Q 36)
“At a meeting today with Peter and others to get the results of the assessment, we heard the good news. They think Ned can be a player in the real world. Peter will start looking for a job for him, and so will we. He told us that although the Employment Training Program has a lot of resources in the community, most of the jobs they find for their clients come from private connections outside ETP. In other words, us. We never planned to sit back and let Peter do all the hustling, so the fact that there’s a burden on us to look around for an employer for Ned is not, in fact, much of a burden at all. We have resources too. My family has been in the Seattle area for five generations on my mother’s side and three on my father’s; Cathy’s family has been in the state practically that long as well. We have naturally developed a lot of contacts in the area from our backgrounds and our won work over the years….
We should be able to find something appropriate for Ned somewhere in that list. And I certainly hope those aren’t famous last words. pp. 212-213
The Palmers can create opportunities for Ned. Their position within the community affords them more flexibility when looking for jobs for their son. How do you feel about this privilege? How would you feel if the opposite were true – if Palmer described having to rely on Peter to find Ned a job?
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