Job Satisfaction….
I find it interesting that I should be talking about job satisfaction in the post that follows my recent post about the dangerous nature of social work. In some ways, though, I guess they are interlinked. Certainly if you feel you are at risk of bodily harm or death while at work, you may not be exactly thrilled to go to work. I know that’s not the case for every line of work, but my guess is that it would be the case for most social workers.
At my place of employment, we recently had a significant improvement in where our department is housed. We are now actually in the hospital. No more walking in the rain from my car to my office…and then from my office to the hospital. And then in reverse at the end of the day.
At the same time that we were moving, I was experiencing one of the more difficult weeks I have experienced in a while. I won’t go into detail…but very sad cases, difficult doctors, and a situation that could draw negative community response.
What surprised me was that I was able to cope much better than I have in the past. I don’t know if I’m still high on endorphins released when I was able to sit down at my new desk and look out a big window. Or whether simply having a private** space to go to during the day to make phone calls or document was a calming influence.
Nevertheless, in spite of difficult circumstances, I was happier in my job than I have been in the past few months. I just wonder how long the new office will boost those numbers??
**By private, I mean being able to separate myself from doctors and nurses and other medical staff. I share my office with three other social workers.
A dangerous job…
In my day to day dealings with patients, I don’t consider my job dangerous. Maybe it’s because, generally speaking, I’m surrounded by people as I work with clients. Nurses and physical therapists are coming in and out. Other patients’ family members are milling around. Help is always seemingly close at hand. That’s not to say that I’m not cautious. I choose my position in the room so that my exit isn’t blocked. I generally don’t sit within an arm’s reach of a patient.
We’ve had a couple of situations recently that have reminded me of how dangerous the practice of social work can be and that danger can reach out to me in my outside life. This has been very difficult for my husband. While my father-in-law isn’t an MSW, he worked for several years as an Adult Protective Services worker for the state. When he was assaulted in the parking lot outside of his workplace by the son of a woman who he had to remove from her home (I won’t go into details but it was a pretty horrific situation), that was when he decided to leave social services and become a contractor and cabinet builder.
Here are a few more examples of violence perpetrated upon social workers…in West Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Kentucky. You can also go here if you would like a more personal image of violence against social workers. I’m sure there are other cases…these were the ones I found in a quick Google search.
It’s a bit sobering to think of working in a job where you may come across a person who could end up killing you or severely injuring you. It doesn’t change my commitment to the work I do, but it does make me think about the type of jobs I would take in the field now and in the future. How does the threat of violence affect your practice of social work? Or does it affect it at all?
Some of the top quotes for 2010
I have been pondering what to blog about on New Year’s Eve…I’ve decided to do a retrospective on some of the wacky things I’ve heard and/or overheard while working at the hospital….so here it goes…
1. “Boy, it’s a good thing I’m not very responsible otherwise I would have gotten around to canceling my insurance.”
2. “Amy, the social worker, please call the ICU.”
3. “I’ve just pissed myself, can you come back later?”
4. “Liquid medicine…I’m going to make a million dollars with that idea!”
5. Dr. Fancy White Coat – “What do you call that mini-boot camp we send old people to?” Me- “A nursing home.”
6. “Please get security and go to the patient’s car and destroy their drug stash.”
7. “Thanks.” To find out why this is a wacky quote, you’ll have to read this.
8. Them, “You’ve got to go AnyTown to my bank for me, then I’ll go to the psychiatric placement!” Me, “I can’t go to AnyTown for you.” Them, “Why would you go to AnyTown?”
9. “Suicide is about the death of time and responsibility.”
I was hoping this could be like a top ten. I was hoping it would be a little like David Letterman…I guess I just will have to let you know that two of my fellow social work bloggers have marked the New Year with posts about the past year. So, check out Fighting Monsters and Social Worker 24/7!
A recipe for stress relief at Christmas!
I should have made my cheesecake last week when I was struggling with K-Mart. This is seriously a good way to work out that holiday stress….
So, start by getting two 8 oz packages of cream cheese out of the fridge so they can start to soften. While it’s softening you can prepare the rest of the recipe and relieve some holiday stress.
Take 15 round, striped peppermint candies and smash the shit out of them. I mean, really smash them to smithereens! I found that the flat side of our meat mallet worked really, really well. They need to be finely crushed. So smash the crap out of them (I put them in a zip lock bag and that worked really well). To put the finishing touches on the smashing, I rolled over them quite a few times with the rolling pin.
Now, get another ziplock bag and put about 35 chocolate cookies (they need to be crisp) in there. Take your rolling pin and smash the ever-loving life out of those cookies.
Finally, get a milk chocolate bar (recipe calls for about 3 oz) and smash the crap out of it, too. I found my Pampered Chef Food Chopper worked really well for this task.
The rest of the recipe is pretty mundane. It’s actually a very easy cheesecake recipe. You can find the actual and complete recipe here.
Now that I’m done decompressing from my holiday stress, I want to wish my 6 readers a great holiday! Be safe out there tomorrow and have a Happy New Year! And thanks, Reas, for giving me the idea to include a holiday recipe in my blog!
Merry F*#&ing Christmas
So, I am quite pleased that I should not need to go into any store other than a grocery store between now and Christmas. I had come close to reaching the end of my rope on Saturday.
I went to finish the shopping. Before, I left I asked my husband (who had wrapped a bunch of gifts earlier) if there was wrapping paper left. He said, “Oh yeah! We have enough to get us through Christmas.” Silly me…I took his word for it.
So, I went and finished up the shopping. I got home. Threatened the Boys with a call to Santa if they came upstairs while I was wrapping. I opened the closet, took out the Rubbermaid container that holds our wrapping paper and discovered….plenty of birthday paper, a bit of wedding paper and a smidge of baby paper. Absolutely, positively no Christmas paper, though.
So, I stomp downstairs and get the keys and head out again. I go to a different store because they store I had just been to has an annoying parking lot. I go to KMart. I go to the Christmas section and begin searching for wrapping paper.
I search and I search. I cannot find it. Finally, a gentleman (who I assume was the manager since he was the only person in Kmart with a tie on-he also had a Kmart name tag) came by and I said, “Can you please tell me where the wrapping paper is?”
He looks at me and sighs, as if I am the dumbest person to ever enter their store, and says, “It is in the Garden Center.” My response was a sarcastic, “Well, of course it is.” Merry F*&#ing Christmas, Kmart!
Documentation….
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted and I feel a little badly that my first post in so long is a bit of a rant…but whatever breaks the writer’s block, right?
So, as a social worker, why do we document? To protect against liability, a little CYA? To make sure you get paid (for those of you in private practice)? Because you’re ethically bound to do so? I think all of these answers are correct.
But, I feel like the main underlying reason we document is for communication. You are communicating to the insurance company about the progress your client is making. You are communicating with the rest of your agency about your client’s progress. If you’re in a setting like mine, it’s to communicate with the rest the interdisciplinary team (nurses, doctors, physical therapists, etc).
Today, I came close to losing it. Tomorrow, if I have one more person ask me if social work is involved with a patient, I may have to walk away and count to ten to avoid causing bodily injury to someone. We document in the chart in the hopes that that will be enough communication.
I’m not sure where this breakdown in communication is coming from, but it’s really getting to me. Grrrr…..
My new favorite website
Being a mom and full-time social worker, I don’t get a lot of time to sit and listen to the radio. So, I’m a little set in my ways when it comes to music. Sure, sometimes I hear a song when I’m watching Grey’s Anatomy and figure out who sang it…but other wise I’m at a loss when it comes to new music.
Not anymore! I have been listening to Pandora! You select different bands or singers you already know and then they play other artists that you may like. It’s great and addictive and free!
Paying for Abortions
First thing I want to start of saying is that I am by no means an expert on the health care reform bill that was passed by the House of Representatives and that is going on to the Senate for debate.
What I am going to say, though, is that I’m a little frustrated that the possibility of any kind of health care reform can be tanked simply because a group of people wants to take this as an opportunity to change the availability of abortions.
The thing is, folks, you are probably paying for abortions in one way or another, even if they are not federally funded. If you are paying (or your employer, on your behalf) health insurance premiums and your health insurance covers abortions, you are paying for abortions. If you or a loved one sees a medical provider that performs abortions, you are in a way supporting that providers ability to continue to provide that service to women.
I am just frustrated that any progress we’ve made is going to grind to a halt because of this issue. I have friends on the pro-life side. I know that they feel by restricting access to abortions they are saving the lives of babies. But, if health care reform is halted because of this issue, people are going to die. People are dying now because they don’t have coverage. People are losing their homes and everything they’ve worked for because they don’t have coverage and they get sick. Something has to be done and we can’t let this one issue unravel everything.
It’s been awhile…
We’ve had a lot going on at work that if I at all discussed, my secret identity would be quickly identified…should some random person from my workplace stumble across this blog.
So far in the last month, The D has had some medical testing, which turned out A-OK. That was a real relief since if it hadn’t we would be discussing another surgery for him. We’ve also been hit with H1N1. The Husband, The G, and The D all got sick. The D had to have prednisone and Tamiflu. Everyone else managed to get through it with minimal pharmaceutical help. I was unscathed.
I also got my H1N1 vaccine at work, the live one. No problems here, no symptoms, no side effects, no extra head growing out of my back.
I’m pondering a few posts and will hopefully have some new social work-y material for my 6 readers soon!
A date movie??
So, I went to a movie by myself today! It was actually quite pleasant…all by myself, didn’t have to share my popcorn and there was no child saying, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” I went to see Zombieland and I loved every minute of it! It totally cracked me up! My guilty pleasure is zombie movies (books, too). You could psychoanalyze me on this one…a mental health professional that loves creatures that eat humans alive?
Anyway…the one thing I can say is that, for most females, a zombie movie of any kind would not be their first choice for a date movie. Nevertheless, several college aged males were there with dates. Down the row from me, a young man had a girl with him. The zombie grossness started right from the beginning. She got up twice in the first ten minutes. She came back and then the third time, she grabbed her purse and hissed at her date, “I’m LEAVING! Are you coming?!?” He looked at her and said, “Nope!”
So, guys, please remember that not everyone likes zombies. If you want to have a second date or maybe even finish the first date, you probably want to chose Love Happens or something similar.
