Arthur Walker Cutler Achievement Award Story

Arthur Walker’s Story

I am both humbled and honored to have been selected by my Employment Counselor, Ann Settle, to apply for this award.

As Ann and probably you as well Paula know, I have been a job seeker through My Employment Options for over a year now and prior to that I was with another employment network based in Boston, Massachusetts through the Ticket to Work Program for over a year.  Being from Massachusetts, I have found that trying to find a Work From Home position is extremely difficult. I don’t know if it is a tax, wage, or geographic based issue or combination of the three, but I have discovered that many companies who offer Work From Home positions, don’t hire from Massachusetts. In my pursuit of trying to find employment, I found that one company was hiring from Massachusetts when I started this journey, but in the fall of last year, they stopped hiring applicants from Massachusetts. This basically narrowed my options, (pun intended), to a small handful of companies. With my ticket still with the employment network in Boston, I had been notified of a great position available within a company that was supposed to be a technical support position.  After jumping through all of the bureaucratic hoops and arriving at my final interview, I was asked first by the interviewer, “What do you know about the position which you have applied for?” I replied that all I knew was that it was supposed to be a technical support position, to which the interviewer replied, “Not correct, there is no Technical Support in this position whatsoever, it is all sales.”

This company has a policy in place that if you are not successful in obtaining a position which you have applied for, you must wait six months before you can again apply. It was because of the misinformation I received from my prior employment network and a lack of assistance on their part, that I wound up switching my ticket to My Employment Options. Once coming to M.E.O., I was assigned to Ann Settle as my Counselor and I have found that it was like night and day working with Ann in pursuit of my goal compared to my former network.  Ann sent me leads after leads for the few available positions and for one reason or another, none panned out. I was informed by Ann this past summer that you were considering suggesting that I try another employment network since it was so difficult finding companies who hire from Massachusetts. Around that time, I applied for a position with the same company in which I had multiple interviews and after jumping through all of their hoops again, I was hired for the same position that I had not been hired for more than a year earlier. Though it is not my dream position, working again has allowed me to start training to become a 9-1-1 operator, which is my dream position.

 Thank You!!!