Insights from Prison: AD
Posted by Anna Debenham, February 21, 2018
A little while ago AD was released from prison and he got a good lead on a job from a friend. Eager to get to work he followed up on it in a promptly. It was raining the day of his interview and the location of the site office was hard to find. So without a car it become a very long walk – down to the docks and round in circles at the ship yard. He finally found where he was meant to be and the interview got underway. This is going well, he thought initially, until the question of criminal record came up. In Oregon the criminal record box has been removed from job applications but if a potential employer asks you a direct question it’s hard to lie – or it was for AD. So he told the truth and the face of the man interviewing him visibly dropped. He became more distant and AD could tell from his body language, tone of voice and general demeanor that this was a deal breaker.
“The old me, he said, would have thought, fuck it, that’s proof I can’t get a job, its impossible, no ones’ going to hire me…” and a whole lot of internal noise and reasons to go to the closest bar and drown his sorrows. That’s what he would have done.
But he know’s now that what someone else thinks doesn’t have the power to dictate how he feels, and really had nothing to do with him. So, with his innate wellbeing in tact and little negative thoughts taking hold, he left the interview site and started the long walk back towards the bus stop.
He stopped at a 7 -11 and and noticed a flaggers truck in the car park. He wandered over to it and inquired whether they were hiring. The guy in the truck said that they were, and to go talk to the boss who was coming out of the store. He took the boss’s number and the boss told AD to give the office a call. His first lead.
He then carried on walking and saw another truck on the side of the road, I think it was a construction crew truck, and asked them the same question; “are you hiring?” Yes, I think we are, call the office. Second lead.
By the end of the day he had two job offers.
If AD had believed his old thinking and got caught up in old negative stories he most likely would have given up and ended up drunk in a dive bar by lunch time. But with less reaction to someone else’s state of mind, and with no attachment to any particular outcome, he was more open and new ideas occurred to him. And as I know for myself, when I get out of my own way, life tends to go a whole lot better…. This is a perfect example.