KS315: your job sounds like one of my friends' old one. he worked in a psychiatric ward. all kinds of mental patients. he had the most hilarious stories. not teasing the patients or anything. just funny things that would happen in the ward.
jholic wrote:KS315: your job sounds like one of my friends' old one. he worked in a psychiatric ward. all kinds of mental patients. he had the most hilarious stories. not teasing the patients or anything. just funny things that would happen in the ward.
Eh, same field, different job probably. I deal with mental patients on the outpatient side. Although sometimes they do get admitted to inpatient and I have to arrange for possible changes to their outpatient care for when they get discharged.
I have plenty of stories I could tell but some I probably shouldn't discuss. :P Either that or I'm too lazy. Pick one :hehe:
Yes...I have a day off today because of inventory. No seeing my dickhead of a manager. I will miss being sexually harrassed by one of the cashiers though.
Another day off, but another day of having to go into work at 8:00 this morning for training. Just got back.
Gotta do laundry and then go to the other job to help out with the inventory precount. :nut:
*sigh* Two jobs, two inventories coming up too close together. :usuck:
This friggin' client is working my nerves. I got assigned to him pretty much a few days after starting. He's brand new to our system, so he needs an AM Intake and a psych eval. He has schizophrenia, polysubstance abuse, and chronic mental illness. Pretty much, he goes into the Crisis Center every time he has an issue with homelessness. He's a drug addict, alcoholic, highschool dropout who has never held a job and could not give a flying crap about anything but his next bag. Pretty much, I have not been able to help this kid (well, 23 year old but he acts like a kid) because I haven't been able to find him nor talk to him when he's coherent and calm. I spoke to him on the phone twice. Once at home, once at rehab. Both a month apart and he has no recollection of speaking to me.
He pretty much spends his days loaded. His mom is running a coke lab in the basement and supplies him. Then she gets pissed and kicks him out. About 3 weeks ago, he got kicked out for real by her. Doped up and homeless, he went into Crisis looking to be transferred to a rehab for the 3rd time since January. At this point I still hadn't met him. He was transferred and I couldn't contact him there for 7 days for blockout period. I caught him there after, and he was totally out of it even while sober. He got transferred to another rehab and.....left because he "didn't like it there". :grumble:
So then he was homeless. I got a call from his insurance company saying he bailed and is *somewhere* in the county. Friggin' great, good luck finding him. Then yesterday he checks into Crisis AGAIN. Jesus crap of Christ. This keeps happening and his insurance company is up MY ass as if I'm not doing my job. I told them "I can't find him, I never met him and spoke to him bombed on the phone twice. I gave him my info and he won't call me", which defended me and is totally true, and they agreed he's extremely difficult. I was about to close him out.
So I had to discharge him because he was just trying to go in for a place to stay, which doesn't fly. His blood was clean of drugs but he wanted to be sent to another rehab again, his insurance company refused because he has to wait 60 days as he left A.M.A. (against medical advice).
At this point it's 4:30 pm. I spent the time tearing the kid a new asshole for wasting almost 2 months of my time and etcetera, and this was the first time I met the kid in person. I say "I have other clients to take care of, I don't have time to be jerked around by you while I could be helping someone else. If you wanna refuse my services, I have papers to discharge you from my care right in my bag". Pretty much the lady at Crisis was behind me 100% for being snippy and snotty with him because he's an asshole. He agrees to take my services and starts apologizing for being a jerk, saying to help him and bla bla bla. I said "I can help you as I said, but you have to want to help yourself and get in touch with me on a regular basis. You have to make the move too, I have no magic wand. Otherwise I'm closing your case and you're completely on your own", which is a fact. Then he goes off about how I'm such a beautiful person and one of God's children and stuff :bleh: Yeah, we'll see if he contacts me on his own. I'm not wasting any time or resources on him until he can contact me on the regular and decide what the hell he wants to do.
So then, I take him to a relative's house and it's FAR. And damnit, it was late and I should have already left work for home. We get there and his uncle was NOT home. Crap. I can't take him back to his mother's because 1) She won't let him in anymore, 2) There is heavy drug activity in the home, 3) The mother is letting homeless people stay there and it's a danger to me to go there. So I left him there because i had no option. Shelters are full by 10:00 am daily.
Today I got a call from his insurance company again. He went into Crisis AGAIN, at another hospital.....an hour away from mine. :doh: The lady on the phone told me and I said "You have GOT to be kidding me, OH MY GOD!" and she said "I know, I wish I was kidding", so I filled her in on yesterday. The kid's toxicology came back positive for cocaine and alcohol today. GREAT. This kid had absolutely nothing on him when I discharged him, not even identification. Tomorrow's gonna be fun sorting this out, plus I am booked solid all day! :doh:
(Crisis is like an ER for mentally ill if one is a threat to their self or others, leads to temporary inpatient hospitalization in the psych lock-down ward for several days if deemed necessary by the psychiatrist on duty. Voluntary self-check-in is a code 201, involuntary commitment is a code 302. This guy keeps "201-ing" himself, wasting services.)
Yeah, that's a pretty sad story, some people aren't going to do better even with good care. Maybe that guy needs some fresh air, sunshine and hard work like on a farm or something, away from all the drugs. Just don't let him get near the fertilizer.
loris wrote:Yeah, that's a pretty sad story, some people aren't going to do better even with good care. Maybe that guy needs some fresh air, sunshine and hard work like on a farm or something, away from all the drugs. Just don't let him get near the fertilizer.
I'm not so worried about him getting care. Under me, he has access to care. He's an adult, we can't make them do anything nor can/do we cry about it when they don't. If he wants help, that's his issue. He has to take some step because I don't have a magic wand.
It may seem harsh to say, but in this business we can't really "care". We'd go insane if we took stuff home with us. They are strangers, not friends. So, people just have to be cases we are working on and only that. Work is work, personal life is personal life. My only emotions in this job would be frustration and relief while on the job. We rant and laugh (sometimes funny things happen) while telling other co-workers our stories. That happens everywhere.
He's wasting resources while on my caseload, and I can't find him to even do my job. So.....that makes me look bad if it continues further. Each time he floats around and checks in every few days on his own, it makes it look as if I'm not doing $h!t. If he keeps putzing around and it gets to the point where I can't find him for about a month or two, I can close his case. But until then, I have to keep him on and offer services. To take them, he has to be able to be contacted.
Unfortunately so far he keeps checking himself in, and I'm given word so I have to start over from square one with the kid. I literally have been able to do absolutely nothing for him because he's all over the place with no stable place to live. If he's MIA and doesn't contact me, I can't do my job.
KouSeiya315 wrote:It may seem harsh to say, but in this business we can't really "care". We'd go insane if we took stuff home with us. They are strangers, not friends. So, people just have to be cases we are working on and only that.
That's exactly what our ex-office manager said when she was handling cases... And she has to have counseling herself on a regular basis to keep herself from being screwed up. :sweat: