Barbara J. Hamby

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Respect Revisited

The results of a recent Gallup survey of teenagers are, in my opinion, quite noteworthy. They were asked about their career preferences. The combined top ten choices for both boys and girls were enumerated. To my surprise, teacher was No. 1, just above doctor and lawyer. Secretary didn’t make the top ten (not even with its fancy title of administrative assistant), nor did any type of skilled labor. Those two were the top of the female and male lists, respectively, in 1977. Athletics (sports field) is a new category in the top ten this year.

In this latest survey, girls chose teacher, lawyer, doctor, nurse, fashion designer, scientist/biologist, author/writer, veterinarian, artist, and medical field (e.g. lab technician.)

How to Get a Job When You’re a Female Over Fifty

We’ve all heard the sad stories of older job hunters, especially females over fifty.  In spite of regulations forbidding age and/or sex discrimination, such discrimination still occurs and the perpetrators are lurking out there in the job marketplace.  However, it’s not impossible to beat it.  Paying careful attention to four important parts of the application process—resume, interview, salary negotiation, and follow-up can lead to success.

1.  Preparing a resume and cover letter.

Stigma

Why, in this generation, have we swept so many of the mentally ill onto the sidewalks? In the early part of the twentieth century most were locked away, either in private homes or in institutions. Wherever we try to hide them, put them out of sight and out of mind, we are unsuccessful.

My generation was raised to avoid certain subjects. Some of us can actually say the word “sex” out loud, but I would venture to guess most of us can’t utter either the clinical or slang names of sexual organs unless we’re telling jokes. Almost every one of us has family, friend(s), or acquaintances who suffer from mental illness, but we don’t talk about that. Ishmael Reed, an African-American writer, recently referred to reports that one out of five Americans suffers from mental conditions, but nearly two thirds of those diagnosed never seek treatment.

In more than ten years of writing classes, seminars and workshops, I have met hundreds of writers but only encountered one who mentioned mental illness. She had suffered all her life and spent time in institutions herself. She wrote about others she met there as well as her own experiences. She was attempting to organize the jumbled journal of a young schizophrenic man she had befriended. She wanted desperately

Cape Town Banquet

At the long banquet table
in the deluxe hotel in Cape Town,
forks filled half a foot of space left
of each plate.  Small utensils
placed horizontally formed
a right angle to the forks.  To
the right, a knife or two and spoons
rested on the elegant cloth. 
Sparkling glasses stood in wait.