I had tk leave my last job at the very end of September. I am 31M, I was a quality control engineer in an autoparts factory making stamped steel body parts. I have Loeys-Dietz, have had 3 open heart surgeries (2 valve replacements and a root replacement), spinal fusion (T1-T9), chest reconstruction (pectus carenatum), and card ablations, im a chronic pain patient, and im AuDHD. I was a chronic pain patient before I took the QC engineer job, and for the length of the job, I was having to pull off to the side of the road about once a week to puke from the pain. I am capable of working, I was processing 12 tons kf steel parts a week, plus moving those parts by pallet jack, in top if all my other duties, trying to keep things moving on the line.
I couldnt handle it anymore, and had a job with a startup lined up but that went out the window because the company is in the UK and the inventor is in the US and the tariffs messed everything up. So in January, I go to vocational rehab, they take me on, but in the first meeting, im told not to expect anything from the self-employment route (im wanting to start an ITAD), so job placement would probably bey best bet but my counselor will go over it with me once assigned. When I meet her in February, I ask her about job placement, im hoping to have my resume put in front of recruiters, I was not, am not, and will never been under the impression job placement means an employer is forced tl hire me. I have had many people make that illegal allegation and it infuriates me. The VR counselor made that allegation before I corrected her saying I was just hoping for help to get an initial interview, maybe with a state government agency. I expect to interview for it, I never thought id just be given the job. The law even says services that result in an interview, not a job, just an interview.
She tells job placement is not a service the agency offers, that across her experience working for several state agencies, VR has never worked with recruiters. All they offer is interview prep, resume classes, things even indiana disability rights (IDR) lists on IDR's website as being SUPPORT services, the law lists those services as support services. The law and the RSA 911 data base and PD-19-04 defines the services they listed to me as support services. Indiana Vocational Rehab's comprehensive statewide assessment goes into detail about job placement services in an interesting way. They asked VR employees, VR service vendors, and employers partnering with VR how they would rate VR's job placement services. Interesting question to ask considering I have in email them stating clearly they dont offer job placement services.
They dont ask VR clients that question. They ask VR clients if they received job placement services... services I have them redefining job placement services as job coaching, resume workshops, and practice interviews as job placement services even though the law explicitly says it must result in an interview.
Their own employment services manual explicitly lists job search services (headhunting services), and counselors contacting employers they network with to set up interviews (direct referral), as being offered but then in email, I have the counselor and the area supervisor denying these services are offered anywhere at all in the state.
Please if y'all can look up and find out if your states are similar, please contact your elected reps, these agencies are meant to help us get back to work and be independent and here I am, my agency has denied anything more than fucking resume workshops and interview coaching.
Indiana VR has an average failure rate of 80% with an average engagement of 2 years. Of the successful 20%, it takes 3 years. I came in with a plan for employment, starting with a bridge job, hopefully some kind of analyst or auditing position, and the only thing they had to offer was resume workshops. They denied offering the very service they are mandated by state and federal law to offer. I literally straight up asked my counselor if not offering job placement services (again, nothing more than a direct referral for a firdt interview, or hiring a head hunter service, stuff like, NOT forcing a company to hire me, or the state government, I was literally hoping to interview for a state government job) and asked if saying they didnt offer these services was in violation of Indiana Code IC 12-12-1-5. She said no, that job coaching met that requirement.
I just want to work! I cant do physical labor anymore, I destroyed my joints but I can still work but theyre actively denying me mandated services. Now im going through a long drawn out appeals process after VR closed my file and kicked me out because I went to CAP (client access program, theyre supposed to help) but the IDR lawyer that looked at it after they agreed to take my case and said "I dont know the law exactly myself but even our (IDR) website says they offer support services so we can only do informal advocacy"... they literally said it themselves, SUPPORT services, which the law and the data they have to submit after certifying it to the Rehabilitative Services Administration. They call it supported the law says support services are different, they list whay services they offer which fall under pre-employment support services and not placement services.
Every data element, every law, every statewide assessment, agency services manual, supports what I say, but my VR counselor and her supervisor tell me im wrong but never say how, just that these other services fit which by legal definitions, they dont, and the legal advocates that are supposed to help me, literally said in my zoom meeting they didnt know the exact services and then explicitly listed job search services as being offered when I was told they weren't.
The states, at least red ones, don't want the disabled to work. They will deny you mandated services to your face, tell you they dont offer them despite their own agency documents listing these services.
I dont know what to do. Its been jfc 3 years since I was last able to see a cardiologist. There are NO cardiologists in indiana experienced with Loeys-Dietz. When I went to Purdue, (graduated May 2020 so I had zero chance to get established before Covid) and tried transferring my care to IU Med school in indy, they told me I needed my aortic valve replaced but they couldn't do the surgery, I was too high risk. They sent me to Northwestern in Chicago. Now that il on medicaid, I have to go see a PCP to get a referral to see an out of state doc. I can't get in to see a PCP till July because none are available, and they have to first send me to a cardiologist here to confirm before sending me out of state.
Without a PCP, I also cant get INR monitoring done because that requires a prescription as well which means I will eventually have a stroke. My only way out of this life threatening situation is a job, and the state of indiana and Mike Braun are actively sabotaging my chances of survival.
I do not know what to do, all the jobs around me are physical labor and I can't do that, and AI killed the early career analyst jobs. I was a business ops analyst (precious metals dealer) and a product manager (software development in banking/finance) before a QC engineer but im in the middle of nowhere and wfh jobs dont exist anymore. Im a damn good analyst, I see all the small details, I saved my last employer over $2M in the first 2 months, authored countless FMEA charts by myself mapping out the entire production process and anticipating every possible failure and how to fix the failure.
All I do is plan and figure out how things can fail and then fix it so they dont and im really good at it. My body just cant handle 12 tons a week... I dont know what to do, my degrees are in poli sci and business data analytics but AI has completely destroyed my chances and all I want is to work so I dont die...
And they closed my file (im going through the appeals process) because I didnt want to do assessments when I already had a plan, I just needed VR to provide their mandated services and id be a quick victory for them but they're only wanting me to do assessments even though they dont do anything to actually help put you in interviews. The law literally says no assessments if I already have a viable plan.
Im at my limits... they dont want me to work, they want to make me a ward of the state while the GOP are actively trying to kill medicaid/medicare. The GOP is actively looking to kill the disabled at this point. Please everyone, look at your states VR services and see if the incentive structure for the vendors favors hourly services over milestone payments and results based imbursement. I dont know what to do, im terrified and in an unbelievable amount of pain that is going unmedicated...