(no subject)
So the day started off interestingly enough...
it true me fashion, i left the moving project, like so many others, unfinished, and extensively so, until the last minute. Hence in my rush to complete it last night, i threw my back out and fell down the stairs carrying my bookshelf. there's still a part of me that keeps trying to say that if i had just balanced it a little better i would have continued to work quickly enough to get it all done. i know this is not true. i had let my home, much like my life, rapidly descent to a state of beyond embarassing, more than disgusting, unhealthy state. needless to say, there were phone calls from some very upset people that arrived on the scene to move in today.
my original plan to deal with all of this after popping my second vicodin of the day at 7 in the morning was to call someone and let them know i was going to complete the unfinished deed when i got home from work. better late than never, and overwhelmingly apologetically for being an irresponsible asshole, i would get everything clean. today.
of course, even when i am in the best of places emotionally and otherwise, seemingly little things tend to have the ability to make the dirt beneath my feet crumble and i start falling into oblivion until some external forrce is able to smack some sense into me. unfortunately right now, repeated attacks of common sence to most people has only given me momentary glimpses of what i should be doing, meanwhile not stopping my fall as i don't even notice things in my house like an entire wall getting destroyed by water damage.
of course that's only part of it...
so i go to work all together with my plan of attack for my home life that needs some serious reconfiguring and assessment,and of course find out for the first time that it is a no school day. crisis one aborted and score one for problem solving on the fly. i pick up the weekend schedule, change the names of a few different things, and suddenly there is order and structure again on my unit...for five minutes...then i find out that two of the five staff on my shift are working their first official shifts. in fact, one of them didn't know until i gave her duties and had to explain that teaching assistants only get one shadow sft, even though the person who interviewed her told her she got two...then the real fun begins when one of my kids starts acting out because i consequenced him on momnday for interfering in a safety, and my BRILLIANT team decided that they wanted to put him on 24 hour iso base onwednesday for the same thing, which is supported by my unit manager, who told me specifically that we were no longer going to do that unless there was a serious documented pattern of behavior. in the mindset of running a tighter shift, i take a different, proactive, but in my mind completely untherapeutic approach, to get him to comply with his consequence. in the end, the kid ends up getting hands on twice, secluded on two different occasions for a total of almost four hours, tries to strangle himself twice, and put on increased safety obs. i spent friday with this kid in my day room, interacting with me and my staff member, joking, and generate behavior from him that merited taking him off such invasive protections, but according to my boss, i was running the unit incompetently that day, working too hard, to keep him safe. call me crazy, but i will work until i'm dead if it will increase an individual's well being, apparently, my managers want me to have hands on and restraints all the time. all of this is before noon, at which point we are told that lunch will be eaten on the units and not in the dining room because tv crews reporting on the teacher who was having an inappropriate relationship with one of her students are piling up in our parking lot.
but i'm still not done.
just as i sit down to try and start some of my paperwork for all of this, one of my staff asks why one of my residents is watching a movie in the community. i tell her that i gave him permission to, at which point she informs me that he is on a therapy only program and is not allowed to watch recreational movies, as per a discussion on tuesday, my day off. as i double check for it, i find that there is not one shred of written documentation that this was decided in the team meeting on tuesday, only 5 weeks after we had decided as a team that programmatic decisions would ONLY be discussed and determined on mondays.
so then i start to approach my unit manager about these and some other concerns with staff not following directions, and not challenging the kids enough. i think my manager got his job because he tells me that these things are either my fault, some of which i will admit i do agree with, but then tells me that some of these things are me making excuses for my inability to control my unit. in talking with the supervisor relieving me tonight, his opinion was "they give you such a hard time because they don't like you." sorry, but i though managers were supposed to give us support and embody professionalism or something...oh wait, let's not forget ACCOUNTABILITY.
and there are still significant parts of this day that i am leaving out forr the sake of keeping my computer in one piece. for a lot of things today, both personal and professional, probably the best description is "fed up". i'm done feeling like i am not getting supported, butr in fact attacked at work. i'm repulsed by feeling like i have to apologize all the time for being a flake. it hurts every time i tthink about all of the different things i used to love doing that i have no desire to even think about. i loathe feeling like a charity case because i am in need of so much supposed help these days, and then when i don't get it, i fuck up and get yelled at, and that person apologizes for yelling at me and i have to tell them apartment.
i am going to stop here before i make myself so sick it turns itself into something physically teal...
it true me fashion, i left the moving project, like so many others, unfinished, and extensively so, until the last minute. Hence in my rush to complete it last night, i threw my back out and fell down the stairs carrying my bookshelf. there's still a part of me that keeps trying to say that if i had just balanced it a little better i would have continued to work quickly enough to get it all done. i know this is not true. i had let my home, much like my life, rapidly descent to a state of beyond embarassing, more than disgusting, unhealthy state. needless to say, there were phone calls from some very upset people that arrived on the scene to move in today.
my original plan to deal with all of this after popping my second vicodin of the day at 7 in the morning was to call someone and let them know i was going to complete the unfinished deed when i got home from work. better late than never, and overwhelmingly apologetically for being an irresponsible asshole, i would get everything clean. today.
of course, even when i am in the best of places emotionally and otherwise, seemingly little things tend to have the ability to make the dirt beneath my feet crumble and i start falling into oblivion until some external forrce is able to smack some sense into me. unfortunately right now, repeated attacks of common sence to most people has only given me momentary glimpses of what i should be doing, meanwhile not stopping my fall as i don't even notice things in my house like an entire wall getting destroyed by water damage.
of course that's only part of it...
so i go to work all together with my plan of attack for my home life that needs some serious reconfiguring and assessment,and of course find out for the first time that it is a no school day. crisis one aborted and score one for problem solving on the fly. i pick up the weekend schedule, change the names of a few different things, and suddenly there is order and structure again on my unit...for five minutes...then i find out that two of the five staff on my shift are working their first official shifts. in fact, one of them didn't know until i gave her duties and had to explain that teaching assistants only get one shadow sft, even though the person who interviewed her told her she got two...then the real fun begins when one of my kids starts acting out because i consequenced him on momnday for interfering in a safety, and my BRILLIANT team decided that they wanted to put him on 24 hour iso base onwednesday for the same thing, which is supported by my unit manager, who told me specifically that we were no longer going to do that unless there was a serious documented pattern of behavior. in the mindset of running a tighter shift, i take a different, proactive, but in my mind completely untherapeutic approach, to get him to comply with his consequence. in the end, the kid ends up getting hands on twice, secluded on two different occasions for a total of almost four hours, tries to strangle himself twice, and put on increased safety obs. i spent friday with this kid in my day room, interacting with me and my staff member, joking, and generate behavior from him that merited taking him off such invasive protections, but according to my boss, i was running the unit incompetently that day, working too hard, to keep him safe. call me crazy, but i will work until i'm dead if it will increase an individual's well being, apparently, my managers want me to have hands on and restraints all the time. all of this is before noon, at which point we are told that lunch will be eaten on the units and not in the dining room because tv crews reporting on the teacher who was having an inappropriate relationship with one of her students are piling up in our parking lot.
but i'm still not done.
just as i sit down to try and start some of my paperwork for all of this, one of my staff asks why one of my residents is watching a movie in the community. i tell her that i gave him permission to, at which point she informs me that he is on a therapy only program and is not allowed to watch recreational movies, as per a discussion on tuesday, my day off. as i double check for it, i find that there is not one shred of written documentation that this was decided in the team meeting on tuesday, only 5 weeks after we had decided as a team that programmatic decisions would ONLY be discussed and determined on mondays.
so then i start to approach my unit manager about these and some other concerns with staff not following directions, and not challenging the kids enough. i think my manager got his job because he tells me that these things are either my fault, some of which i will admit i do agree with, but then tells me that some of these things are me making excuses for my inability to control my unit. in talking with the supervisor relieving me tonight, his opinion was "they give you such a hard time because they don't like you." sorry, but i though managers were supposed to give us support and embody professionalism or something...oh wait, let's not forget ACCOUNTABILITY.
and there are still significant parts of this day that i am leaving out forr the sake of keeping my computer in one piece. for a lot of things today, both personal and professional, probably the best description is "fed up". i'm done feeling like i am not getting supported, butr in fact attacked at work. i'm repulsed by feeling like i have to apologize all the time for being a flake. it hurts every time i tthink about all of the different things i used to love doing that i have no desire to even think about. i loathe feeling like a charity case because i am in need of so much supposed help these days, and then when i don't get it, i fuck up and get yelled at, and that person apologizes for yelling at me and i have to tell them apartment.
i am going to stop here before i make myself so sick it turns itself into something physically teal...