"Stand Clear Of The Closing Doors, Please..!"
Mr. Happy Subway Recording needs to take it down a notch. Especially when they decide to completely discontinue the A and C service going uptown from 34th street. I know it took longer than thirteen minutes for me to discover this because my card worked again when I went to the 2 line to get uptown as a replacement. So there I am standing for the whole trip because to my eye, these new auto-announce subway cars, all bright with the red marquee words, are more narrow than the others. Obviously this can't be true since they run on the same track and reach the platform the same way the others do, but it FELT smaller. Probably because my nerves were raw and exposed.

I intend to put my three-week notice in at work because I've had enough. I've HAD it. My job is 65% file clerk, 30% corporate lackey/bully, and 5% therapist. Most of that therapy I have to do on myself, just to keep from cussing out my supervisor. And I'm paying too much money to commute.

I'll have to own up to being hasty in moving to NYC, but I would do the same exact thing if I had a chance to go back. My current regret is that...well, I don't have one. I just need a job in this area, and I need it three weeks ago. I've been advised by my buddies not to quit for an unstable job, even if I believe it to be temporary, ie, a waiter or a clerk at a Barnes & Noble. My thought is that I will be very very employable when my senior license comes, which can be as early as two months from now or three weeks. But either way, I want to stop working for my present people. The workload inequity has gotten to me. I have a good 3 to 4 times the caseload as some of my associates. My clients may be higher functioning than theirs, but the paperwork is all the same. So I have to ride wrangler on about 13-16 charts, which each include a treatment plan, a weekly progess note, medication records (some clients can take up to 10 medications), financial benefits, payment schedules, telephone bills, outside care coordination notes, among a few other chartly details. Plus I'm responsible for site upkeep and maintenance. "Did you call for repair on apartment XYZ?" "Is the phone working yet in apartment ZYX?" "Why are your office carpets so dirty?" Now add manfunctioning computer netorks. "Did you call Jedediah to come out and look at your machine yet?" Not to mention overseeing the successful reordering of medications so the clients don't run out. Many of these details can and are handled by my Assistant and the counselors I supervise. But the rub is, I am the supervisor. If something doesn't get done, I have to find out why. I have to put the pressure on. I have to threaten with written warnings. I have to put disciplinary notes on their records. Me, me, me. And yes, my supervisor and her supervisor expects things to be 100% accurate. No mistakes in the charts. No mistakes in the medication records. No missed medications.
It.

SUCKS.

I am a good therapist and THATS. WHAT. I. WANT. TO. DO.

So three weeks from now, I intend to be gone from that place. God help my clients. I feel like the only good I ever did in that place was for them and yet this is not enough in order to fulfill my duties satisfactorily. Kind of a freaking shame, ain't it? No one ever told the Makers of Policy that they are asking too much from one person? Or, you know what? I can even accept that I'm just not the right person for the job. I'm not detail-oriented enough. I can't organize efficiently. WHATEVER.

But I know what I am good at and I need to go and freaking do it. Or in the words of the immortal Cartman, "SCREW YOU GUYS, I'M GOING HOME."

Me at 2/23/2004 09:22:00 PM

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