Thursday, January 22, 2009

And what would you do?

I'm trying to enroll in an EMT course at LSU I need to obtain a job with the local EMS. Doesn't look like it is going to happen. I graduated high school in 1968 from a small church school. Last time I actually used the diploma was to confirm graduation for a job I was hired for in 1989. Just about the same time that my school closed it's doors forever.

Flash forward about 10 years. I tried to find said diploma for a new job and made a horrifying discovery. Squirrels (yes, those nasty rats with fuzzy tails and a good P.R. firm) had invaded the box those documents were kept in out in the garage and amused themselves while nesting by chewing everything in the box into confetti! I was fortunate the last time I had a job requiring confirmation I'd graduated as the boss accepted my word on it. Faceless bureaucracies. like a college admissions department, don't.

Hence the dilemma which prompts the question in the title. EVERY job I have looked at lately requires certified confirmation of HS graduation. All the colleges and EMT courses down here require the immunizations record (I think this is a federal law geared primarily to prevent children from engendering an epidemic -- not to keep us over-the-hill-and-twice-as-moldy types from taking a few college level courses). Heck, even the Coast Guard wants certified copies of HS diploma or an original. And of course, they want a record of every freaking immunization I have had since birth. Certified by an M.D. no less.

I'm so screwed...

2 comments:

Pammy said...

Ok, start with the Maine (or whatever state you graduated in) Board of Education. Even if it was a church school, the records should be on file with the state. For a fee (of course), they can probably send you a copy of your diploma or some kind of certified affidavit stating that you gradumacated.

I'm not positive, but if you received your immunizations at school...like most of us old farts did...those should be on record, as well...but you might have to check with the county department of health.

There's got to be some kind of alternative action for those of us who can't prove we were immunized. It might entail gettin the immunizations now. If you are unable to get any of your records, check with the local health department...if you have to be re-immunized, you can get the shots a lot cheaper there.

Good luck!

Wil said...

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

You're right, Pammy, but so far, the New York Department of Education denies having the ability to certify my attendance at the school in question, let alone that I ever graduated.

Strike one.

A call to the last job I remember showing the credentials to revealed nothing in the way of a copy of my diploma nor my immunization records when my personnel file was reviewed this morning.

Strike two...