
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 23, 1995                   TAG: 9503230047
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEVERLY MERRITT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

START AT THE BOTTOM; WORK UP

I'M OUTRAGED at the attitudes about work and welfare that came out in your March 5 article on welfare recipients (``Welfare mother plans ahead to beat benefit cutoff''). You highlighted a woman who had been on welfare for five years, and, even though she had a degree, wasn't able to find even a volunteer job for over a year. This is beyond belief.

She claimed that she was unskilled, therefore couldn't work, and was forced to go on welfare. Even after getting a degree, she couldn't find the proper kind of job. She claimed that two years is just ``not long enough to get a skill ... not enough time to make advancement in any job.'' Someone should tell her that advancement comes with hard work and dedication. It isn't given for time spent at a desk.

One of the first questions prospective employers will ask is about previous employment. I don't think they'll be very impressed with a person with five years of welfare and six months in a 30-hour-a-week volunteer program. They will not get an impression of someone who wants to work hard, and willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. They won't see a self-starter, which is something every employer looks for. Employers are impressed with what you've done, not what you've been waiting for. Every job can give the same benefit - experience in real work situations.

She appears concerned for those with even less skills than hers: ``What are they going to do? Work in fast food? In a hospital mopping floors? That's not a job where you can have any advancement.'' Has anyone ever heard of starting at the bottom and ending up owning the company? It does happen. Even if you don't own the company, there are many positions and you're free to climb as high as you have the desire to go.

I speak from personal experience in my life and my daughter's. I didn't have the advantage of a degree, but I learned on the job and advanced in every job I had. I held many lowly jobs, but I always worked just as hard as if it was the best one in the world. One job I started at $3.25 (minimum wage at that time), and left it making more than $26,000 a year. Of course, it took eight years of hard work, but I did it. And now I can command even more. My daughter started as a lowly waitress in a major restaurant chain. She never completed high school, but that didn't stop her from becoming manager of that very restaurant.

The idea that any job is insignificant is ridiculous. There's nothing to stop anyone who wants to work.

My daughter and I, and every other taxpayer, are the ones paying for these people to sit back and look for the best job available. And we're sick and tired of it. I have no problem with those who are really in need receiving welfare. I have a real problem with those who are not willing to get their hands dirty doing real work while they wait for that golden opportunity to be handed to them.

Beverly Merritt, of Ferrum, was an office manager for a church.

by CNB