive.
"There are alternative ways of doing everything,"
said Blackstock, who has memorized the
locations of the hundreds of tools and spare parts
that jam his tiny shop.
Since pencil and paper are of no use to him,
Blackstock puts each repair request on a cassette tape, which he ties with an elastic to the bike seat.
As he makes the repair, he talks into the cassette,
tallying the parts and the length of time it
takes him to do the work.
When the customer comes for his bike, Blackstock plays the tape, adding the items on his talking
calculator.
The cash register also talks, telling Blackstock
the keys he has pressed and announcing the correct
change in a warbly, computer- speak voice.
Blackstock, a wiry man of 54 who wears glasses
for appearances, not for vision, can do almost
any repair without assistance.
When he wants to fill a tire to the correct air
pressure, he thumps the rubber.
The spokes give off a special vibration when
the tires are properly inflated, he explained.
If a tire needs patching, Blackstock puts his
customer to work searching for the pinprick hole.
Blackstock started his bicycle business 18 years ago when his deteriorating eyesight forced
him to give up his machinist's job at Mare Island
Naval Shipyard.
As his sight worsened, Blackstock finally gave
up bike repair as well.
"I took the easy way out for a while," said
Blackstock of the years when he raised goats, got
divorced and at times felt terribly sorry for himself.
Two
years ago Blackstock decided he had
made a mistake to give in to his blindness, which
was by then nearly total.
With a loan from a friend, he reopened his
business.
Only now is the operation breaking even, said
Blackstock, who has learned plenty the hard way.
As a blind man working alone, Blackstock has
encountered humanity in its most contrary forms.
Most customers are respectful and honest, but
there are a few-- Blackstock says they're mostly
between age 15 and 20-- "who think it's funny to
give you a $1 bill and say it's a $20."
After giving change one day for three twenties
that turned out to be ones, Blackstock began insisting
that suspicious customers accompany him
to the nearby barbershop where the identity of
the bill could be confirmed.
"Usually they'll say, 'Forget it,' and you'll
never see them again," said Blackstock.
To protect his merchandise, Blackstock has a
buzzer at the entrance that every customer trips.
He also locks each of his new and used bikes
to the display rack.
When Blackstock sometimes loses a cassette,
he prays the customer will return to set him
straight.
"There are other things that can happen, but
not things that didn't happen when I had sight,"
said Blackstock. "Once I sold a customer's bike
to another customer."
"I'm not an exceptional blind person," said
Blackstock, who lost his vision to retinitis pigmentosa,
a hereditary condition.
"I'd much rather be here than sitting home
doing nothing.
"I'm contributing to society. I'm communicating
with people. Just this afternoon I taught a gal
how to put her tire on herself."
Blackstock never wastes an opportunity to
promote bicycling and bike self-sufficiency.
A customer who can repair his own bike will
ride more, thus needing more replacement parts
or a new bike sooner, he reasons.
Unfortunately, said Blackstock, "most blind
people are sitting home doing nothing. It's a
shame."
"When you're blind, everybody tries to protect
you. You can't grow," he observed.
Blackstock gets around using his guide dog,
Rosette, and a cane.
A neighborhood youngster sometimes assists
him in the store.
Blackstock says he looks for kids "who won't
move stuff."
For Blackstock to do his work, every tool and
part has to be returned to its proper place.
A bike shop can be spooky sometimes when
you're by yourself, said Blackstock.
"It can be very quiet and all of a sudden a tire
blows a rim. Or one bike will tip over, knocking
over a whole row of bikes."
ACCIDENT OR MAYBE JUST AN INCIDENT

by Mary Jo Seller
Editor's Note: This article appeared in the NFB
of Illinois newsletter, The Month's News.
Has the neighbor's dog run across your swimming
pool cover, fallen through it and damaged
the lining? Did the drain cleaner you put in the
upstairs plumbling last night escape and leak
through the flooring onto the furniture and carpeting
below? Well, probably not, but these and
other not so similar accident (or incident) reports
have been written, in the past eleven months, by
me.
Working for Schmitt Adjustment Service, I
take general liability, property, and auto reports
from insurance companies as far north as
Freeport, Illinois, to parts of southern Illinois/Indiana,
and west to Grinnell, Iowa. Whether it be
a minor fender-bender, a fire, storm damage, broken bones and, yes, the neighbor's dog
damaging the pool lining - I have taken the
report.
Using a tape recorder, I record the initial
report and then go back and fill out the necessary
forms. This works well for me as I do not have to
ask the person giving the report to repeat or slow
down. I might add this method is used by others
taking reports also.
Besides the reports, I handle the usual run-ofthemill
calls which you learn to expect in his kind
of business. If I am not able to answer a question
or assist someone, I usually take a message and
give it to the adjuster.
I must say having no prior experience in this
type of business it has indeed been a learning experience.
So if you have an accident, or maybe
just an incident, I just might hear about it.
And, by the way, when the farmer's corn down
the road is ready to harvest, please keep your cattle
at home.

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