Breakthrough Crying

I hate that leaky eye syndrome that occurs when you are mad, indignant, whathaveyou. It happen the other day for the first time in a long time, in that place where you dread such behaviors - work.

Wednesday was supervision, and Joanne wanted to work on my notes since there’s a learning curve with knowing how the county wants you to phrase things and other nonsense about not using words like “talk”, “conversation”, instead using phrasing such as “collaborate”, “modeled”, and “role-played” to describe what you do with clients and their families. Now I know I have some distance to go at improving my notes, I only starting writing them as of like March 10^th. Joanne saw that part way through I was getting very frustrated at the tracking of our meeting.

Finally, when she pushed just enough, well, I let her have it. Really. Last week she disclosed she hadn’t read any of my notes, and it seemed clear that she still hadn’t. Also last week she brought up a complaint by another worker/supervisor type who apparently indicated I had refused to do something. I told her that I felt much ignored and felt like showing me other people’s notes was not an efficient method for getting me to improve my notes, using my material, using my client. Basically asked her how she could know where I needed improvement if she herself hadn’t read them. I have not received one sentence of critique on my notes, not one! I have to write a note for every single time I see my client. I see her at least 3 times a week, usually 4. That’s a fuck of a lot of notes without a response, dontcha think? I do. Most folks, definitely I need to know what we are doing well in order to be invested, not just told about all the areas that need improvement. As to M’s complaint it was so vaguely worded that I felt I had nowhere to go other than to tell Joanne that I was certainly there had been a misunderstanding.

But was I able not to tear up a bit during this highly appropriate, well articulated complaint. Nope! I hate that. I really do.

For her part, Joanne apologized for everything and that evening emailed me a number of notes with her comments and suggestions. Wow. Yee Ha! Much easier to see what I need to do, so much more willing am I to make corrections when those comments include statements like “great intervention”. She also said that she wished she had handled the incident involving M very differently. Again, yee ha.

I still owe notes. Wednesday and Thursday have to be in by Monday. But now I feel much better about writing them, even if I don’t enjoy every beleaguered moment of time in front of the computer wondering how many ways I can say the same thing.