I'm Not Saying A Word.

My boss at my first voc rehab assignment was Brian, an impatient man who acted like he was in the army. He always wore an official university of Washington staff shirt, the kind with his department and his name embroidered over the pocket. He walked around with these short quick steps and spoke in short choppy sentences.

I don’t know why he worked with people rehabilitating from traumatic injuries. He had an impatient attitude, and he never said anything encouraging.

The first, actually the only, assignment he ever gave me was doing data entry on a computer terminal. I’ll never forget my last day working for him. Doing data entry with one hand is super slow and inefficient.

Brian must not have noticed that I only have one hand. When he finally did notice, he was quick to point out to me and anybody within a hundred feet that if I had “half a brain” I would have told him I can only use one hand.

“Don’t tell me I have half a brain,” I said. “You’re the blind genius who told me to do this.”

A few people laughed and Brian turned an angry red. “Finish the day doing what your doing,” he said before storming off to inflict his company on someone else.

I hated him—I wanted to do more than he thought I could. I wanted to prove him wrong.

I remember skipping my afternoon break and working as hard and fast as i could right up until Brian walked by my terminal and told me to shut down my computer and bring my disk into his office.

I didn’t even look up. “OK,” I said frantically doing the one finger typing routine. “Let’s go,” he called again before stepping into his office. I typed the final entry.

There, done! He said I’d never finish it and I did finish it. Happily I turned off my computer, grabbed my disk and carried it into his office.

“I finished it,” I said proudly, dropping the disk on his desk.

“This I’ve got to see,” Brian said pushing the disk into his computer. A few minutes of silence went by.

“What kind of game are you playing,” he said angrily. “There’s nothing on here! You brain damaged folks are all the same. I told you to save your work. Why am I working here, anyway? You brain deads never listen to me anyway.”

Angry indignation welled up. My head felt ready to explode like a squeezed pimple. Him talking to me that way after I’d done the best I could made me furious. If I hadn’t been a half paralyzed kid, I would have killed him. As it was, I let loose with a string of cuss words that surprised him so much, he sat just sat there silently looking at me. He probably thought I would attack him with my cane, but I didn’t. Leaning on my cane, I limped out of his office and never went back.

The next day I got assigned to another voc rehab position, working somewhere else for a woman named Gail. She turned out to be supportive and encouraging.

I don’t think she was that way because she happened to be a woman any more than Brian was the way he was because he was a man. Brian chose to be the way he was because he thought of no one but himself. Gail was kind and helpful because that’s how she chose to be. Since she made me feel like I was part of the team, I worked hard and I was happy enough not to forget details like saving my work before I turned my computer off.

Anger had motivated me to work hard for Brian, too. But anger didn’t motivate me to do my best work. In fact, I bet it was anger that made me forget to save my work.

Gail helped me do my best work because she lived what I've heard since first grade, "If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything."