Sarah's story

Persistence pays off

I wanted to get aptitude testing because I noticed that I might be having a tendency to do jobs that I wasn't that good at. So I looked for the women's employment project, but they don't exist any more. Then I phoned my Employment and Immigration (EIC) office and I said, "Do you give help with aptitude testing and career counselling?" They said, "Sort of, don't come this afternoon though." That wasn't such a great response; I had heard bad things about my office, so I decided to go to a bigger office in another town. I phoned them and they said to come in and talk with an employment counsellor. I went in and an employment counsellor said, "What do you want?" I said, "I think I want some training, but I don't know exactly what I want. " She said, "In that case, come to the training workshop that we do next Thursday."

So I went to the training workshop. They tell you the rules about what kind of training they will pay for a little bit too fast, and they wouldn't give us copies of what programs they sponsor because it changes so often there's no point. Makes it kind of hard to figure out. When I asked the woman after the training session whether they did any career counselling and aptitude testing, she said that they didn't, but you could join this half-day value clarification workshop or maybe go to this place in Aldergrove. I phoned Aldergrove and they said I could come but not until January. This was in December. Somebody gave me a Fraser Valley College calendar, and I thought Agriculture Technology sounded interesting. I wasn't sure if it was a great career choice, but I decided to talk to the people at the college to find out what the career opportunities might be.

I had been told on the phone that there was no way that I could get into anything in January, because it was too late, but that it was still worthwhile for me to talk to the director of the program. I had an interview with the director in January, and she said I could start right away. By this time the course was three weeks away. Everything was a big rush; I couldn't get my career counselling before the course was going to start. I went back to Clearbrook Canada Employment Centre (CEC) and the first thing the employment counsellor asked me for was my phone number. She said, "You live in Mission, you have to go to the Mission office."

I had asked the Clearbrook office if it was okay, and they said it was, but it turns out it wasn't. Maybe it was okay for certain things, but it wasn't okay for the training, because that's done office by office. The Clearbrook woman said it's up to the Mission office to decide because the money is allocated region by region. And she said, "Agriculture isn't such a great career. Why do you want to do this? What do you want to do?" Well, that's what I want to know what the possibilities are. She told me to phone the Agriculture Employment place which isn't listed in the phone book under EIC even though it's part of EIC She gave me the number. So I called, and the receptionist said, "I'm not sure if a counsellor could help you. " I talked to a counsellor and she also wanted me to know more about what I wanted to do before she answered my questions. But she did say greenhouses are a growing occupation.