When "failing" is good

Joe had his first "real" job interview yesterday and he didn't get the job, but we've changed directions and everyone is happy about that.

Last spring, we had talked to the lead counselor at the special needs camp that he and Alan attend in the hopes of finding a way for Joe to attend camp without wasting a counselor on him.  (DH and I did not want to give up our "kid free" weekends!!)  The counselor knows Joe and when we talked to him he suggested the possibility that they could in essence create a position for him.  The camp folks really came through and late this summer, they hired him as the Assistant Arts & Crafts counselor!  Best of all it is a paying job.  Joe was very excited when he got his first paycheck!!

All decked out and ready to go to "work"

In addition to that, Joe is volunteering one day a week (for 3 hours) at a local hospital.  He also starts today volunteering two days a week (again for 3 hours) at a nursing home and he had been volunteering at a thrift store as well (which does not need him for the rest of September since they are doing an inventory) but he should be able to return there in October.

Any of the three volunteer positions could potentially lead to paid employment and frankly, that is the sort of job where Joe will shine.  He already had a very favorable review at the hospital where he has only been for two months.  I am sure the nursing home and thrift store will quickly realize how helpful and smart Joe is without him having to worry about first impressions. 

Sounds win-win to me!

But back to the failed interview, he had applied for several "bus boy" positions and this interview was with one of the restaurants.  When they called to ask him to come in to interview, the manager told me they were primarily interested in weekends.  I told them about the camp, but according to the manager "we could work around that".

Of course his definition of "working around that" was to have Joe quit his camp job (which he likes a lot) for a job he might not like.  Um, no.  Not going to happen.

So yesterday afternoon his job search woman, Joe and I had a long talk and decided to temporarily abandon his job search. 

This morning Joe came downstairs and informed me that since this was going to be the way of things for awhile he was going to start setting his alarm so that he could be sure to get up on time for his "jobs" (he had been relying on me to wake him up on time). 

I couldn't be happier that he didn't get the "real" job yesterday.