How did I get here?

You might be wondering how I ended up working on a military base for the the summer. The answer has two parts. The first part is by being mislead by my employer and the other is my own naive fault.

I did not apply for this job. I took part in the Work Place Recruitment program. The WRP matches College seniors or newly graduated students with disabilities with federal jobs. They have recruiters (that should of been my first tip off) travel to colleges to meet with students and then send their interview notes along with resumes to employers. This is a way to get more students with disability into the work field. I got involved in the WRP because the recruiter used the office where I worked on campus for the interviews and since there was a two hour gap between interviews I met with the recruiter to make my coworker look better. Months down the road I got a call at 5:00 am with a job offer. (My soon to be coworker always forgets time differences and routinely called me at 5:00am (that should have been tip two not to take the job).

I got a job offer to work at the Equal Employment Office (EEO) in New York. I was told I would work full time for three months receiving roughly 20$ an hour with free housing. This sounded great! The EEO is an office that fights for workers who are being discriminated against based on race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or age. I was told there was no public transportation but the store is about a 10 minute walk and I could get rides to work. All of this sounded like a great opportunity that shouldn't be passed up.

I was told the Office was in Fort Drum. This is where the deception starts. That raised a red flag for me. I immediately asked "will I be working for/ with the Army?" I was assured that this job is not affiliated with the army, and the office is strictly civilian based. (Tip off three) Here is where me being naive comes into play. I stopped questioning her. I assumed that my office was a federal based office that did EEO work that was located on Fort Drum. Did my employer lie to me? No, technically my job is to work with Civilians on base whom been discriminated against.  I still feel mislead. I do think anti-discrimination work for military civilians is important, but as I will explain later the way they are doing it here is not productive. I would not have left my job in Seattle helping high school students with disability learn how to be independent to work for the Army.

Next is the Pay issue. I was told I would roughly make 20$ and hour. I told my employer in Seattle I would be leaving for the summer, told my roommate I was moving out, and bought a plane ticket. I was told a few weeks before I was going to leave that I was going to make 13.25$ an hour. I am not complaining about that price, but that is not roughly 20$! I was making almost the same amount of money at my job in Seattle. Early I was told that my position is at the 20$ pay level, so why am I making less? Does it have to do with be a person with a disability in this WRP program? My suspcious are it does, more on that later.