Say Something, Please

Last week’s Unemployed & Underemployed Support Group welcomed a guest facilitator, Dr. Tom Hodgson, whose topic was depression during the holidays due to difficult circumstances in your life. We had a great conversation, with our caring members offering each other advice and consolation. One thing came up that many people can understand: why do friends or family ignore our most difficult situations? Why do so few people acknowledge our long term unemployment, for instance?

The message from people who are hurting emotionally, no matter what the source, is that saying something is better than ignoring our obviously tender positions. Here’s an article that you might like to pass along that offers some guidelines to people When you don’t know what to say.

And a long overdue congratulations to our Occupational Health Clinical Center colleague Wally Reardon. Wally, a former tower climber himself, has been advocating for and with tower climbers for safety regulations in this largely un-regulated industry. The 2010 Tony Mazzocchi Award for grassroots health and safety activism was presented to Wally in November for his project.

Wally is now seen as one of the foremost experts in tower climbing safety and has presented his program to OSHA as well as the US Workplace Fatalities advocacy group.

In the photo above, Wally Reardon nears the top of a 1,100-foot television tower in the late 1990s on Grand Island. He has since retired from climbing after witnessing a colleague’s catastrophic injury. He graduated from SUNY Oswego in May and now received a national award for a tower climbers safety program he began in college. (Photo Courtesy of Wallace Reardon, description from SUNY Oswego)

Thanks for your groundbreaking work, Wally.