Full Transcript
Pam Gowan:
I always encourage people once they’ve identified a couple jobs to maybe do informational interviewing, which is where you go and you find people who are actually doing those jobs, and ask specific questions so that they can get a real feel for whether that’s something they’d like to do.
Jeff Thompson:
Please welcome from State Services for the Blind of Minnesota, business relations specialist, Pam Gowan.
Pam Gowan:
Then I’d like to help them with the labor market information and that really helps in looking at the employment trends. You can help them determine if a job is in a growth area, or is it declining, where geographically those jobs might be located.
Jeff Thompson:
Over 45 years of helping blind and visually impaired individuals achieve their employment goals.
Pam Gowan:
Not a lot of people know I have a twin sister, but I told her, I said, “You got to come in and work for me and pretend to be me just one last time before I retire.” Nowadays, you really have to have computer skills if you want to look for work. Every application is submitted online. You all have to upload your resume, correspondences through email.
Jeff Thompson:
Pam works with businesses and helps educate them on the possibilities and abilities of the blind and visually impaired.
Pam Gowan:
I think attitude plays a big part, motivation, certainly self-confidence and self-esteem is important. That’s why I like to encourage young people to get out and volunteer, get a summer job, do a number of different things because it helps your self-confidence and your self-esteem, and that comes across when you’re in an interview.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter at Blind Abilities, and download the free Blind Abilities app on the app store and on Google play. That’s two words, “Blind Abilities.” You can also enable the Blind Abilities skill on your Amazon device. Just say, “Enable blind abilities.”
Pam Gowan:
Put in a fair day’s work. Put your time in, do your job, but when you have to go above and beyond, you do it.
Jeff Thompson:
Ultimately working with Pam at State Services for the Blind to live the life and career that you want.
Pam Gowan:
Try different things. You’re not going to know that you can’t do something unless you go ahead and try it. Put your fears aside, get out there, try to find some work and be adventurous.
Jeff Thompson:
Interview conducted by Lisa Larges. Please welcome business relations specialist, Pam Gowan.
Lisa:
I’m Lisa Larges, and I’m Outreach Coordinator at State Services for the Blind. As part of our celebration of National Disability Employment Awareness month, it occurred to me that one of the people here at State Services for the Blind that probably knows most about employment for people who are blind, or deaf blind, or visually impaired is one of our business relations specialist, Pam Gowan.
Lisa:
Pam is just about to retire after working at State Services for the Blind for four decades, right?
Pam Gowan:
45 years actually.
Lisa:
45 years. Pam knows a lot about our history as agency, but especially Pam has a lot of experience and a lot of success stories to share about people who are blind, visually impaired, deaf blind, finding employment, making a difference in the State of Minnesota. The other thing I want to say about Pam right off is in the years that I’ve been here, I’ve sort of noticed the pattern that if there’s anything fun or interesting happening here at State Services for the Blind, Pam is probably at the center of it.
Lisa:
Most of all, I just wanted to tap into Pam’s memory bank and share some of the stories about the work we do around here and how it happens. So thank you really so very much Pam for being willing to do this today.
Pam Gowan:
You’re very welcome.
Lisa:
Yay. I just want to know how was it that you got your start. Let’s start there. So beyond 45 years ago, how did it end up that you came to be at State Services for the Blind?
Pam Gowan:
Well, I actually started at SSP as a clerical support for the placement team. The placement team consisted of the supervisor, two job developers, and a human services technician. So I was the clerical support. About six months after I started, the person who held the position as the human services technician quit. So apparently, I wasn’t a real good clerical support person because they asked me if I wanted that job instead.
Pam Gowan:
It sounded really interesting. I agreed to take that job and then started as the human services technician, which was where I probably gained most of the knowledge I have now about accommodating jobs, because the job developers would go out and meet with employers, help convince them to hire blind people. Then on the day that they would start, I would start with them. It’s at that time that you really start to realize what accommodations have to be made to make those jobs work.
Pam Gowan:
So I thought that was great fun, and I’ve been in the placement unit ever since. My job evolved because not only did I start on the job with folks, then I got more involved with making the actual employer contacts, trying to convince employers that blind people could work, and doing more and more of the whole placement process. So that’s how I got where I am today.
Lisa:
I was wondering if you would walk me through the process, so I’m a blind consumer looking for a job, and I met with my SSB counselor, and I’ve completed all the steps I needed to go through to get to the point where I’m ready to start looking for a job. So now my counselor recommends that I work with you. Take me through how you as a business relations specialist would work with me and help me find a job.
Pam Gowan:
Okay. This might get a little lengthy because what I’d like to do is cover everything that we might do with a person who is looking for work. Initially, we used to just get referrals from counselors of people who were ready to go to work, and that’s changed some over the last few years because what we found is that folks really need help in identifying the right job for them as well as looking at labor market and all kinds of things that pertained to them getting work.
Pam Gowan:
Basically what we do now, and we don’t do the same thing with everybody, because of course, people come to us at different stages in their lives, but initially if a person doesn’t know what kind of job they want, we’ll help them with interest testing to just get their imagination going. If nothing else, start researching some jobs.
Pam Gowan:
I always encourage people once they’ve identified a couple jobs to maybe do informational interviewing, which is where you go and you find people who are actually doing those jobs, and ask specific questions so that they can get a real feel for whether that’s something they’d like to do. I also encourage people to do research on the sites there’s O*Net, Career-Wise, those are really good sites for that career exploration. It helps them get a true idea of what the jobs are, what the duties entail, the salaries, the hours, what educational requirements there might be.
Pam Gowan:
Not everyone is cut out for a four-year program, four-year college degree, there might be two-year programs, there could be certification programs. So what we’ll do is help folks do that type of research. Then when they’ve narrowed it down to hopefully one job, but maybe even if there’s two, then I like to help them with the labor market information, and that really helps in looking at the employment trends.
Pam Gowan:
You can help them determine if a job is in a growth area or is it declining, where geographically those jobs might be located, and that helps identify the job they’re looking for. My colleague was working with someone who got a degree in archeology but did not want to leave Minnesota. So that creates a problem. Same thing with video game designers, a lot of kids like to get into that.
Pam Gowan:
Well, unless you’re willing to maybe relocate out to California. There aren’t many jobs here in Minnesota, and in doing that, labor market information helps you identify those aspects of the job. Also, what I like to do is look at how their vision will maybe create a barrier in certain jobs. Not every job can be accommodated, of course. The technology has changed and advanced, but there’s still jobs like CNC machine operator.
Pam Gowan:
Back in the old days, the machine operators they were drill press operators, and the job was pretty straightforward, but nowadays there’s led displays and blueprints on screens that aren’t accessible. A job like that really can’t be accommodated for a totally blind person. Then there’s jobs like web design. You’d probably need a little bit of vision to do that but working with the person and getting a real good idea of what those jobs entail helps identify what job is a good fit for them.
Pam Gowan:
So hopefully that helps them find a job they’re interested in and apply for the educational programs that might be available for them. What I do with everyone is to find out what types of skills they have related to the actual job search, because nowadays you really have to have computer skills if you want to look for work. Every application is submitted online. You all have to upload your resume, correspondences through email, and I need to know if that person has computer skills. If they don’t, what I would do is set-up an email address for them, and then it’s my responsibility then to check it for them.
Pam Gowan:
Now I like to put responsibility on them. So I say, You call me every week and ask me when you want me to check your email.” Things like that to put a little responsibility on them. So the computer skills are really important. Write some cover letters, thank you letters, those are things that we need to get in place before the actual job search. Then what I need to find out are their work preferences. Where do you want to work? Are you willing to work weekends, nights? What kind of salary are you looking for? Do you have any lifting restrictions?
Pam Gowan:
Are you able to get bonded? If they’re looking for some type of a security job. Do you have kids? Do you have childcare in place so that you’re available to go on job interviews and go to work every day? I ask them if they understand how working will affect their benefits. There’s the trial work period. There’s medical assistance program for employed people with disabilities to MA-EPD. So, there’s things related to their benefits that they need to know before going to work.
Pam Gowan:
Then of course then we get into the basics like they need a focused resume that highlights their skills. Of course, you put all your contact information on the resume, which is the email and the phone, and got to make sure that they have an appropriate email. I’ve seen some real doozies out there. You don’t want to use an email like Slick Rick or …
Lisa:
Ihatetowork@gmail.com, or something like that.
Pam Gowan:
Right, exactly. Yeah. There are some that have been really interesting, but you really want to make sure that it’s appropriate. The same with an outgoing phone message. I called someone the other day, and the first thing I heard was a child screaming. Then she gave her outgoing message and it’s like, “Okay, we’re going to know address that one.”
Pam Gowan:
Of course, they have to have three current references. Then I talk to them about how comfortable they are interviewing, dealing with the whole disclosure thing. Do you want to tell the employer that you’re blind? When do you want to tell them? How do you tell them? So we talk about all of that, and it’s going to be different for every person. They all have different opinions, and they’re all comfortable doing it different ways, which is fine, but I just want to make sure that they are able to address it comfortably and talk about their vision in and during the interview.
Pam Gowan:
So we’ll do mock interviews with them. That’s something available. What I do is encourage people to go out and apply for jobs that they’re not interested in, because there’s no pressure there, because if you blow the interview, so what? You didn’t want the job anyway. It gives them actual real-life practice. Our mock interviews here, we try to make as real as possible, but they’re still not … it’s not like interviewing for a real job.
Lisa:
It’s true that there’s a lot of times when you first interview like I remember not being aware of just how nervous I would be, and also learning how to answer questions well. It just takes a little practice, so I love that idea of going out and applying for some jobs that you may not want to take just to have that experience.
Pam Gowan:
Right. Everybody’s nervous in an interview, and that can be a good thing. It keeps you on your toes, but you really want that practice in talking about your vision. If you use access technology, you want to work that into your answers, and that does take practice. The more you do it, the more comfortable you’re going to get, and you’ll definitely have a much better interview.
Lisa:
It occurs to me that by the time one of our consumers who’s working with State Services for the Blind has worked with somebody like you, they in some ways have a real leg up on the whole job search process because you’ve thought about questions that a lot of people who are just out looking for a job may not think of, about labor market information, or all of the questions about where the jobs are and what my own preferences are. That’s something that lots of folks who are just putting their resume out there may not be thinking about.
Pam Gowan:
Right, exactly. Yeah, you want to apply for jobs that you’re going to be happy with. Coming from someone who’s been in a job for 45 years, that’s really important.
Lisa:
You could be spending a lot of your lifetime in this job, so yeah.
Pam Gowan:
Right, right. Yup.
Lisa:
On the other side, when you’re working with employers, let’s say that I’m an employer and I have someone on my staff who’s losing their vision. Maybe we really like this person, but we’re pretty sure that maybe they won’t be able to do their job anymore. Maybe we’ll have to let them go, or maybe we’ll have to create some meaningless work for them. We hear that SSB has people who can help employers develop accommodations. So tell us how you go about working with businesses. Also, what employers want to know is, is this going to cost us a lot of money?
Pam Gowan:
Right? Yup, that’s always a concern. The thing is a lot of employers don’t know about State Services for the Blind, so we hope that the individual who is on the job, maybe having the vision issues will at least contact us. Now, what I like to do in a situation like that as far as, we refer to that as a job retention, person who’s already working. I like to meet with that person one on one off their work site, so that they can be honest with me on what their vision is, get a little history on what has happened in that job so far.
Pam Gowan:
If there’s been performance reviews, how have those reviews been? Have they been positive? Are they at risk of losing their job? Then I like to get specifics about their vision. If we bring them into services for the blind here into our resource center, we have different types of equipment that we can test as far as low vision, speech output, introduce them to some options.
Pam Gowan:
Many times, if they’re in a job where they have to deal with print, I ask them to bring samples with them. Sometimes due to confidentiality they can’t, but at least we can get an idea of what type of print they have to deal with. If they have to access a computer, we’ll show them some software technology available for that, but we do it off their employment site so that they’re more comfortable leveling with us as far as what’s going on.
Pam Gowan:
Then what I like to do is connect with the employer and this is all … has to be what the individual is comfortable with. There are some folks who are having trouble on the job, but they don’t want their employer to know they have a vision problem. So they come looking for some type of aid or device. Those situations are always tough, but for the most part folks are usually happy to have us go out and talk to their employer.
Pam Gowan:
I’ll offer to do a job analysis if that’s necessary. That’s just an in depth look at their job. For example, if somebody has to access data, and it’s not in an electronic format, what we can do is research and find out, “Where does that data originate from? Was it ever in an electronic format? Because sometimes they make printouts and say, “Here you have to deal with this printout.”
Pam Gowan:
It might have been in an electronic format prior to that, which would be easier for the person to access. Then there’s other smaller things that I refer to as low tech situations where if someone for example is on a switchboard, and they have to find certain lights as the calls are coming in, and they have trouble seeing it, sometimes if you just put cardboard around the area to create more contrast, the lights would show up stronger.
Pam Gowan:
The same thing with computer monitors. Sometimes someone’s sitting by a window and the glare from the sun is causing them problems seeing the screen, or maybe they need a larger monitor. There’s a number of different things that you can identify low tech and high tech. So then what I do is I draw up a list of every accommodation that they might need, and then negotiate with the employer as far as cost. Of course, employers, the bottom line is what’s important to them as far as saving money.
Pam Gowan:
So depending on what the accommodations are that they need, we just start negotiating. If it’s a device that a person needs for their personal use as well as on the job, we might buy that because anything the employer buys has to stay on the job. They wouldn’t be able to take it home with them, but it might be things like O and M even, or any type of software, large print software, speech software, larger monitor, scanners maybe if they … you know, other people don’t use a scanner to deal with print, maybe extra training. We negotiate the cost for all of that. It depends on the size of the employer. So it can really vary.
Lisa:
So those costs might be shared between State Services for the Blind and the employer, and maybe the consumer too. Is that how it works?
Pam Gowan:
The consumer rarely contributes. Maybe if it’s a device that they want to purchase themselves, then yeah, then in that case they would buy it and they say, “Yeah, this is something I could use at home as well as on the job.” So yeah, you’re right, it’s all negotiable.
Lisa:
I think that’s one important thing for employers to know too is that SSB sits down as a partner to say, “Let’s figure this out.” Like, “How we’re going to do this together?”
Pam Gowan:
We never want anyone to lose their job, or not get a job because an employer can’t afford accommodations. So we make sure that they’re obtained in one way or another. When we’re dealing with employers with a new hire, there’s tax incentives for them that might help set offset the cost of any accommodation that the WOTC, Work Opportunity Tax Credit for any employer who pays federal taxes. What they’re able to do is write a percentage of their salary off of their taxes, and they could save up to I believe it’s $2,600 which a lot of times would cover any accommodation that the person might need. So that’s a little incentive, but only for a new hire.
Lisa:
For a small business, that’s significant at that.
Pam Gowan:
Right, exactly. Yup.
Lisa:
Yup, that’s great. I know as a blind person that in the years that I’ve been working, boy, technology has come along and changed the way I work in really profound ways. One of the things I love about talking with you Pam, is just some of the great stories you’ve had about in the past, how you had to make adaptations before technology came along to do a lot of the things that were just a lot harder back in the day.
Lisa:
I’m just wondering, can you just talk a little bit about how accommodations have changed, and what stayed the same, and what’s possible now that you couldn’t have imagined maybe 45 years ago or 15 years ago for that matter.
Pam Gowan:
Right. Yeah. Back in the early days before electronics, and computers and everything, accommodations were … you had make them yourself, and really that was the most fun for me. I remember when I first started, the very first accommodation that I was even aware of, and it might’ve been the only one, or the first one that was built by SSB. Our engineer, you’re in the communication center, Bob Watson, I don’t know how many people remember him. He built a black box and they literally called it, “The black box.”
Pam Gowan:
It was for a cord board, switchboard operator. Maybe there’s a lot of people who don’t even know what a cardboard is, but if you remember back in the early 70s on Laugh-In?
Lisa:
Yes.
Pam Gowan:
Lily Tomlin as Ernestine, the switchboard operator.
Lisa:
Everybody, pause this podcast right now and go over to YouTube and look up Ernestine.
Pam Gowan:
Ernestine in Laugh-In. She was hysterical. She’d be snorting and she’d say the, “One ringy dingy, two ringy dingy,” and then she’d always say, “Is this the party to whom I am speaking?”
Lisa:
Yup, that’s right.
Pam Gowan:
Anyway, it was that kind of cord board that this person was actually working on. So that’s really old technology, but Bob Watson built this box with a braille cell on it. When the call would come in, the braille cell would identify which trunk line the call was coming in on so that they would know where to grab the cord or where to put the cord, but that was a big deal back then.
Pam Gowan:
Now granted, okay, that was early 70s, probably late 70s, so the cord boards didn’t stay around for very long fortunately.
Lisa:
Yeah, that was a job that suddenly people could do that they couldn’t do before that.
Pam Gowan:
Right. I was involved in another switchboard situation that was a little more modern. It had lights and round like buttons. They had colored key caps that would go on these buttons. They’d call the front desk and say, I’ll say, “This is Pam. I’m going to be out for the rest of the day.” So they’d take a colored cap and put it on that person’s button to signify that the person’s going to be gone for the day.
Pam Gowan:
There were four different colors. If a person was in a meeting, if they were gone for a couple hours, they’d all signify different lengths of time. So there were these four different colored caps that needed to be marked, and I’m looking at tape wouldn’t hold because they were rounded too. The surface was round. So I’d try high marks, glue type stuff that that dries hard, trying to put some braille dots on it, but that didn’t work well.
Pam Gowan:
I ended up taking a carpenter’s nail set, which is one of those metal things that you put on top of a nail and give it a whack and it sinks it below the wood. I took the nail set and put the cap on a soft surface, gave it a tap, and there was a perfect braille cell right on the other side of that cap. So I’d put one bump on one color, two on another, three and four, it worked out great, so they could keep track of the colors just by the number of bumps on them.
Lisa:
Yeah, and really low tech and simple how to transfer something that is visually coated to something that’s tactically coated.
Pam Gowan:
Yeah, it’s just being creative and doing some problem solving, which I really enjoyed.
Lisa:
So tell us some of the successes that you’ve had most proud of.
Pam Gowan:
I think the ones that are most memorable for me are the ones that really required the most job accommodations, because they were more challenging. Nowadays with the technology and the computers, I can’t go out to a job site and test JAWS for example, or zoom text because of a lot of employers have proprietary software, and so we need our computers techs go out and do that. So that takes some of the work away from me, but the jobs where I needed to really do the hands on accommodations, those were really the most fun and probably most memorable.
Pam Gowan:
I remember working with a physical therapist assistant, and she needed to initial every day that she completed a session for someone, and it could be any day of the month. So I made a plastic template cutting out 31 little squares using an exacto knife. So that made her job feasible for her to do. It makes you feel good when you come up with solutions that help people too.
Lisa:
Right. That’s just a tiny little part of her job, not even essential to the real skills that she needs, but something that she needs to do all of the time. So, over the years have you noticed, are there certain character traits that would increase somebody’s likelihood of success in the job search process?
Pam Gowan:
I think attitude plays a big part. Motivation, certainly self-confidence and self-esteem is important. That’s why I like to encourage young people to get out and volunteer, get a summer job, do a number of different things because it helps your self-confidence and your self-esteem, and that comes across when you’re in an interview. If you’re a confident person, that’s going to come across to the employer.
Pam Gowan:
So I think those things are really important, and I think it helps to have a good sense of humor. Certainly, I try to have a sense of humor and just have a nice personality. Employers look for people who can get along with their other staff too.
Lisa:
I think that’s one of those intangible things that when you go in for a job interview, somebody sitting there thinking, “Ooh, I basically like this person. I think they’d fit in here.”
Pam Gowan:
Yup. Having a nice personality is really important. When I talk to people about interviewing, for example, nowadays employers are much more aware of the ADA, and what questions they can and can’t ask. Every once in a while, you might get an employer who asks, what do you call it? An illegal question, because they’re curious maybe about a person’s vision.
Pam Gowan:
So if they ask a question like, “Well, how long have you been blind, or how did you go blind?” Those are illegal questions, but you don’t want to say, “That’s illegal. I don’t have to answer that.” You can’t be rude about it. So I tried to instruct people on how to deal with that. I’d tell them to say, “Well, I’d like to get into that with you, but I know your time is important. So I’d rather spend our time today talking about the job and my qualifications.”
Pam Gowan:
So that’s where the practice comes in too, where you try to redirect them, but still be very pleasant about it.
Lisa:
Yeah, that’s a nice way to just quietly turn it around. Yeah.
Pam Gowan:
Right.
Lisa:
Are there ways that you’ve helped people build their confidence? I bet there are times when you just watched people’s confidence just skyrocket too.
Pam Gowan:
Right, in fact, I met with somebody this morning for mock interview. That person has no work experience, no self-confidence whatsoever. So we went through the interview, and he actually did quite well. So you point out all the things that he did well, and that helps. You just encourage people, let them know that they’ve got something to offer an employer. I mean, everybody has skills, and even if you don’t have actual work experience, you’ve developed what we call transferable skills just from everyday life.
Pam Gowan:
Certainly for a blind person, they’ve been through a lot of situations where they’ve had to do problem solving, and had to be resourceful, and you point out those things that they’ve actually done, whether it’s through school or outside of school and just help them identify those skills, and that usually helps.
Lisa:
Why have you stayed here for 45 years? What have you loved about your job here?
Pam Gowan:
Well, I think mainly the variety. My job over the years has actually changed a lot. As I said, when I started out in a clerical job, and then just kept getting more and more involved in the actual job placement. I tell you, going out to all these different companies is probably the most fun. There was one company, I went out to look at a job and they’re telling me about the owner and they said, “Oh yeah, the owner of this company has a collection of nude statues down on the second floor.”
Pam Gowan:
Unfortunately the job I was there to look at was on the fourth floor, so I didn’t get to see that, but the companies are so interesting. There was one, they had a lunchroom at the top floor surrounded by windows. The view was gorgeous. This whole lunchroom was fully stacked. They had a couple refrigerators, and there was fruit and veggies, and microwaves and pizzas, and it was open to all the employees. You just go up there and I mean, it was a wonderful.
Pam Gowan:
So seeing the different work environments is certainly fun, but really my job early on where I worked with everybody who started their job on those sites, you never knew what you were going to encounter and what problems you could solve. So it was just really fun. My job is never the same every day. There’s always something different, and I think that’s mainly why I stayed here for so long because I’ve really enjoyed my job and the variety is amazing.
Lisa:
How has field of rehabilitation changed? What’s been positive about that? What’s more difficult about that?
Pam Gowan:
The positive things in rehab has certainly been the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act. Employers are much more knowledgeable now about their responsibility and accommodating people with disabilities. That’s a positive thing. The other positives might be that we have more resources for training.
Pam Gowan:
Years back, adjustment to blindness training at some of these facilities wasn’t available. You’d go and you’d contract with maybe a cane travel instructor for O and M, or maybe some independent living skills, they’d go out to somebody’s home, where we’re now we’ve got excellent training programs in that area.
Pam Gowan:
The same with technology, we’ve got resources for teaching people how to use various access technology and accessing a computer. So those types of resources has certainly made things a lot more positive, but it’s still difficult to convince employers that blind people can work.
Pam Gowan:
Blindness is a low incidence. They’re not real familiar with blindness. So when I talk to employers, they can be so amazed at, “Oh my gosh, a blind person could take a bus,” or, “Can they really make coffee?” They’re so amazed. I try to use an example. I ask them, I said, “Do you ever get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom?” They said, “Oh well, yeah, on occasion.” So I’m like, “Do you turn on every light to get there?” It’s like, “Well, no.” I said like, “It’s part of your routine. You learn to do things in a different way and without vision when you’re not even thinking about it.”
Pam Gowan:
So blind people just like everybody else, they just have alternative ways of doing things. They can get the things done, but it’s still, that is the difficult part. It has an educational thing that you have to do with employers. I remember somebody went on an interview, and the employer didn’t know the person was blind. So, came out to meet him and saw he was blind and they didn’t even grant him an interview. They said, “Well, I’m sorry, this job can’t be done if you’re blind.”
Pam Gowan:
So he notified me, and I made a call to the employer. I nicely called to introduce myself and I said, “I wanted to talk about the job.” She said, “Well, I really don’t think this job could be done by a blind person because all of it is on the computer.” She must’ve thought I was nuts because I said, “Oh, that’s perfect. That’s going to work out great.”
Pam Gowan:
Yeah, you just talk to them and say, “Can we just have an opportunity to come out and test your system?” It does take that extra effort to convince these employers to give somebody a chance, because they’ve got excellent skills.
Lisa:
Do you have a philosophy about your work? What are the things that are most important to you?
Pam Gowan:
I would say put it in a fair day’s work. Put your time in, you do your job, but when you have to go above and beyond, you do it. The job I have isn’t always 8:00 to 4:30. If somebody is working a night shift, or if somebody needed job coaching at the target field and it was the evening game, you don’t say, “Well, I don’t work past 4:30,” but you have that flexibility and you do. You go above and beyond when you have to. Put in that extra time. Care about what you do.
Lisa:
I mentioned that since I’ve started working here, I’ve noticed that you tend to be at the center of anything fun that’s going on. It might be a ping pong tournament; it might be dancing on Wednesday morning. I’m just curious about what do you do to stay happy and positive? Where does that come from?
Pam Gowan:
Well, that’s a lot of what I do to stay happy and positive is to have some fun. I love practical jokes. I have a twin sister and with the staff turnover, not a lot of people know I have a twin sister, but over the years, she’d stop in just maybe even have lunch or something, and people would freak out. So I told her, and this was just three weeks ago, I said, “You got to come in and work for me and pretend to be me just one last time before I retire.”
Pam Gowan:
That was a riot. It was an absolute riot. So I love doing stuff like that. I think for morale too, playing ping pong, doing the morning dance thing, I think it really helps. Our jobs aren’t easy. I mean, not that anyone has a real easy job, but if you can have some fun, I think that makes all the difference.
Lisa:
I think for people who are in that job search process, boy, it can be so hard going sometimes [crosstalk]-
Pam Gowan:
Oh my gosh, I’d tell people, “Looking for a job is going to be the hardest job you’re ever going to have.” It’s frustrating. It’s depressing. It’s really tough every day, face that search and get rejection, and it is really tough. People need to find some type of a release of that kind of pressure. If it’s exercise or just something you enjoy, even listening to music. Exercise is great. We play ping pong here, and I’d tell you after a few games, it’s just the break that you need. You almost feel refreshed.
Lisa:
Just got a new burst of energy.
Pam Gowan:
Right. The same with job searching, and commit three to four hours every day to do that, but then go out and do something you enjoy.
Lisa:
What’s next for you? What are you going to do in retirement?
Pam Gowan:
I’ve been giving that a lot of thought lately. It’s things that I haven’t had time to do because I’m working. I want to check out more bike trails, get out, have some time to bike. I always wanted to learn to play the keyboard. I might look into that. My husband retired also, so hopefully we’ll be able to maybe go somewhere warm.
Pam Gowan:
My sister has already asked us if we’d like to go to Aruba for a week with her and her boyfriend. So taken them up on that. I think I need to find like a volunteer work to do, just to have something to do. I can’t sit around and do nothing. So I’m going to try to find some volunteer work to do, I think.
Lisa:
That’s cool. What would you say to a young person who’s blind? What advice would you have for them?
Pam Gowan:
I always encourage young people, especially high school students to get a volunteer job or a summer job. Volunteer job I think is beneficial as a paid job. It’s work experience. It helps them gain that self-confidence. The thing is, I would also encourage them to try different things. You’re not going to know that you can’t do something unless you go ahead and try it. Put your fears aside, get out there, try to find some work and be adventurous.
Lisa:
Yeah, I think that’s great. You don’t know what you can or can’t do until you tried it. That’s how you should build a knowledge base of what your skills are.
Pam Gowan:
Make sure you get those fundamental skills that you need. Get out there, practice O and M, your travel with your cane, taking the bus, those are all things you need to learn to be successful to go to work and to be independent. Try cooking meals, and we have training programs that’ll help people learn that. Once you learn it, practice it.
Lisa:
Any other secrets you want to reveal, or any other things you want to say? Anything that you’ve wanted to get off your chest for the last 45 years?
Pam Gowan:
I better say no, but I’ve had a wonderful career here. Really, I’ve loved my job most days. Everybody has their ups and downs, but I’ve really enjoyed being here and in the staff. Working with the staff has been great. What’s interesting is that looking back, I have worked for every single director of the agency because when I started, C. Stanley Potter was … he was running the ship.
Lisa:
He was the first director here.
Pam Gowan:
Right. Now, Natasha Jerde is … she’s just newly appointed, so she’s hopefully going to be on board for quite a while. So up until now I’ve worked for every single director.
Lisa:
It’s been really fun working with you, but more than that, it’s been really meaningful to me both to hear the stories you have to share, but that caring for the people that we work with, that we provide resources for so that they can go out and create the life they want to live, that comes through in what you do, and that means the world to me. So, thank you.
Pam Gowan:
Oh, you’re very welcome. That’s what it’s all about.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcasts with the Blindness Perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter at Blind Abilities, and download the free blind abilities app from the app store and on Google play. That’s two words, “Blind Abilities.”
Jeff Thompson:
You can also enable the Blind Abilities skill on your Amazon device. Just say, “Enable blind abilities.” A big shout out to Chee Chau for his beautiful music. You can follow Chee Chau on Twitter @LCheeChau. From State Services for the Blind and Blind Abilities, thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed, and until next time. Bye-bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective:
Check us out on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com On Twitter @BlindAbilities
Download our app from the App store:
‘Blind Abilities’; that’s two words.
Or send us an e-mail at:
Thanks for listening.
Contact Your State Services
If you reside in Minnesota, and you would like to know more about Transition Services from State Services contact Transition Coordinator Sheila Koenig by email or contact her via phone at 651-539-2361.
To find your State Services in your State you can go to www.AFB.org and search the directory for your agency.
Contact:
Thank you for listening!
You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities
On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com
Send us an email
Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Storeand Google Play Store.
Check out the Blind Abilities Communityon Facebook, the Blind Abilities Page, the Career Resources for the Blind and Visually Impairedand the Assistive Technology Community for the Blind and Visually Impaired.