Where’s the Roadmap?

Every month is Autism Awareness month here. Our oldest son is 7 and was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome last fall. We first noticed something off when he was around 2 years old. He would use dialog from Thomas the Tank Engine videos to communicate with us, was terrified of noises, hated certain textures (desperately wanted his hands washed sometimes and not others), etc. We now know his speech difference was echolalia, although our pediatrician at the time said what he was doing was normal (it wasn’t). Every pediatrician we took him to (3 total) until the age of three said that since he made some eye contact he couldn’t be autistic (not true) and we were completely at a loss.
We finally got some great advice from a friend of my parents who has two autistic sons. She said to take him to an Occupational Therapist (OT) and a speech therapist, and find him some social skills classes, pronto! When we took him to see the OT, he couldn’t maneuver up and down stairs on his own, had balance and coordination issues, couldn’t hold a utensil or a cup well. He was just shy of his fourth birthday at the time. He also did not do pretend play (still did parallel play), instead he acted out Thomas videos exactly and would become enraged if one of us tried to play with him and didn’t follow the script. He only played with his trains and loved to line things up. After one session of OT, he started making some of his own sentences and making different voices for his trains. He was like a different child. Don’t get me wrong, he still had/has issues but he started progressing again after staying at the same skill level for nearly two years.
Even after his diagnosis, the medical community is less than helpful.  There is no real protocol, no road map for parents of kids on the spectrum to follow to get help. There are lists of things you can try when specific behaviors manifest but no real map for helping kids avoid or minimize the development of some of these behaviors. This lack of direction leaves parents feeling lost and directionless. The increase in parents looking for answers outside of the medical community is, in my opinion, directly related to this lack of direction. When one creates a vacuum, one should not be surprised when something comes along and fills it. If the medical community doesn’t want dangerous misinformation (anti-vaccines, chelation, etc.) to spread through a community then they should start giving parents a roadmap. It doesn’t have to be all that detailed. A simple list of the types of professionals a child might need if they have deficiencies in x, what credentials those professionals should have (there are so many quacks out there claiming to treat autism), what types of therapies are actually scientifically proven, etc. Would be an enormous help. A list of support groups in one’s area, the names of organizations from which one can receive accurate information, and so on would also prove invaluable.
We have floundered around looking for help, direction, and advice for nearly 5 years. Thankfully, we have been able to sort through the BS with help from others who have been there before us, but this seriously should not be this hard.
Our son is amazing, smart, and funny.  His interesting take on the world makes even the tough days so worth the difficulties. He is in an amazing school district and community that is supporting him, encouraging, and cheering him on! We were so lucky to move him into such a great situation and we try to “pay it forward” when we meet other parents who are struggling through the countryside without a roadmap.

Out of limbo into insanity

So I've been working....and working and working. Nights, weekends, 12-14 hour days. It has been insane but the I'm getting paid and paid a lot. It's great to have enough to cover expenses and put some cash back into the emergency fund. I don't want to sound ungrateful, but this has made me remember why I left the large consulting firm I used to work for many years ago and why I've been working for small firms that won't do overtime. I'm used to 40 hour weeks and this has been a real shock. It was a lot easier to pull hours like this when I was young and childless.
The laundry has been piling up, the house is a disaster area, I need to make about a dozen calls to get things done to the house (gutters cleaned, exterior walls painted, appliances repaired, etc.) and the car (oil change, new tires). I have zero spare time even on the days when I should (weekends).
To top it all off, I had to have a biopsy on my breast (benign), an ultrasound of my thyroid (possible nodules, most likely benign as well but won't know for a week), and for some damn reason my Doctor's office can't ever find the blood test results, biopsy results, or any paperwork actually faxed to them. I am going to have to go to the lab, get my blood test results, and WALK THEM INTO my doctor's office if I have any hope of ever actually finding out what they are and talking to the doctor about them.
I'm exhausted and overwhelmed and generally pissy at the moment. Be glad you aren't anywhere near me at the moment.

Limbo

So I was supposed to start my brand new, full time, contract to hire job last Friday....didn't happen. Contracts were signed, background checks cleared with flying colors. Suddenly, HR from the firm that will eventually be hiring me says they have a hiring freeze until August 2nd (unless it gets extended). Now I was hired under an exception to the last hiring freeze, but it took them so long to drive the hire through the 4 trillion layers of HR, that this other hiring freeze went into place. I had already given notice on my prior contract, so I am now officially unemployed but not eligible for unemployment. Nice. So I am sitting here hoping that the exception from the last hiring freeze is deemed to mean that I am exempted from this hiring freeze....and that it doesn't start raining frogs, or that I lose my damn mind in this insane employment purgatory. If you needed anymore proof that this economy sucks, there it is.
On the up side, I should be able to get to the gym rather frequently this week, sigh.

Update and lots of news

I have been very busy the past few weeks. I received a part time contract with my former employer and have been working about 15-18 hours a week for them.
We took a wonderful trip through the Midwest to visit family and to let my wife get some research done at a larger university library there. On our way back we took a side-trip to visit a Lego store with our son. He loves Legos and is in heaven whenever he gets to visit one of the stores. As a matter of fact, the only reason he wants to go back to Disneyland is to visit the Lego store outside of it....I guess that will save us some money on admission. ;-)
But the biggest development is that after waiting for several months, I finally have the contract to hire position for which I had been hoping. I start the second week of July (had to give 2 weeks notice on the other contract)!
All in all we have had a really great week here in the mountain village. To top it all off, our roses are blooming. ;-)
I'll try to be a bit more prolific in future, thanks for coming by.

Something..for the Moment

So I have a contract in hand from my former employer. It won't be enough hours to even cover the mortgage and health insurance, but it means the emergency fund should last a little while longer. I am waiting for one issue to be cleared up and then I can start. My former boss and teammates have informed me that my work has been piling up and that they think they'll be able to make a case for increasing my hours significantly soon, but who knows. I am not counting any chickens before they are fully hatched. I'm still hoping the full-time position will come through soon. In the meantime, here are some articles I found in my daily web wandering that may be of use in your job search:

• LifeHacker article on negotiating salary
• Yahoo article on negotiating salary
• LifeHacker article on dumbing down your resume to land a job for which you are over qualified

Leads and Fears and Hopes

I may have some contract work coming my way. Not much. Certainly not enough to pay more than maybe the mortgage, but it's something and it will help us stretch the emergency fund. I am still waiting to hear about the possible permanent position at the large consulting firm. In this market, everything is hurry up and wait. Fear is everywhere. Companies afraid to take on staff, even though they have the work to occupy them, simply because no one knows if this is the bottom or if it will get worse. Workers lucky enough to have jobs but too afraid to spend anything in case they end up where my family is now. The unemployed afraid they may lose everything they have worked for and saved for before this thing turns around.
My hopes are that we are, in fact, at the bottom and headed back up (albeit slowly), that I can piece together enough work to keep us from running through the entire emergency fund (it will take us years to rebuild that and we need to save for college; I think we can forget about retirement at this point), that I find something permanent before COBRA coverage runs out.
Keeping hope at this point is difficult even with possibilities finally surfacing. But I know we have each other and that we will pull through this. This isn't where I expected to be at this point in my life, but things rarely go as one plans.

Job Hunting Resources

I thought I would aggregate all of the job hunting resources I have found (or that kind friends have sent to me) so I can find them in one place. I thought it might also be helpful for others, so read on and leave more hints in the comments.
Job Search Engines - some are tech writing specific, some not. The presence of these sites on my blog is purely informational and should not be perceived as an endorsement.

• Indeed.com - job search aggregator with IM interface (see here)
• Simply Hired - another job search aggregator has a glbt friendly companies filter (here)
• Connect Moms - For my Canadian Mommy friends, not much listed at the moment
• STC Job site - For Technical Communication jobs, excellent resource for technical writers
• Rural Sourcing Inc. - Live in the middle of nowhere and need a job?

Freelance Sites - Set up a profile and bid on projects, some have a fee for their service. A bit of a disclaimer here, I have not used most of these services. Their appearance here is purely informational and should not be perceived as an endorsement.

• SoloGig - Set up a profile and bid on projects
• ODesk
• Virtual Assistants
• Guru.com - I set up a profile here for free but haven't bid on anything yet
  

Articles on Job searching

• List of questions a potential employer might ask a potential sales hire, some good questions in general for which you should have answers.
• Summary of How to Win Friends and Influence People at Dale Carnegie's blog.
• The Occupational Outlook Handbook from the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics
• Everything You Wanted to Know About Getting a Job in Silicon Valley But Didn't Know Who to Ask by Guy Kawasaki
• Developer Job Interview Questions and Answers at the dev.fyicenter
• Resume formatting advice at LifeClever
• 70+ Tools for Job Hunting at mashable.com
• How to edit your resume like a professional resume writer by Brazen Careerist
• Interview Q&A for various jobs at Glassdoor.com
• Recent article in the WSJ on freelancing
  
  

Salary Info - again not an endorsement of any of these sites or their data. Plug in your information on several sites to try to get as complete a picture as possible.

• Join STC for complete Tech writing salary info.
• Writers UA 2008 salary survey
• Indeed.com salary search
• Payscale.com
• Payscroll.com
  

Hopefully, something in this list helps. I'll be adding to it in the future as I come across things.