Most of you know the story.  I worked for a year for bureau of services to 
the blind in Nevada when I lived there.  Their name itself is a big laugh, 
what services?  You would think theyof all people would know what was 
needed by a blind employee, they may have known, but didn't care.  I was 
fired for lack of job performance, yet they refused me the tools I needed 
to do the very job I was hired for.  It is an involved story, and quite 
simply, I was set up to fail as I had made way to many waves about their 
lack of service and inability to help their blind clients find employment, 
and that was a way to shut me up.  I was promised when I was hired they 
would give me anything I needed to be successful.  They had a program that 
I was supposed to use to look up jobs in the state data base.  It was 
totally mouse driven, no keyboard commands at all, and they knew this when 
I was hired and this was pointed out while the program was under 
development.  Nothing at all was done to fix the problem.  I have been 
asked by folks in the past if I'd recommend Las Vegas as a place for a 
blind person to move to and look for a job and I still say absolutely no 
no no. It is real simple, if there are 20 sighted people ahead of you with 
similar qualifications, do you really think you as a blind person will 
even be considered.  If you do, you are living in a dream world.

I also some years ago applied for a job as a computer tech in Kansas with 
their social rehab services.  Because of my blindness, my resume was 
thrown out immediately.  They said I didn't hve the necessary years of 
experience which proved they didn't even read my resume.  I filed a 
complaint with Kansas human rights and oddly enough the guy who did the 
final investigation was a ham.  He said he could tell immediately I was 
more than qualified and that I really knew my stuff.  I asked him what he 
thought and he said off the record it absolutely was discrimination, no 
doubt.  He also told me that all his superiors would let him put in 
writing was "we cannot support the fact Mr. Bussen wasn't given an 
interview for this job."  My point is if we're treated that way by people 
who should know better and by our own government, how can we expect the 
bgeneral public to be any different?

73
Butch
WA0VJR
Node 3148
Wallace, ks.