Luctor et emergo

Translation: I struggle but I'll survive.

So. I love my job. I have from the third day of working there. The first I was all nerves, the second I hated it with every atom of my existence, but the third - by the third day it had grown on me.

I have discovered an amazing wealth of knowledge, understanding, experience and empathy in this world of chemical dependency treatment. Understanding and identifying addict and codependent behaviors and the psychology behind treatment has given me insight into my most basic of relationships and helped me have manageability in my own life. I have met some of the strongest people - people who have lost years and family and achievement to addiction - yet stand to tell the tale, having found themselves again amidst the rubble. There are no egos here. There is pain but strength even more. There is humor through the heartache, something I have always treasured - for how else is there to deal with tragedy and the unjustness of the world than to savor the futility that is our humanity? We strive to be great but we are only human, after all.

This job - it's different every day. It keeps me on my toes in more ways than one. It has made me comfortable speaking with strangers and holding healthy boundaries. I enjoy being relied upon to get the job done. I am organized. I am efficient. I am fast and I have high expectations of the team I manage - and they are the best team I could ask for.

It comes with many frustrations, I'll grant you. There are those people who hand you something to fax when the machine is literally two feet from where they stand and you're obviously in the middle of an extensive phone call involving an 18-year-old heroin addict, his hysterical mother - who wants an appointment NOW although we're booked through next Tuesday and is just not getting that while, yes, we do have medical staff, no, we are not a hospital - and the ever-so-enjoyable [insert sarcasm here] task of telling them treatment will cost $26,000.00 paid out-of-pocket because they have no substance abuse benefits in their insurance policy. There are those people. There are also the ones who give you a project like bulk-labeling/mailing 380 Christmas cards and tell you the CEO wanted it done last week - this is when you find the most tactful way to say, "Well, perhaps you should have handed us the project a week ago, eh?" No one said you had to be gracious, just professional.

But the worse thing about my job right now is how drastically it is being affected by the economy.

In times past, a change in the economy was not so perceptible by looking at the census of a CD treatment facility. When someone lost or was about to lose their job, it was actually a better time than ever to get the help they needed. Having a spouse with insurance or taking a medical leave (for which you cannot be fired) worked into that equation. Nowadays, both people in a relationship are losing their jobs, their insurance, their houses, their stock and their money to even pay COBRA (optional temporary continued insurance coverage through your employer after change of employment status a.k.a. layoff). Distant families of addicts are going through this and can't tap into previously available funds to rally support for their loved one. People who still have their jobs are suffering as well - companies cannot afford the same insurance coverage they once did, so really great policies are becoming less available.

Which leads to my point.

When I began this job, I was one of three full-time employees in the admin department. Additionally we had two part-time employees working 3-4 days per week. That's at least 168 hours allotted to my department per week. Now - well...let's not start there. Let's begin with how they cut 40 hours last summer. Luckily our least favorite of the team was moving back east and finally gave notice (even after she knew someone else would lose their job if she didn't, and had the date already set and movers hired, I had to pull it out of her - goodness, I am glad she is gone) and we didn't replace her. It was hard but we survived. Then the person with the most experience moved on to a grown-up job at a domestic abuse counseling center, and we did replace her. The replacement couldn't keep her personal life out of her professional and we let her go. We interviewed to replace her, and the day after finding the right person I had to tell them we weren't hiring after all. Another 24-32 hour loss.

And now. Back to now. Now it's two full-time employees and one part-timer who has been working 22.5 hours per week because she's in the Master's program at Notre Dam de Muir. A day or so after learning our new-hire was a no-hire, I was told that our PTer had to go on "furlough" - basically a temporary layoff for lack of work/money to pay, in which they can remain on-call, collect unemployment and keep benefits but cannot use or accrue any PTO.

That takes us from 168 hours per week to 80. Less than half. For how long, I don't even know. First it was until the end of the quarter. The furlough letter I had to give stated if we didn't ask her to return in six months it would become a permanent layoff. And it's not just us, the lowest-paid on the totem pole. One person in every department is being furloughed until we get back on our feet. For the first time ever I'm seeing that we may not survive this depression, which is in itself horrifically depressing as we've been providing a quality service for a [surprisingly, I know] affordable price since being founded in the early eighties. We're not Betty Ford or Sierra Tuscon, but we're not the government-funded county-based program, either. While we don't take MediCal or SSI, we do take Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna, MHN, UBH and a myriad of other providers.

I have no choice to be look elsewhere. I am dragging my feet because I'm going on a cruise in early March. I know the competition will be fierce - thousands of layoffs in the bay area and Silicon Valley guarantee that. I have so much experience but not even an measly AA. I can work at In-&-Out down the street making $15/hr (more than our starting pay, how sad is that?) and pretend I'm 17 again, although I've never worked in food service a day of my life. I'd save money on gas but who am I kidding, I'd go postal with all that fake smiling and sugary sweetness. It could go unsaid that at bare minimum I'd be a luscious 387 pounds fluffier.

I think it might just be that time to go back to school. I just really REALLY wish I knew what I wanted to do...C.D.A.C.? Is that it? Psychiatrist? I feel far too cynical and, well, HUMAN, to truly be a leader of people with real problems. I get irritated by the heroin addict who falls asleep on the couch when he's supposed to finish his paperwork and I offer the alcoholic two breath mints and fabreeze the room when she leaves. I refuse the cokehead a refill on coffee and sometimes I want to tell the overbearing parents of the pothead that it really is just a phase and he'll hate you if you force this on him. I'm amazed that the opiate-dependent person finished med school when I dropped out halfway through my Spanish class.

But I do love them. And I want them to be okay. I feel like I have a little light to shine, a little toolbag to open and show them that will make life not necessarily easier but more bearable, and more fulfilling because they will be themselves healthier.

*sigh*

Do you see my affliction? Maybe I'm just a whiner. It's been said.