Grace Morales: Welcome to employee podcasts, where Costco employees share their stories about how their benefits help them through their own challenges. Welcome, Joe Sooriyeseng. Thank you for being here, Joe.

Joe Sooriyeseng: Hello. Thank you for having me. So I work at warehouse 1445 and that is located in Redding, California, and I do hardlines merchandising in the morning. Basically, I just make sure everything’s nice and neat and safe for members to come and shop.

Grace Morales: So tell me, what brings you here today, Joe. What’s your story?

Joe Sooriyeseng: Well, my story is that my son, Josiah, he was born without a right hand. And we were just going to just look into prosthetics down the road because we wanted to just make sure he was proud of his hand and he could live without any prosthetic. And then one day, he started seeing videos because I follow this page called the Lucky Fin Foundation, which helps people with limb differences and stuff.
They have this company, Open Bionics, and they basically do robotic arms, prosthetics. And we filled out a form and they reached back out to us. After that we sent out more information with Aetna. They ran Aetna insurance policy. Found out that they could do it for us and that we were qualified for basically the arm. Other than that, it was not much to it. It was pretty easy and pretty smooth.

Grace Morales: So has Josiah seen the Winter Soldier yet?

Joe Sooriyeseng: He’s more into Transformers, but I think he watched it here and there with me, but he just didn’t pay attention. But he likes what he likes. That’s all I can say. It’s hard to get him to concentrate on other things. But.

Grace Morales: Children.

Joe Sooriyeseng: Yeah.

Grace Morales: Because Bucky is Captain America’s best friend, and he gets a robot arm as well. It’s really cool.

Joe Sooriyeseng: Yeah, that’s why I was trying to explain it to him. He was like, oh, cool. A Megatron. I want to go to Universal Studios. I’m like, all right.

Grace Morales: To be fair, I would too. That’s on my bucket list.

Joe Sooriyeseng: Yeah.

Grace Morales: And this bionic arm is also themed. Speaking of superheroes.

Joe Sooriyeseng: Yes, he got to actually pick what he wanted. And I was trying to persuade him towards the Black Panther. So I was like, hey, what’s up with this one. He’s like, no, I want Iron Man.

Grace Morales: What did the process look like to get the prosthetics? Did you have to do a mold?

Joe Sooriyeseng: Yes. So we had to fly down to Burbank just to get his mold done. So that was one thing that we had to do and take time off work. We had to stay in Burbank for three days, get a hotel, do what we needed to do. I wish it was a one day thing, but no, they had to visit the first day. Get the mold, get the measurements for the mold.
Second day, he had to go to see if it fit. And then the third day was, I guess, the finalize everything. Then after that, they sent it out to the UK because it’s based out in the UK. They called us about three or four months later saying that his arm was ready.

Grace Morales: That’s very exciting. How were you able to take the time off?

Joe Sooriyeseng: So at that time I just recently had a newborn which was still under a year old, and from that they gave me baby bonding time and I took advantage of a week of that baby bonding time to go down there to Burbank with Josiah and my wife. I got to bond with my baby at the same time, and I got to get Josiah fitted for his arm.

Grace Morales: That’s great. And how did you find out about baby bonding leave.

Joe Sooriyeseng: Due to my coworkers, they told me about the baby bonding time and how much time I had, and I used it for Josiah’s appointments and it just everything fell into place.

Grace Morales: When employees help each other out and tell each other about benefits, it’s really helpful.

Joe Sooriyeseng: Yeah, it’s a good community. It’s a good family.

Grace Morales: Yeah so what does Josiah focus on now? What does he like to do? What’s easier?

Joe Sooriyeseng: Before, he had little trouble here and there with zipping up his sweater and buttoning up his pants. He could button his pants, which we taught him before with it, but now it’s easier. But the next step is tying his shoe, which he was never able to. I guess I could have taught him because we watched videos of people do it with one hand, but now I think he feels a little more comfortable Having, two hands. So we’re going to be focusing on that more now. Because can’t be wearing Crocs in the winter.

Grace Morales: If there’s one thing you want other employees to take away from this podcast, what is it?

Joe Sooriyeseng: Don’t be scared to try, because I obviously went into this thinking I was going to probably have to pay out of pocket more than I expected. But come to find out just by asking questions, it actually became better than what I expected. So just don’t be scared to use the benefits that are there.

Grace Morales: What I’ve been told is our hardest question is coming up.

Joe Sooriyeseng: Oh, gosh.

Grace Morales: What is your favorite product from Costco?

Joe Sooriyeseng: They got a lot of stuff. They got a lot of stuff. But I have been really liking their salami that they just put out there. I’m sorry. It’s weird.

Grace Morales: That’s not weird.

Joe Sooriyeseng: It’s new.

Grace Morales: That’s cool. Last time we spoke, you mentioned that you’re usually a pretty private person. So again, we really appreciate you opening up and being willing to share you and Josiah’s story.

Joe Sooriyeseng: Yeah anything to help anybody just where they feel scared or they don’t know if they have any help out there. Just ask questions. Just ask questions.

Grace Morales: You’re right. Well, thanks for listening. I’ll see you next month. And remember, we’re in this together.