2013
Flashback to 2013
Some details may be left out to avoid any breach of client confidentiality
In a nod to a local policy requiring profanity to be documented by partly spelling certain words with asterisks, that's what I'll be doing here.
It's time for the weekly meeting at the group home. The boys who are made to live here are elsewhere for the duration of the staff meeting. Outside, the temperature is hot, as is normal for summer. Inside, the house is dim, cool, and almost damp-feeling. Several of the staff members, and the middle manager who oversees the site, are vaping inside the house. This is probably in violation of company policy, but the middle manager (henceforth called coordinator) tends to violate company policy and sometimes several state laws. He is very overweight, which will in the future contribute to him suffering from deep vein and pulmonary thrombosis, but for now he uses his bulk and his personality to look intimidating. His vape pen is tipped with a small metal-looking skull, his arms covered in expensive tattoos that include a depiction of a suicide geisha. One might question whether a depiction of suicide would be a good idea in a group home for emotionally-disturbed teen boys.
Rather than feeling like a staff meeting, the gathering feels like an opportunity for some of the staff members to see and be seen, showing off their vape pens and the scented nicotine vapors they make.
The house has no supervisor. The last actual supervisor was fired a few weeks ago right before she was to go on maternity leave. The company is having money problems, and it was obvious the firing was to prevent the company from having to pay her PTO while she was on leave. The coordinator, in firing the last supervisor, set into motion events that would damage morale and wreck the house's functioning. The place is already deteriorating. The clients are acting out more than they would under normal circumstances, and staff members are getting injured in the process. The dishwasher has not been repaired for a long time. There's a generalized dirty feel to anything going on lately with the house or the company. It feels sleazy. He has a chance to help start making things more right, today, or at other meetings. This meeting is to be used for discussing house matters, and to meet the state's clinical oversight requirements.
Well, this is not in his nature. Staff meetings have become his forum to show his personality. At one meeting, he talked about how he set his pit bull and his Rottweiler onto a javelina in the desert, enjoying watching them painfully kill the animal. At today's meeting, well. As he goes through the meeting, sucking occasionally on his metal skull-tipped vape pen, he starts to discuss why people should not mess with him. He tells a story of someone who thought he had "a masters in asshole." How the person continued to pursue a course of action he did not like, only to get really really screwed by him. He ends this meeting by stating "I have a masters in a**hole, and a PhD in motherf****r."
At the end of the meeting, not much was really achieved. It's a relief to open the door and walk into the purifying, clarifying desert heat and sun, even if just for the moment. It's not clear what the meeting had to do with behavioral health, or improving staff skills, or helping the clients. It's just more dirtiness to stain the house and the staff.
Some details may be left out to avoid any breach of client confidentiality
In a nod to a local policy requiring profanity to be documented by partly spelling certain words with asterisks, that's what I'll be doing here.
It's time for the weekly meeting at the group home. The boys who are made to live here are elsewhere for the duration of the staff meeting. Outside, the temperature is hot, as is normal for summer. Inside, the house is dim, cool, and almost damp-feeling. Several of the staff members, and the middle manager who oversees the site, are vaping inside the house. This is probably in violation of company policy, but the middle manager (henceforth called coordinator) tends to violate company policy and sometimes several state laws. He is very overweight, which will in the future contribute to him suffering from deep vein and pulmonary thrombosis, but for now he uses his bulk and his personality to look intimidating. His vape pen is tipped with a small metal-looking skull, his arms covered in expensive tattoos that include a depiction of a suicide geisha. One might question whether a depiction of suicide would be a good idea in a group home for emotionally-disturbed teen boys.
Rather than feeling like a staff meeting, the gathering feels like an opportunity for some of the staff members to see and be seen, showing off their vape pens and the scented nicotine vapors they make.
The house has no supervisor. The last actual supervisor was fired a few weeks ago right before she was to go on maternity leave. The company is having money problems, and it was obvious the firing was to prevent the company from having to pay her PTO while she was on leave. The coordinator, in firing the last supervisor, set into motion events that would damage morale and wreck the house's functioning. The place is already deteriorating. The clients are acting out more than they would under normal circumstances, and staff members are getting injured in the process. The dishwasher has not been repaired for a long time. There's a generalized dirty feel to anything going on lately with the house or the company. It feels sleazy. He has a chance to help start making things more right, today, or at other meetings. This meeting is to be used for discussing house matters, and to meet the state's clinical oversight requirements.
Well, this is not in his nature. Staff meetings have become his forum to show his personality. At one meeting, he talked about how he set his pit bull and his Rottweiler onto a javelina in the desert, enjoying watching them painfully kill the animal. At today's meeting, well. As he goes through the meeting, sucking occasionally on his metal skull-tipped vape pen, he starts to discuss why people should not mess with him. He tells a story of someone who thought he had "a masters in asshole." How the person continued to pursue a course of action he did not like, only to get really really screwed by him. He ends this meeting by stating "I have a masters in a**hole, and a PhD in motherf****r."
At the end of the meeting, not much was really achieved. It's a relief to open the door and walk into the purifying, clarifying desert heat and sun, even if just for the moment. It's not clear what the meeting had to do with behavioral health, or improving staff skills, or helping the clients. It's just more dirtiness to stain the house and the staff.
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