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Disability Aware & Business

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Housing

John & Lindsy: A Working Roller Coaster

by John Gier

Having a personal assistant was something that I never thought I would need. However, I had a couple of part-time jobs, and I wanted someone there with me. Finding the right person for the help I required was a new experience for me. But I thought ‘if my friends can hire personal workers to assist them at college, I can find someone to assist me with my work.’

I only needed someone to help me for about ten hours a week, so I wanted to keep it simple. I posted an ad on Craigslist and got lots of responses. Many candidates had college degrees. One person I interviewed could not spell even basic words, and spelling was truly what I needed help with in spot checking my eBay listings.

When Lindsy came for her interview, she was easy going and she had no pre-conceived ideas about me or my abilities. I gave her a simple typing test to see what her skills were. She could spell!

W e talked about the expectations of the job, and I felt very independent taking charge of her interview. I just felt we were a good fit and I hired her.

This was going to be a new experience for me. I was actually going to be the boss and I was a little nervous! What if I did not communicate what I needed well or what if Lindsy did not understand me very well?

But, shortly after I hired Lindsy, she invited me to her birthday celebration at Medieval Times. My birthday just happened to be the day after hers, so how cool is that? Maybe that is one of the reasons I felt we would work so well together, and I didn’t feel so nervous anymore.

The week after I Lindsy started working for me, I got let go from my job. But just because I had lost my job, did not mean that I was going to let her go. There were other things that I could use help with.

So Lindsy and I began assisting my mom with her eBay selling business. That did not work out to be a good fit for either of us. So we decided that Lindsy could help me organize a bit, get on a grocery shopping schedule and assist me with other errands and appointments.

Things were going well and we were getting into a nice routine. We were even becoming more like friends, hanging out on the weekend, going to the movies or a comedy club.

As much as I’d like to say everything’s been smooth going, our relationship has had some "roller coaster" moments that I think we both would like to forget. For instance, I got extremely frustrated and maybe a little jealous when Lindsy was helping someone else besides me! Unfortunately, this caused Lindsy and I to get into a blow up and made our working relationship very awkward. We would still hang out but, there was an uncomfortable amount of silence between us. If we could not resolve this issue soon, I was thinking of letting her go. I did not think either one of us wanted to continue like this.

Finally, after talking with Lindsy’s cousin I understood that Lindsy was not going to leave me, she just needed to work more than ten hours a week. I guess it was a learning experience for both of us on needing to communicate better.

When the budget cuts hit Illinois this spring, thestate government threatened to discontinue the program that I use to help pay for Lindsy. That's when I started my advocacy work. I wrote letters to our legislators and went to a rally at the Thompson Building downtown. Then, Lindsy, my mom and I traveled to Springfield for the huge rally at the capitol building.

This turned out to be a bonding time for Lindsy and me. We had more time to just talk with each other on the long ride down.

Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between "being the employer" and being friends. However, since things have been back to normal between us, I have more respect for her and the work that she does. I am very happy to have found her and she had turned out to be a big part of my life.