I've been a client in the program ongoing 7 months now. My first employment guidance counselor was a total mismatch for my personality.

Services for eligible people can include:

• Career planning and counseling
• Job search assistance
• Connections to employers hiring now
• Counselor-approved training
• Other support services

The problem with county programs is the lack of follow-up from the government employees. Literally, the first thing I told the employment counselor was that I needed to be connected to a certification program so that I could update my skills with a new career path due to my age and job history.

The benefit of a certification program is that the employment counselors in that program have partnerships with employers who teach the classes in the certification program, so job placement is 100%.

But, for 7 months, this first employment guidance counselor undermined and jeopardized my well-being by not checking in with me, not reviewing my resume, connecting me to certification programs, or to employers who are hiring now during the pandemic. That's a serious amount of time wasted due to her apathy based on our personality conflict.

I am not going to apologize for advocating strongly for myself, when no one else will. The second employment counselor, turns out, is just as apathetic. He actually hasn't reviewed my resume or done any of the bullet points above. And, when I reported him to his supervisor he emailed me a nasty email -- which I just forwarded to his supervisor.

I called a certification program that I found on my own, since time is of the essence. The employment counselor of that program shared his observations about county workers in general with me when we discussed my frustrations. He said he used to work in that same county program and had the same experience with his colleagues who just refused to help out clients like me who were laid off or terminated from their jobs, with job placement, training, and employer resources.

He assured me that the certification program he supervises has 100% job placement. That could all be a sales-marketing ploy on his program's behalf, b/c their nonprofit funding is tied to enrollment numbers. They don't get funding for their certification programs, if they have low student enrollment.

I am going to do the certification anyway. It's 6 weeks, no tuition and unpaid training. But the online classes are taught by active employers who are volunteering their time online, and who could potentially be the quickest way for me to network for a full-time job. Otherwise, its just 6 weeks of sending resumes online without confirmation that I"ll even get a job interview.

I feel as if being a client in a dislocated works program is the bottom of the barrel. But 7 months ago when I had to attend some in-person mandatory sessions for it, I met other highly educated people with 20-30 year careers who were laid off or terminated.

So, I know there are other people in my same situation. And this damn pandemic doesn't help employment opportunities either.

But I was proud of myself for advocating for myself with the employment workers. If they are going to collect a salary under the guise of doing the above bullet points with people enrolled in the dislocated workers program, they better be prepared to be held accountable, and take responsibility for being political and sabotaging people's rehiring opportunities just because they don't like their personality.