I usually love working nights, it is quiet, I can write in peace, do my small work tasks and chores, and listen to music. Tonight, well I guess it is now morning as I write this at 2:09am. Well today, whatever day it is, I am feeling quite lonely. My co-worker is asleep in his chair in the office so I am out in the living room on the couch of my work… For those of you who don’t know, I work as a shelter counselor at a youth homeless shelter. We’re only open for 11 hours in a day; 9pm-8am. So while the kids sleep, a co-worker and I split up some house keeping chores and I do the paperwork to maintain the license that the shelter needs to remain open for “business”. Our shelter is located above a coffee shop in a very old building in the Seattle area. That very coffee business is what keeps heat in the building and the lights on. Well, that and donations… very generous donations.

I miss my husband. I know that may sound silly but we work opposite schedules so I talk to him for an hour while I am at work around 3 or 4 in the morning. Then we spend about an hour at home around 6-7pm when I make him dinner and do basic chores. Sometimes if I am able to wake up earlier, we can watch our show and socialize.

Like I’ve said before, both Kyle and I love our jobs and aren’t willing to start over somewhere else in order to make more time for each other. So what I feel is gonna end up happening is I’m forced to switch up my job since I work nights and he makes a lot more money than I do. I’ve applied to many positions within my agency so that way I would be able to work days and see my husband more. My immediate boss has been advocating for me to get a position as a part time case manager in the office across the street from the homeless shelter. The only bad thing about that is I would lose my insurance and retirement and Kyle can’t add me to his health insurance until November of 2025.

However, my immediate boss has been speaking with the immediate director who I am in good graces with because he has seen me in action during a crisis situation that he was called in on in my shelter. He thought even though I lack a lot of higher education, he suggested I work in the county jail on behalf of my company. The ad for this position has yet to be posted online, but I have my resume and cover letter ready. This would be a full time position and a little further of a commute for me but I would not only make more but also have more hours and it would be normal people hours. I think this is also a case manager position but in the county jail which I think I would love and be great at. Not to mention I have the senior director who is also the hiring manager who’s advocating me for this position, it almost seems like I am a shoe in.

I don’t really know the details of the job besides what I have written but I can make some educated guesses. My boss emailed the director about getting that job posting listed and I have a meeting on Tuesday morning with my boss. I don’t recall if she said it was an interview or we are just speaking on work matters, either way, more overtime this pay period which is always good.

…

Update as of 12/13/2024

I still haven’t heard back from the senior director for my second job interview as of 5:49am. But I texted my immediate supervisor and she said she would be meeting with him at noon today and would ask him about when he might interview me. My supervisor has been a great advocate for me because she knows I have a lot of the right skills for this field of work and knows I want a 9a-5p job so I can be with my husband more.

It wouldn’t be perfect; me working 9-5, because he works 4a-12p and so there still would be a large gap in time away from one another but it would be better than it is now and at least we would both be sleeping during the night.

In other news, there has been a lot of unspoken of trauma happening in my life. Two spouses of AA members I know personally have passed away this week. I also had trauma when a former shelter youth told me she overdosed on fentanyl and her heart stopped for two whole minutes before EMTs could revive her. And another former shelter youth was in a manic frenzy and climbed up a tall building in town and fell backwards to take her life. She is still alive, but in palliative care with life threatening injuries to her spine, will most likely never walk again, and as of now is still in a coma at a hospital in Seattle.

The amount of trauma and heartache devastates me. I often think of the Bible verse: “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; that is the way of the Lord”. I forget which book that is in but it is very true and for some reason, brings me a lot of peace in matters of life and death. I took a mental health day last week because if I didn’t, I would’ve rage quit my job. It’s a hard season for all of us being it is Christmas time. But my clients are making my job especially hard because they are so unhappy. They feel like their needs are not getting met, but with the resources we have and the licensure of the agency, we can only do so much for these kids and honestly it isn’t much.

On the other hand, I do empathize and agree that these youth who are hard working should have more resources and more things they need and/or want. But the fact of the matter is that we are an emergency homeless shelter with only six beds and we have a hefty waitlist with folks who would kill to be here and receive the resources we do have. There are rules in place for a reason and so that we can uphold our license to operate. If the youth do not abide by the rules, then they have two opportunities to correct their actions and on the third offense, they will most likely be discharged from shelter and their bed goes to someone else in need.

A trend I have noticed in the social services field whether it be homeless folks, mental health, substance use, behavioral issues, or developmental delays is that once a client slowly eats away at your healthy boundaries, they tend to push for what they want, for their own personal agenda. In my particular line of work, these youth didn’t have stable homes growing up and now at ages 16-20, if they receive one thing they ask for, they will ask for three more things they think that they need. And then the next week they ask you for more and if you say no, they have behavioral outbursts or react in a toxic way to get what they want, much like a young child would. That is a big reason why trauma-informed care is so important. We must treat everyone with dignity and respect, but uphold the rules and our personal boundaries and being conscientious about the youth’s background or mental health condition(s).

The reason I took that mental health day last week is because all of the youth were calling me names such as “bitch” and “cunt”, etc, etc. as well as calling my co-worker those names because we didn’t give in to what they wanted and they acted out because of it. I don’t care what line of work you’re in, if you are constantly berated, yelled at, cursed at, everything besides physical assault, you’d be pretty upset. The lack of respect is unreal. The amount of entitled thinking/believing there is around here is also unreal. I understand the power of empathy but the attack of being taken advantage of in this situation is much greater than my need to be empathetic.

I really don’t know the right answer to this situation…. it doesn’t help that besides my immediate co-worker, our other two co-workers are the laziest people known to man. I understand for the most part this is a pretty easy job and sometimes we have time to do nothing or blog 😉 or whatever. HOWEVER. At this very moment, all my chores and tasks for the night are completed and I don’t start “playing” until my work is completely done. But these particular co-workers they are sloppy and hardly clean anything, they don’t keep up on documentation, etc. I just don’t get it and this is part of why my work parter and I were called nasty things because we are the enforcers, we are forced to be the bad guys and enforce all the rules and write people up for not doing the chores or not following the rules.

I do love my job, maybe it’s the season, but man, I am just bitter. I am naturally very emphatic and kind and compassionate, but this holiday season I just feel plain old bitter. I personally do a lot on and off the clock for these kids that goes unnoticed by anyone, especially the youth. Fortunate enough for me is that I have a very kind Christian supervisor who advocates for her staff and if we call the shots, she stands by our decision. That makes it helpful. She supported my choice to take a mental health day and she didn’t say “No” to it or grumbled when I requested it. All she asked was how many days did I need which is what any good boss should do.

That’s all I got at the moment. Thanks for reading 🙂

Love,

Dani