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Free At Last…Part 1

July 31, 2o13

After two- years working as an Admin Assistant at a MICA women’s’ shelter in downtown Brooklyn, (far from my ‘hood but going through the same gentrification which destroyed mine)..I am now FREE!

Free to pursue my interest…school and working as a Vet Tech Assistant

Free of an unhealthy environment…I no longer inhale crack cocaine, cigarettes or marijuana on a 40 hour five days a week basis

Free of verbal and abusive violence…some from the clients, most from the staff

Free of all medical and dental benefits…now is not the time to need an appendectomy

Free of a mediocre salary…now I earn enough to qualify for the status of “below the poverty line”

Free of working with others my age…we will not go there just yet, still adjusting…

As of now, I work one day a week with fill in days at a neighbourhood veterinary practice. The practice is housed in a four-story limestone building across from Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York, and a twenty-minute walk from my house. images[1]

The owner of the practice responded to my resume posted to a vet tech employment site. He called to schedule an interview two days after receiving it and I met him one day later, 6:30pm on a Friday evening. The interview was five minutes with a twenty-minute tour of the facility. I shadowed one day a week, (no pay) for about a month and officially hired August 1.

This was my third interview for a vet tech position, older in age than most entering a new field and thankfully this one came through! The owner was impressed with my cover letter, which, states where I come from-job wise and where I would like to go -passion wise. And yes, he is older than me, which I am sure helped in the hiring decision.

I’ve learned cat and dog restraint, how to feed a finicky chinchilla medicine and most importantly dodging lethal attacks from the in house resident rescue Chihuahua who has a thing for people of colour (he was found tied to a hydrant with his bed and it is possible he was abused by a person of colour, hence his desire to attack anyone darker than an office manila folder).20130804_151201

I also learned quite a bit on laboratory testing, administering meds with a pill popper and vaccines as well as aseptic techniques and medical jargon…this can go on but it stops here.

I assisted in an abdominal exploratory surgery. The poor doggie swallowed a rubber ball and only half was expelled. The rest? Found in his intestines, which were blazing red from the intrusion. I survived the procedure, did not faint and was able to monitor his pulse, blood pressure, and anesthesia and still eat sausage later in the week.

This experience is an exciting change from sitting behind a desk in an uncomfortable chair pushing papers and each day of work brings the opportunity to learn something new.
20130811_102013

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Been a long time…

It’s been a long time since my words made their way onto a page.

Transitions continue to subtly move within mi alma and guide me towards the shifts needed to move from a mind-numbing rut into a forward moving , thinking with anticipation, embracing the changes strut. images[7]

I enrolled in an online vet tech program, in the process of completing my first semester of full time classes, gave two week notice, verbal and written at the 40 hour a week MICA shelter, began a part-time Sunday only vet tech assisting job, sent out resumes too numerous to mention, went and hopefully will continue to go on interviews and it’s all good. Being in my late 40’s, going through the changes and no, not menopause, makes it all good.

There have been kill-joys who wrinkle their noses upon learning of yet another of my career changes and that’s all good too. At least, I am blessed to have had the opportunity to explore and indulge where my passions take me-blowing in the wind.

But sometimes…

The wind may die down and you drop where it stops and fall into a hole. The hole can feel like a big soft blanket, safe and comforting of the most anesthetizing kind. Food, alcohol and e-books are easily delivered with a click from the keyboard or a cell phone call.

And eventually…

You realize the hole is just a hole with no forward or backward movement. It starts to become smaller and the big soft blanket now has scratchy fuzz which scrapes on your dry skin, waking you from the anesthesia you thought you had. Delivery food gets expensively boring and the alcohol makes you fat, while the unread e-books take up space on your Kindle.

I prayed and prayed, cursed, than prayed some more for guidance and HE gave it.

I slowly climbed from the hole and dusted the food crumbs off my body, got on the internet and researched on working with animals. My compassion and dedication to those who have difficulty defending themselves shifted from people to animals. This is now my forward motion and it’s all too good.

My two mini schnauzers have taught me many lessons : unconditional love, patience, understanding pain when it’s not expressed, getting rid of vomit stains, breaking up dog fights, cutting black nails, cleaning out ears, picking up feces , this can go on but it stops right now. I am grateful to them for their influence on my decision to embark on this career transition.

Thank you Tobias and Pi-Patel who incidentally, refused to get in the hole.

pihr5 pihr8

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Counting…

My days at work are numbered?

My days at work are numbered.

That statement no longer is the question I often turned it into when the thought of leaving this place first surfaced. Fueled by the unknown (can I find another job?), accelerated by the uncertainty, (how will I pay my bills?) and strangled by the fear of hopelessness and danger (NO HEALTH BENEFITS!), I remained at this depressive and stagnated job for two years.

The Director I adored working with is gone, driven out by VP’s who were not impressed with her leadership style and fancy excel data spreadsheets. She made the place tolerable and kept me busy with work, so busy that no time existed to socialize with staff I did not care to socialize with. She was fair and treated staff who gossiped about her horribly with fairness even though she overheard what they said. She understood my personal trauma, took the time to find out about its source and although we did not discuss it, it was understood that working at this place was in some way therapeutic.

The Director who took her place does not deserve to earn 70 grand a year but he is here and she is not. He had connections and smooth talking ways. He’s a peacock. peacock-new-zealand_10933_990x742[1]

All fluff, wearing all the colours of the rainbow suits lacking in substance. He’s also a pimp daddy for he wore a full-length mink coat all winter.

imagesCA3ZZ6SWTo wear such a get up to a homeless, mentally ill and substance abuse women’s’ shelter, in my opinion is disrespectful and insensitive.  But, I guess he can for he is the Mack daddy-who can’t work a Xerox! He gossips about staff, mimics the speech of clients’ in front of them, and passes his workload down the line of staff until it is all gone. Then time to sit back, close the office door and watch movies on the tablet.

I do not work for a city shelter. I work for a non-profit organization that is funded by Medicaid and the city. The ex CEO is under investigation for embezzlement of Medicaid funds and earned approximately 60 grand a month while the staff received no cost of living increases or raises. Our Christmas party was potluck!

I will miss the clients who at times are inspirational in their
accomplishments against such unfavourable odds.

I will miss my easy 2-mile walk to work.

Will I miss working for this company when my day comes? No. Will I miss my co-workers? No. Will I miss Big Peacock Daddy? H to the ell and n to the o!

Most importantly, I will not miss the metal detectors that greet me every time I step through the doors of the place I will not affectionately remember as ‘the place where I used to work’.

 

**Pictures courtesy of the internet.

 

 

 

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The Sun will come out tomorrow…

I am sitting here at work listening to a client screaming profanity of the most creative kind at the staff. She is upset, very upset and frustrated at not hearing from the housing agency on whether she was awarded a place to live.

I do not know if the hope for a better tomorrow pulsates in the heart of this client or if the hope is snuffed out with just another day of scamming, lying, cheating, drinking, smoking and scrapping.

I am sitting here at work listening to a client crying hysterically because she left her cell phone charging in the cafeteria to go to the bathroom and upon her return the phone was gone. Her anger and rage were not directed towards the loss of the phone but rather what the phone contained-the pictures of her son and lawyer contact.

I do not know if tomorrow will solve the location of her phone or if the loss of the pictures is the final push into severe depression and chemical abuse.

I am sitting here at work listening to a client singing a Whitney Houston song. She sings loudly off key and I secretly wish for earplugs to muffle the sound. But, I have no earplugs and the singing, (or more like a banshee in heat wailing) continues.

I do not know if tomorrow will bring the same happiness this client felt while singing or if the singing is replaced by extreme depressive outbursts once the drugs run out and wear off.

I am sitting here at work listening to the outside sounds of the neighbourhood I work in. It is a mixture of police and fire truck sirens, car horns blaring, garbage trucks rolling and loading, yelling and screaming with an occasional laugh thrown in.

I do know tomorrow will bring the same sounds, the same sensory abuse of the nerves and whether I am sitting at this desk or in another country, the same sounds will continue to repeat.

So goes another Monday morning of normal activity at the shelter. Rainy weather tends to brings out extreme emotional reactions as the clients are cooped up inside a cement block building with little activities to keep them occupied or distracted. The same holds for some of the staff who work in this same environment-forty hour a week.

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Because They Can, can…

Every morning and especially on garbage pickup days Those who can, can.
Those who can are the can and bottle collectors who roam and forage through the recycle trash in the ‘hood’ in search of the 5 cent deposit payoffs.

Those who can are young, old, Black, Hispanic, Asian, White, women, men and women with children in tow pitching in. At times, it seems as if part time and full time working shifts are in place, for those who can are usually seen at the same time every day.

Those who can push shopping carts with plastic bags draped to the sides, others carry large bags in a variety of colours strapped to their shoulders and some just use the pockets in their clothing. I smile and say Good Morning to the ones I know. I yank up the blinds at my window to reprimand those who I do not know because they left the lid off our garbage recycle can after raking through and getting the 5-cent deposit payoffs.

I use to view Those who can as outcasts in society akin to Those who feed birds, unable to navigate through societal demands or culture.  They were the people who had to support their escapism by way of drugs, alcohol or in the case of Those who feed birds through birdseed.

Due to my unemployment at the time and in need of running shoes, I decided to try my hand at being a Those who can. A relative who lived in the basement was a heavy beer drinker and partied on the weekends in the basement with other heavy beer drinkers. By the end of Sunday, the “garbage recycle can runneth over” with the discarded 5 cent deposit payoffs.

*AN IDEA *

Collect all the cans from the relative after the weekend before he throws them out then go to the local supermarket to retrieve my five cents of payoffs. Two hundred 5-cent deposit payoffs equals $100 crispy brand new dollars-viola or vola!-new pair of running shoes!

It did not work out that way…

After collecting gazillions of 5-cent deposit payoffs from the relative and dumping them into 55-gallon trash bags, packed in my car no less, I drove to the local supermarket and stood in line at the return machine. I was overly dressed with clean clothes compared to the others who stood in line and I wore makeup with lipstick to boot. Finally, it was my turn. I unloaded a can from the bag and slid it through the slot.

ERROR MESSAGE-THE ITEM WAS NOT PURCHASED AT THIS LOCATION

WoW.

Numerous cans attempted kicked back the same message. A Those who can next in line advised me to go the Walgreens a mile over and try their machine. I guess it was obvious from my reaction at the rejection notice that I was an inexperienced Those who can who had no plan B.

I jumped in my car and drove to the Walgreens.

ERROR MESSAGE-THE ITEM WAS NOT PURCHASED AT THIS LOCATION

WoWsa.

*AN IDEA*

On my way to the Queens Center Mall, stop in at a nearby supermarket.

ERROR MESSAGE-THE ITEM WAS NOT PURCHASED AT THIS LOCATION

Okay, enough with the error messages.  I tried six other places until I realized the cans had to be returned to the place of purchases.  Needless to say, the beers that were once in the cans were purchased at various beer outlets. No return machines there.

I returned home, bags of cans in tow and into the garbage recycle bin they went.

The next day, the bin was empty. Those who can completed their rounds. The job does not stop at the local supermarket but begins with the back and forth travel to numerous places, returning cans and bottles.

Those who can, have my respect. I was not able to accomplish what they do on a day-to-day basis-heck I did not even make five cents. I had a car, did not go door-to-door collecting cans and had 55-gallon trash bags at my disposal. Those who can, work hard.  I gave up.

Eventually, I purchased my ASICS running shoes but felt no satisfaction at acquiring them through borrowed money.

 

 

Posted on by Anelemc

re·spect

re·spect

noun

1.esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability: I have great respect for her judgment.
2.deference to a right, privilege, privileged position, or someone or something considered to have certain rights or privileges; proper acceptance or courtesy; acknowledgment: respect for a suspect’s right to counsel; to show respect for the flag; respect for the elderly.
3. the condition of being esteemed or honored: to be held in respect.

Respect is a funky word usually associated with emotional outward feelings of admiration, glory or submission. One does not need to be liked to be respected. Respect earns respect, higher salaries, faster promotions, an office with a view and a personal assistant, home cooked meals and an occasional lick from a dog.

But, when it is slow to acknowledge, or omitted at a time when it is most important, lack of Respect can be the catalyst of horrific wars.

Respect is fickle and fleeting as are the people we encounter. Those who love you at first may demand your head in the gallows thirty seconds later. If you don’t respect me, I’m not going to respect you or I’ll pretend to respect you if I get that office, without the view but with the personal assistant.

I have yet to figure out Respect’s presence in the workplace. There is definitely a grey area and most likely the few who deserve it are obscure by the ones who definitely don’t.  Good acting skills are required in order to spend eight hours of our day in co-existence with people we’d never socialize with outside of work. Of course having a semi-private office with a door and lock helps tremendously with the figuring out.

There was a time back in the day when Respect was earned. Hard work, diligence, attention to detail, not sweating the small stuff was enough to get just about anybody a little respect. But Respect under the lull of fluorescent lights, claustrophobic cubicles wedged amongst Xeroxes and fax machines, has changed.  The dynamics of Respect is lost within the caustic vapors of the Xerox toner cartridges.

It is emotionally difficult to respect co-workers from hell especially those in need of a serious exorcism.  How do you exude admiration, adoration, and submissive behaviour from being in the company of greatness, towards someone you’d rather kick? How fast can I run under a desk when my lack of Respect towards a co-worker, has been outted by my facial expression of disgust and eye rolling at their ghetto way of talking?

There is no employee manual on the usage of Respect nor are we at birth infused with the Respect juju.
A slight given is a slight taken. You step on my suede shoes, I’ll step on yours.

Our world would be such a nice place to hang out in if Respect was held in the same esteem as a Play Station console.