Wild Wednesday.
It seems like every Wednesday (much like every Monday) is wild and crazy at the Mission. I arrived at the Mission around 7:55am, and immediately parked my bicycle in the chapel office and began listening to voice mails. The staff leaves voice mails about pertinent information that needs to be shared quickly across the entire staff team, so that everyone can be on the same page regarding important incidents that take place on a day-to-day basis. As I dialed in my extension to begin listening, the recording told me I had 35 messages. 35 Messages?!? This is typically unheard of when I've only been off for one day. There was a total of 19 workable hours over the course of which messages had been left. I was stunned and shocked that, after not working on Tuesday, I had 35 messages. It's a little overwhelming, because it takes about an hour and a half to get through that many voice mails. I was able to listen to 2 messages before our 8:05am staff meeting. I really put a dent in it.
After the normal daily goals group leadership, delegation of chores, and field trip to Kingston Deli to get breakfast, I strapped down in my office, hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, and tackled the voice mails. (I still only got through about 15 of them...but I was able to enjoy my daily dose of cornbread and bacon.) At 9:30, I did the smoke break, and then I led a co-ed therapeutic group at 10. The topic of the group was self-esteem, and the community really responded well. I like to use material that is interactive, mostly so that it carries us through the entire time, but also so that our residents get the feeling that they are being productive. There are worksheets that we use for self-esteem, and the community rallied around the topic and it ended up being a really good group. At 12pm, I met some friends for lunch at Finagle-a-Bagel, and ended up seeing a few homeless compatriots as we sat at a table by the window. [On a side note, my friends swear they left Finagle smelling like their food, a complaint that is most readily associated with Subway. I, on the other hand, didn't smell, and so debated their claims, especially when one of them said she thought she smelled worse than when she goes in Subway. Yeah. Right.]
When I got back to the Mission at 12:40pm, a gentleman seeking placement into our shelter program was waiting to be interviewed. After 45 minutes of speaking with him, (which, for the record, is a long time for an interview for our shelter program) I determined that he had some mental health issues that could not be accommodated by our program. At least he wasn't talking about "truth from the sun."
The rest of the afternoon was fairly low key, until about 4:30pm, when I was leaving, and one of our former residents was gallivanting on the common floor of the Mission. I directed him to go back downstairs and wait for a Case Manager to come get him. He was let upstairs by one of the residents working the front desk. This is absolutely unacceptable, because he could've gone anywhere and done anything once getting past the locked stairwell door.
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