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Hello, my name is Anthony Arnold
from Grand Forks North Dakota. I have Cerebral Palsy; use a power chair for
mobility and an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) system for
communication. I'm one of two AAC users who work for the Prentke Romich Company
(PRC) as Remote Troubleshooters to serve customers nationwide and sometimes
Canada. We're fully trained on all the devices PRC either currently manufactures
or has in 
the
past, and sometimes beta test upcoming devices and/or products. We usually work
from our homes during nights and weekends, when PRC is normally closed. I must
say it isn't the easiest job in the world because we work from home where we
usually don't have all of the devices that we're required to troubleshoot within
a reasonable amount of time, which is both challenging and fun for me.
I first became interested in working for the Prentke Romich Company when I was 12 or 13 because it was a place where I could use my life experiences to help other people with disabilities, especially ones with communication disabilities. At that time, I already had six years of experience using the Touch Talker and had basically destroyed it. I have been known to give my devices a royal work out, which is part of my trademark. Actually the Touch Talker lasted seven years, which is impressive and I've had my Liberator for nine years and it's still going strong.
After seeing how much independence my Touch Talker gave me for things like school, socializing, going shopping, ordering food at a restaurant and talking on the phone; I decided that there must be others like myself that might need this gift more than I do. This led me to making working for the PRC where I could give people this, part of my career goal. I remember talking about this dream to my teachers, parents, classmates, therapists and/or anybody who was interested in listening. There were times I'm very sure, people were bored to death wishing they had a dental appointment or something more exciting. Oddly enough, they are now the people who are wishing, they had listened to my Touch Talker or Liberator voice more closely. Believe me, it has been fun telling people where I work now. I have had some high school friends come up to me, and say, "God, Anthony you work for a computer company and I'm still finding myself."
My parents, who have always been wonderful parents and supporters of me, usually tell people they don't know whether I report to work for a paycheck or to have fun, which sometimes I ask myself. I love the paycheck, it has really helped me build up credit; but on the other hand, I definitely enjoy helping people with communication disabilities through technology.
I also remember finding encouragement about pressuring a career in the rehabilitation field thanks to a man who was in some kind of accident and lost his leg. He was trained to make and fit braces at the rehab. Center. I remember when the man helped by measuring me for ankle foot bracing and how encouraged I was to be helped by another person with a disability and how cool it must have been for him to have a job where he had been helped once. Today many people look at me in the same way and sometimes I feel I have completed the rehabilitation circle by living it and now working it and offering suggestions for improving products and services to help people.
Before I paint a picture that says give back what you have received yourself (which I shouldn't because I realize that there's a lot of other opportunities in the computer and technology field besides medical and assistive technology that I could have entered and probably would have done a great job there too) but my interest is communication devices and related technology and software. I believe part of my success at PRC and in the AAC field is due to the fact that I have personally lived it, and I very openly discuss my disability, life experiences and pointers. I think this has already benefited several people I have known.
In May of this year I turned 27, so I think I'm still young. I like to believe that I grew up right along with the research and development of not only communication devices and other assistive technology, but also with the idea of inclusion and now the employment movement, which has made my life with a disability very exciting to live and be a part of.
Working at the Prentke Romich Company isn't my first job. During my high school years, I held down a part time job through Job Service at a local computer store, doing data entry for almost 2 years. I entered all of their catalogs and technical manuals onto a computer and this was later transferred to the Internet, providing customers easy access to them any time of day. Thanks to that job, I learned a lot about computers and the different operating systems, which helps me today at PRC. I have to explain how to configure system settings to let a communication device communicate correctly with a computer, which is sometimes very difficult to do if you're unfamiliar with the menus. Sometimes, I'm sure I amaze our customers on how well I know their devices without actually being there in person.
After I graduated high school, I tried college for a while, but it wasn't a very successful experience. I think I needed to mature a little more first. After deciding college wasn't for me at that time, I took some time off to reorganize myself. I ended up at Job Service again, and this time they placed me at the university library to catalog books into the statewide database. I did this for nine months and enjoyed it, but then the money ran out and I was forced to leave.
Right after I left the library, I learned that the Prentke Romich Company was basically on the ground floor of employing augmentative and alternative communicators to be Remote Troubleshooters in the technical service department to answer overflow calls. Some of you might be familiar with our Ambassador Program where we use actual users at conferences and/or to help with presentations. The Remote Troubleshooter Program is just a spin off of that program, but with more responsibilities and duties. It isn't a job just to give somebody a job; they do expect performance out of the Remote Troubleshooters, which is the only way of doing it. We each had to go through some hard core training both through PRC Distant Learning on the internet and some in-house training right at the Prentke Romich Company's headquarters in Wooster Ohio. I was there for 2 weeks for detail training when I began troubleshooting 4 years ago. This really helped me to understand each communication device that I receive calls on. As for now, I usually keep up on any product updates and/or changes by using the Internet, which has been really handy and almost like being actually there meeting with PRCs in-house people.
We usually talk every day on instant messenger. I am also responsible to keep all my calling data; what time a call came in, the person's name, their problem or question, their phone number, their device's serial number, our actual calling time and where the person is from; so there's a lot of responsibility which is only right, I feel. After each night or weekend we work, we're required to e-mail a report to our supervisors, so they know everything that happened and what call backs to expect if needed. Doing this has really taught me responsibility, which is something I'm grateful for.
To expect something out of people with disabilities is another thing we need improving on, and that should begin when somebody is very young, because there's nothing wrong with setting expectations. Everything you want a person with a disability to do, should and must begin when they're young or when they get much older, the lessons are much harder to learn. Especially when we're talking about inclusion and employment, that framework should and must start at a much earlier age than what it is happening now.
Since I have started remote troubleshooting, we have gotten some great and positive feedback from customers that we have helped. We especially hear back from parents of young children beginning to use a communication device and other assistive technology. I know that when they hang up after talking and being helped by either one of us they have a better outlook on their child's future, and probably begin working much harder to get more accomplished than they did before. To me that is really the reward of the job we do. I know when I was much younger, my parents would have loved to be helped by a Remote Troubleshooter, and they would have known their hard work would pay off in the future. Speaking of my parents, from talking with different parents and other professionals either over the phone, e-mail or a conference; I have begun to realize, I'm where I am because of their hard work and interest in helping me. It's safe to say that without them I probably wouldn't be a Remote Troubleshooter at the Prentke Romich Company.
I must say these past 4 years of being a Remote Troubleshooter for PRC have probably been some of the most powerful and best years of my life. Seeing the success that I have had with helping different customers has really encouraged me to try different things. My biggest improvement is I'm living alone with help coming in just one hour a day, which has really surprised everybody because it was unexpected earlier. Another development and basically a form of enjoyment is that I decided to join a gym for weight lifting, which has also surprised everybody. I now can lift 10 pounds without problems and I can also balance myself for transfers, so nobody has to help me move anymore. I'm also thinking about trying college again now that I know I can do something if I truly work at it. If I do that, I would love to become a rehabilitation engineer just like one of my friends, I feel that could open up more doors and windows for people in the long run. My point here is, if we can give an individual a job or something they love to do, not only that area of their life improves, but others improve as well. I feel that I haven't seen anything yet, I want to try to keep improving and improving, that's another one of my interests. I'm not saying if you get a job and are successful at it, you will end up lifting 10 pounds or end up walking, all I'm saying is you might be willing to try different things.
In closing, I'm going to say, it's definitely time to not only talk the talk about employment for not only augmentative and alternative communicators but for individuals with disabilities in general, but it's definitely time and a must to begin walking the walk. Another reason why it's very important now to begin looking at employment more seriously is due to the development of technology and the ability of linking two or more physical locations together. I feel we should hire more people with disabilities because it's getting so that we can stay home and turn on a computer that is fully modified and phone to do most things we have had to go to the office to do before. This makes for perfect opportunities to hire more individuals needing assistive technology and flexible work schedules.
© 2004 ConnSENSE Bulletin