loosing the battle
I talked about this back in September, but I'll briefly refill you in, for those new friends I have since then. Last August I applied for a teaching position at the Austin School of Massage, which was offered to me during my primary enterview. Then a month later before the classes began for training I recieved this email that said after speaking with the other people on the board that they couldn't offer me the position, because there was no way I would be able to see the body michanics of the students, or demonstrate technique, for those of you who don't know this by now I'm blind and I found this email very discriminatory, it basically stated in wwriting that they weren't hiring me because I couldn't see. I'm not a fighter, but this made me so angry, I run my own fucking salon and you're telling me I'm not capable of teaching massage, something I've been doing for five years? I should be exactly what they're looking for, because I am successful with massage, and because I do have business experience. Don't tell me I can't teach a fucking class when I run this salon by myself every single day, and there were probably other people picked over me because they could see, that maybe I was more quallifyed than. An investigator was assigned the case, I made a complaint with the eeoc and first the school and I were given a chance to have mediation and see if we could work this out ourselves, but the school flatly refused. That was fine with me anyway, I don't want to work for them now, and I'm going to take the exact same program at a different school, the school where I got my certification. This school is on the north side of town, and already transportation is going to be an issue, the other school that wouldn't hire me is down the street, but I'm willing to go to my old school to get the certification, because I'll be damned if this school is going to tell me it isn't possible. I talked to the investigator today. He talked to them first and he was told that they were going to hire me, before this complaint was made... wtf? The guy said he wasn't happy about that because it sounded like a threat from them, and then he read me this written statement they made "Because of a reliance on a sighted instructor to teach massage technique and supervise student clenic, amidst a host of concurrent health, safety, sexual boundary, mechanical and diciplinary issues the oprotunity to teach technique was not available to her." They're saying I couldn't teach the class, control the class, and sexual boundaries... like am I accidentally going to grab someone's boob wtf? Some of this I already deal with because I've been doing massage for five years, and some of this stuff is rediculous. the whole statement was just a bunch of bullshit. The investigator said I had to counter that with proof that another school hired me to do the same thing, and take the same course. I called my instructor at texas healing arts and she said she will do this. I am tired of fight ing for everything they can't get away with this shit so I'll keep fighting them though. i'm going to get my teaching certificate if I'm able to say that another school has faith in me and is providing me the same oprotunity the austin school of massage has denyed me, then what is going to be there next move?