[nfbwatlk] another sheltered workshop experience

[Mary Ellen]

After I finished college, I worked on the staff of a shop for people with
severe developmental disabilities.  (I'm showing my age when I say that we
called them mentally retarded.)
 
I worked with the most severely disabled people in the place.  They were
exactly the kind of workers shops talk about when they say work is therapy.
 
If there wasn't any "real" work for the people to do, they sorted nuts and
bolts.  When they would finish sorting, we would go into another room and
mix everything up again.
 
One fellow was named Joe.  He took his check home one week and came back the
following Monday morning and complained that a week's wages weren't enough
to pay for a six pack of beer.  How is it supposed to have made him feel
worthwhile to go to work for an entire week and not be able to buy something
as simple as a few beers to share with his Dad?
 
All the rest of the staff felt so good about what they were doing for "those
people."  I argued that they would have been better served with recreational
or educational activities than with phony make work.