blake-watson
Forum Replies Created
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We have quite a few gamers over in the SMA Chat Discord. Not sure if I’m allowed to drop links in here or not but you can find it by going to the SMA subreddit.
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I have this problem and it’s super annoying. I tried to use other job sites like Snagajob, for example, but they kicked me off because I’m not a company.
Indeed has been my only option and it kinda sucks. I’m even sponsoring my posts. But still don’t get very good applications.
My brother and I put this little hiring site together. https://watsoncaregivers.com
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I tried it, but it didn’t do anything for me. Interested in trying it again. Also my state recently approved medical marijuana. But I haven’t worked up than nerve to ask my doctors about it yet lol.
I experience leg pain daily but mostly have it under control with non-narcotic pain meds.
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@Kevin Schaefer The new forums look great! Running pretty slowly though. I’m not sure what yall’s tech situation is but feels like it needs a beefier server. I’m seeing 30+ second load times on most pages.
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Yay! Can’t wait to check it out.
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This is gonna sound weird but I find myself avoiding these because if I do listen in I relate so much that I’m overwhelmed with empathy and I want to immediately contact people so I can tell them how cool they are.
This happened to me a while back on Kevin’s podcast when he interviewed Chaz Hayden. I was immediately on Twitter talking to him about the book. 😂
So I’m glad I get to talk to you guys here in the forum, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to read your dope columns.
idk why I’m like this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Yeah finding caregivers was probably the toughest thing. I went to a school about three hours from home so having reliable PCAs was critical. PCAs are a high-turnover job as it is but it was made even more difficult because of living at home during summers—juggling people in two cities.
But it was all worth it. Going to college was a great experience and I feel like I learned a lot living on my own. If only I wasn’t so goofy and awkward back then 😂.
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Oh, I do have one tip. If you can afford to take advantage of it, many services that have recurring monthly subscriptions typically offer annual ones at a 1 or 2-month discount. It’s a steeper up front cost but results in pretty nice savings.
I have a lot of monthly services because of my profession and hobbies, so not sure how well this advice applies to others.
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I’m not a super frugal person but I have noticed the same phenomenon—stuff that’s easy for me is more expensive. I still buy it anyway, though. But yeah it’s frustrating at times.
I do try to make sure I have some money left after bills and groceries and such so I can put some in savings. For anyone on SSI, ABLE accounts are good for this purpose because the SSA doesn’t count the first $100k (!) of your ABLE account as a resource for the purposes of eligibility testing..
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I’ve had this page open in a browser tab all day trying to think of how to reply and waiting for a good opportunity to do it in between work.
I’m of two minds on this. While I think this is a huge problem of mine, I also think I’m pretty good at dealing with it. Oftentimes I feel like I am pretty open about the challenges I’m facing—I talk about them, write about them, and generally don’t shy away from disability related conversation. But at the same time I feel like a lot of my time is spent trying to appear “normal and decent” while dealing with all sorts of issues behind the scenes.
Anyway, this is the perfect time to give a shoutout my brother’s seminal work in this space: https://blakewatson.com/ihs/pee-math/
(As far as I have been able to establish, he invented the term back in 2012, inspired by a scene in The King of Queens.)
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It’s not strictly social media but I enjoy following you guys (the SMA News Today crew). I know we hate the I-word sometimes but I’m genuinely inspired by my SMA peeps who are publishing articles and videos and creating content in general.
You guys have written some articles and made videos that had me chuckling along knowingly and some that hit me right in the feels. It makes me happy that yall are out there doing you and sharing it with the rest of us.
Sidenote: anyone with SMA who is creating content or is active on social media, hit me with a link so I can check out your stuff! I’m at https://blakewatson.com
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My mother was able to keep her insurance when she retired and still keeps me on it. I’m not sure about the details but I could ask.
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I’m curious about how you make this work. Most potential PCA’s I talk to are looking for full time hours. And when I do have part-time positions, people either don’t take them seriously or they end up working other jobs in addition to mine such that they are not available for filling in for others.
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I usually look through the applications for people I’m interested in interviewing via Zoom. Then if I’m ready to proceed with someone I invite them to my house to meet me in person. After that I get them hired on.
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We have an admin area. It helps us sort through the applications we get and is pretty useful for that. But the quality of applications is pretty low. Most of our traffic comes from Indeed.
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Oh wow, I would evidently have PTSD in hurricane season too if a tree went through my house!
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Yeah, it’s really sad how almost anything we do requires power. But, to that end, I did get a very large capacity power bank so that we could charge devices and not feel guilty about using them for fun.
Nope, all the food went bad unfortunately lol.
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Yeah, that sounds rough! A generator is definitely a good idea. We will probably try again with one (the last one broke), but we might be moving in the next year or two so not looking to make a big investment like that just yet.
YES, my power goes out all the time. Sometimes for no apparent reason. It’s gotten a little better lately I guess but it has a history of being pretty finicky.
Sometimes I weirdly enjoy them at first. A forced break from the screen. Nothing to do but talk to family.
But after like four hours I start having an existential crisis, since all of my skills, abilities, hobbies, passions, work, and friends live inside of my computer. 😅
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Haha, that’s understandable. All I’ll say is I know that it helps me… it’s just a matter of finding out if my doctors would agree. 😅
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@drunge I advertise on Indeed. Even running a free/unsponsored ad can get pull in some applications. But I usually try to throw some money at it for better performance, because the position tends to attract a lot of low-quality applicants, as you’ve mentioned. To be honest, it can get pretty costly running paid ads. But yeah I really don’t know what else to do. Craigslist used to work okay but hasn’t lately.
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@drunge Ok yeah I figured you would’ve had to have been rolled into the hall. I nearly had the same setup in a dorm before I lucked out with the apartment.
Of course on a day I had to give a presentation.
Lol, yup classic timing, as expected.
Yeah MSU has a sprawling campus. Weather was a problem at times and just the amount of traveling in my wheelchair would wear the battery down. One time my chair died like 20 feet from my apartment door.
Regarding the girl, I stupidly sat on my feelings until the week of graduation when it was too late. RIP. ðŸ«
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@drunge It was kind of a given that I was going to attend Mississippi State—much of my family went there and at the time I still cared about sports (I don’t now). So my only consideration was whether to go to my local community college first. But I decided to go straight into university.
Yeah weather played a big part. I was usually allowed to miss if there was a lot of rain. MSU has a large campus so walking distances were relatively large for me. But yeah nearly everything was connected by a sidewalk so even if it was a long way, I could still get there. I def have some funny stories getting stuck in bad weather.
Did you have to go out in the hallway in a lift to get to the bathroom? Or did you use a shower chair or something? Just wondering how you dealt with getting to and from without streaking lol.
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@drunge I lucked out and had an on-campus apartment that was designated for married couples and grad students. It was nice and quiet but still connected to my university’s extensive sidewalk system. And I had an automatic door opener installed so that I could come and go on my own for the first time ever.
When my brother joined me a few years later we had the ultimate setup—two apartments next to each other that constituted the whole ground floor. We slept/showered in one apartment so that we could share an overnight PCA and had our computers, TV, and such in the other apartment.
I definitely miss being able to decide on a whim to leave my apartment and meet up with
the girl I had a crush onpeople at the Starbucks on campus. 🙂 -
I used to be active-ish on Twitter but after Elon revoked access from third-party apps I switched over to Mastodon. I’m at https://social.lol/@bw if anyone happens to be on Mastodon too.