Tony spoke in a low, depressed voice. "I lost my job - again!" he told his sister. This was his third job in five years. He was 46 years old and thought he would never get hired again. Teen-ager Jeff fought back tears as he spoke into his cell phone. "I've got the worst luck, Mom. They fired me! It's just crazy!" The young man had worked his part-time job for only a few months. He thought he was doing a good job. He thought his supervisor loved him.

"That job counselor is useless!" shouted Chrissie, as she threw her notebook on the desk. "I'm never going back there again." At the local One-Stop Center, an employment counselor told 30 year-old Chrissie to use the yellow pages and call different companies to find a job opening.

These are stories about real people who struggle every day with math, reading comprehension, auditory processing, and other undiagnosed learning disabilities, and who never received help during their school years. Finding and keeping a job is difficult and competitive for people without learning challenges - the problems are worse for those with learning disabilities - especially if they never found ways to compensate for their special needs.

Tony was intelligent, creative, and skilled with tools and machinery. He barely graduated high school, dealing with his learning problems by acting out, getting in trouble, and doing as little as possible. He attempted a few college classes, found it too exhausting, and gave up. On the job, Tony couldn't keep up with reading work orders and instructions, and made errors when people left voice mail messages for him with changes he needed to make.

For someone like Jeff, who probably had auditory processing deficits and issues with comprehension and spelling, work was a scary place. He was expected to fill out forms neatly and properly, create reports, plan his time, and work as part of a team. It was overwhelming. Jeff couldn't see that his job was at risk, because he related to his supervisor as a personality - not as a boss. Jeff was deeply hurt and confused when he was fired.

Chrissie had worked with relatives for over 10 years, until they closed the family business. She found herself pushed into searching for employment without a clear idea of how to do it. She struggled with reading, and wasn't confident speaking on the telephone. When the job counselor suggested an out-of-date method of finding work (cold-calling from a phone book) Chrissie had a meltdown. The fear of finding and starting a new job sent her into a deep depression.

It is no longer enough to read want ads in a newspaper. To find all available job openings, searches must be done on the Internet. Applications often need to be downloaded or filled out online. Sometimes, responding to an ad means writing an effective cover letter and sending a resume via email.

Keeping a job is also more difficult, because there is so much to read and learn in the workplace, in addition to training for an actual job. Employees are expected to learn about safety, sexual harassment, drug testing, confidentiality issues, computer usage, and Internet and email policies. There are digital telephones to operate; voice mail systems to use properly; and unique computer programs. Some businesses rate employees using "secret shoppers" and other performance point-rating systems, which sometimes involve greeting customers, making eye contact, and smiling. Poor marks on such evaluations can cost a good employee a promotion or even their job.

For relatives, friends, or co-workers of people like Tony, Jeff, and Chrissie, it would be a gesture of kindness to offer help with job searching and to give coaching for on-the-job performance. The simple words "I'd like to help you…" or the question "Could I give you some ideas?" might be a way to respect the person's dignity and reassure them that others have similar problems, and that they are not alone. If the person is willing to accept help, it could make a dramatic difference in their future. Compassionate employers can also help, rather than fire, the employee.

A few ways to be of help:

transcribing voice mail messagespairing up in meetings and taking notes to share laterreading a complicated text and highlighting key pointstyping up instructions for regular tasks in a large, easy-to-read fontformatting reports into reusable templatesorganizing papers into binders with dividers Too many job ads contain the words "multi-tasking in a fast-paced environment" but not everyone learns or works the same way! If possible, we need to help those who struggle to adapt to this fast-paced world in which we work.

For more information, contact Learning Disabilities Association of America.