Being a social work student has taught me plenty. What interventions to use with specific clients. How to evaluate them. How to research. How to be unconditionally present. How to meet clients where they are, instead of where I (as a clinician) may want them to be.
But this semester? In a class around the topic of grief and loss? I learned how to sit with my own feelings. To be ok (or begin to be ok) with them.
Because it is not just being able to be ok sitting with clients and their feelings, it's important to be able to as an individual, be able to sit with our own.
It is so often that I think that because I have been trained in specific skills that I should have all the answers. That I should be able to handle every situation thrown in my direction with perfection and the "right" ways. It's a lie.
Learning to be ok with where I am as an individual, social worker or not, has been a great new way to be able to look at my life, and look at the decisions that I am very quickly going to be needing to make.
It's ok to be sad. It's ok to grieve the end of something that I thought I was ready for. It's ok to be happy, to continue living. To continue growing. To continue to make choices and decisions because without them, you are stagnant. Unchanging. Because without making a decision, you are, in fact, choosing.
And what fun is a world in which you are unable to change?
It is the lesson I am most thankful for. Learning to be OK with where I am. To accept it. And to keep plugging along, whether the days are smooth like a lake in the morning, or challenging and scary... a day in which your footing just isn't always sure.
It's life. And if I can't accept and be OK with where I am, how can I expect others to be just as OK with where I am? Being where you are. In the present. In the moment. Living.
Showing posts with label expectations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label expectations. Show all posts
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Changing expectations
There comes a point when you have to realize what can be, and what will never be.
This is quite obviously, not a San Diego update. That will come this evening, because I’m currently writing a whole bunch of computers to just try and get my head back to where it needs to be.
My last day at my full time job is tomorrow.
Tomorrow. (Kinda makes you want to sing “Annie” doesn’t it?)
However, the woman who is replacing me, has now had 2 weeks in which to semi grasp what the job description is. Ask questions. Ask how she needs to be doing things.
She hasn’t.
The questions she has asked, though? How do you open a document when you’re already in Word?
How do you turn on and off the computer?
How do I type a list if there is already something written here?
Training her on customer service skills and how to answer a phone in a professional environment, instead of just answering with a “Hello.”
I don’t mean for this blog post to be offensive. I don’t mean for it to be bitchy. I don’t mean for it to be a rant.
But it is a way for me to be able to express myself, and my frustrations. And I am frustrated to the point of exasperation and high blood pressure. I almost don't know how to answer these questions. Because honestly, I have never had to teach someone that when you are in a professional environment, you don't answer a phone "hello."
((You also never bring religious books in either, especially ones about "Finding your better God" because it makes many people uncomfortable. Including the physician you share an office with. Who works with children who sometimes die of their cancer, and it's awful. But that's a story for a different time I think...))
My father has taught me to do things right the first time. “Touch it once, Whitney, and let it be done the proper way. You’ll never have to go back and do it again.”
My office is covered in post it notes that say the same thing. Because the same questions are being asked, over and over and over again. There is zero ability to multi-task. There is literally no ability to retain information that has been given more than once. In fact, there isn’t even any recognition that the information has already been given to her.
I worked hard to make the program run in a way that was successful over the past 2+ years. I worked hard to make it organized, and to be sure I was receiving comments from students that were “this is the most organized a clerkship has been all year.”
And now, for all of that work, to feel like it’s slipping away and was for nothing? I’m sad to leave; I’m certainly not going to miss everyone I work with. But I am going to miss making sure that there are students who were being taken care of in a way that was aiming to make them as successful as they wanted to be.
And now I’m nervous for these new students. I am nervous for this woman. Because students who pay over $60,000 a year to go to school? They want things done right the first time.
And it’s not going to happen.
This is quite obviously, not a San Diego update. That will come this evening, because I’m currently writing a whole bunch of computers to just try and get my head back to where it needs to be.
My last day at my full time job is tomorrow.
Tomorrow. (Kinda makes you want to sing “Annie” doesn’t it?)
However, the woman who is replacing me, has now had 2 weeks in which to semi grasp what the job description is. Ask questions. Ask how she needs to be doing things.
She hasn’t.
The questions she has asked, though? How do you open a document when you’re already in Word?
How do you turn on and off the computer?
How do I type a list if there is already something written here?
Training her on customer service skills and how to answer a phone in a professional environment, instead of just answering with a “Hello.”
I don’t mean for this blog post to be offensive. I don’t mean for it to be bitchy. I don’t mean for it to be a rant.
But it is a way for me to be able to express myself, and my frustrations. And I am frustrated to the point of exasperation and high blood pressure. I almost don't know how to answer these questions. Because honestly, I have never had to teach someone that when you are in a professional environment, you don't answer a phone "hello."
((You also never bring religious books in either, especially ones about "Finding your better God" because it makes many people uncomfortable. Including the physician you share an office with. Who works with children who sometimes die of their cancer, and it's awful. But that's a story for a different time I think...))
My father has taught me to do things right the first time. “Touch it once, Whitney, and let it be done the proper way. You’ll never have to go back and do it again.”
My office is covered in post it notes that say the same thing. Because the same questions are being asked, over and over and over again. There is zero ability to multi-task. There is literally no ability to retain information that has been given more than once. In fact, there isn’t even any recognition that the information has already been given to her.
I worked hard to make the program run in a way that was successful over the past 2+ years. I worked hard to make it organized, and to be sure I was receiving comments from students that were “this is the most organized a clerkship has been all year.”
And now, for all of that work, to feel like it’s slipping away and was for nothing? I’m sad to leave; I’m certainly not going to miss everyone I work with. But I am going to miss making sure that there are students who were being taken care of in a way that was aiming to make them as successful as they wanted to be.
And now I’m nervous for these new students. I am nervous for this woman. Because students who pay over $60,000 a year to go to school? They want things done right the first time.
And it’s not going to happen.
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