From the Washington Post:
Edwin Jackson’s government work was finding jobs for military veterans and then making sure those vets succeeded. Like this:
Sure, Jackson says. The woman brings over her husband, whose body language reads, “This is pointless.”
“I can’t work for Social Security,” the man says. “You can’t give me work in my field.”
“What’s your field?”
“I’m a sniper.”
Jackson replies immediately: “Okay, I got a job for you.”
“You didn’t hear me; I’m a sniper.”
Jackson tells the man about his own Army service during the Vietnam War, when Jackson met sniper school graduates and saw how effective they were at designing and planning missions in intricate detail.
“You’re a project manager,” he tells the sniper. “You know the mission and lay it out in every detail needed to succeed.”
Jackson got the man a project manager position at a federal agency. And the government got itself an efficient worker even as it repaid its debt to the sniper for risking his life.
“He was going to count himself out,” Jackson told me. “Sometimes vets need an extra layer of help. You have to help them look at life through a different lens. We owe them that.” ...
3 comments:
My admin assistants at my first ALJ posting were both disabled vets of incredible efficiency and focus. SSA does itself a disservice by cutting back on staff and pretending less is more, especially when the cuts are made randomly and without regard to merit.
It's great he got the job! Does the gov't agency need a trained sniper though? I'll leave that answer to each individual reader.
This is similar to what the supported employment protocols for people with disabilities in SSA's MHTS and Supported Employment Demonstration might have come up with.
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