I am taking a break from my job search activities to watch an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. This episode is the one where an injured Borg is recovered from his crashed scout ship. An evil plan is initially devised to return him to the Borg Collective with an invasive computer virus that would eventually destroy the Borg completely. As the crew gets to know him as an individual, he is given the name Hugh and given the opportunity to seek asylum on the Enterprise. In the end, Hugh decides to return to the Collective in order to avoid the possible capture and assimilation of the entire Enterprise crew.

As this episode comes to an end, I am reminded of the circumstances surrounding my job loss. Most people hope that they will achieve success, that their “ship will come in” so to speak. Sadly, my ship has crashed. It got coldly and callously shot down by people who say they are sorry but the accessibility accomodations needed to allow me to keep my job are not reasonable and there are no other positions available at this time. It seems I am not deserving of a serious, detailed, well-considered discussion of the matter. I am a disposable “resource”, good to have around when it was convenient for everyone, but easily thrown away at the least sign of a burden or need to make a reasonable accomodation. There is no chivalry, honor or morality applied to my situation. There is no grant of asylum, no reprieve and possibly no compensation of any kind. I am the sole loser out of this deal, the only one facing negative consequences for artificially imposed circumstances completely out of my control. I may be reassimilated once more into the dark, doom filled, gloomy world of unemployment, from which it is orders of magnitude harder for me to recover as a blind person than it is for someone fortunate enough to be sighted. I am thus unceremoneously torn from the collective I once knew as my job and thrown to the wind to fend for myself. I must seek new opportunities, persist, with all my will and prove that, once and for all, resistance is not futile!