Sometimes I feel I've got to run away
I've got to get away
From the pain you drive into the heart of me
The love we share seems to go nowhere
And I've lost my life
For I toss and turn, I can't sleep at night
Tainted Love - Soft Cell
An olive branch I think...but perhaps with hidden thorns.
Pretty frequently lately I find that I rediscover things that I've totally forgotten. Case in point, I yet again was caught staring at my Microsoft Money projected income and expenses to the end of the year, trying to work out when I could possibly leave this crazy, toxic workplace.
Before the war, I was thinking around 2 years tops, figuring that would provide for my everyday expenses and supply me with a give a fuck fund that should last well into retirement. Now that the war is underway, and not just my differences with Maddie and Mike, but with the job in general, I'm trying to work out an escape route that gets me to freedom way before that 2-year mark.
I thought about my IRA and entertained thoughts of dipping into it prior to retirement once again. One of the big negatives of doing so has always been that penalty. But then I found out, again, because I knew this from at least about a decade ago when I started funding my 403b, that at age 59 and a half, I can withdraw from the account without penalty. Well back when I first found that tidbit of information, 59 and a half seemed like such a future age, so far off... Well now, it's just 6 months away.
So now I'm thinking, "Gee Mike, if you could tough it out for just six more fucking months, we'd be able to start pulling for everyday expenses from that sinkhole of a non-performing IRA, feel secure with a good 10K savings in our back pocket, and kiss the rat race goodbye, this time, hopefully, for fucking ever!
And the math supports this plan. Though I'd use it up before age 62, the IRA and savings could get me to when Social Security would kick in if I keep working 'till October.
So I think I'll do my 16 pieces of flair with 15 of those pieces just flashy and totally fake, clock in and clock out, mind my own business, and collect the coin. I'll nod and smile and be a good boy to all my fellow coworkers who, for all intents and purposes, by my outward appearance, I must love and appreciate. What I'm really thinking and feeling though will be another thing all together. But we can keep that to ourselves...for six months.
But should any one of these mother-fuckers press a little bit too hard, the thorns will indeed prick. Like perhaps this. I present to you my red flag diary...To be used, if needed:
February 1st 2023
With all new hire training completed, I was left to educate myself about the aspects of the job. I read through a majority of the paperwork in the office. Most paperwork was more than 2 years old, in fact very little paperwork was dated newer than 2021. The office was in complete disarray, many stapled packets looked like they had been piled upon each other without ever having been read. The files were assembled quite sloppily, many having redundant pages, handwritten fact sheets, passwords on Post-it notes, and just a generally unkempt appearance. In one unlocked drawer of the desk I found a prescription medication. I found paperwork that indicated that in the past, meaning a few years back, there had been more of a structure, including budget analysis reports, productivity timesheets, and annual review documentation. In one of these reviews, there were some indications that the department had not passed an audit and the department got dinged for it, and that there was disciplinary action that was taken as a result of that transgression. The fault had to do with sloppy paperwork procedures. For all intents and purposes it surely looks like the lesson hadn't been learned from that experience.
February 2nd 2023
Maddie came into the office today while I was in the midst of covering the second half of the paperwork graveyard. She seemed frazzled as she was trying to get her quarterlies done. I tried to ask her questions as to what those were even though I had already browsed through therap and discovered them. Not much different than my experiences at the other arcs I worked at so nothing new there other than now everything was computerized. She did show me a little bit as she was maneuvering through the pages. She was Consulting her notebook recalling the steps of creating a quarterly going from the dashboard in therap into individual drilling down on new, and proceeding along cautiously through the relatively small number of steps utilizing drop-down fields and added her notes completing her quarterly report. Since she was showing me many of the steps she was doing and also trying to answer a few questions on other topics I had here and there, the whole task took about half an hour. After she was done I said, okay so if I wasn't here and you didn't have to walk me through things and answer questions that whole thing would have probably taken only 10 minutes, right? She didn't answer me but Shrugged and maybe looked at me perhaps thinking I was being critical my intent wasn't to be critical it was just to try to analyze how long tasks took so I could get a picture of a timeline of an average day in doing the duties that we had to do. I asked her specifically about that what do we do from 8:00 To 4:30 on any average day. I thought for sure she'd say something like well you'll find out when you tag along with me on a typical day. Instead she said oh it can vary day to day and left it vague like that.
She still uses a paper day-planner. She writes down, on lined notepaper, in painfully pretty penmanship (that must have taken many minutes to write out) all of her logins for the various websites she needs to access. She tried to access one of her clients online payroll systems and didn't know that the company the client is employed with changed systems before the end of 2022. So here's where we get into one of the other big red flags...What does she and Mike (and Jesse, the dude that was recently separated due to health issues; not sure if it was his choice or the company) do, as real work, other than the follow-up stuff that, as far as I can tell, shouldn't take even one person more than some 20 hours a week to do? Why is it this department only has about seven clients in community placed employment?
February 10th 2023
Met with Maddie at Taco Bell and introduced to consumer who worked there. Maddie was sitting at a table with her tablet computer. We stayed at the restaurant with Maddie observing her client and after about an hour we moved on to Wendy's and then the resale store for another 2 hours of observation. During our conversations, I mentioned to Maddie that previously when meeting up with Mike at the Jacaranda he only met with his client and then we left after about 15 minutes. Maddie said that that was the way Mike did his follow-alongs but she didn't agree with that. Maddie also said that when she met with the lady working at the Jacaranda and talked with the front desk manager, the manager had said that she hadn't seen any job coach visiting for many months. Maddie said that ISP progress notes were written by Mike saying he visited her weekly so what was one to assume from this, of course, that Mike was lying and saying that he did the visit but actually didn't.
February 13th 2023
A meeting had been called and in attendance was Lori the mom of a consumer who worked at Walmart, the consumers case manager, and the three of us on the supported employment team. Lori explained she wanted to make sure that her son's needs were being met, and expressed a desire to meet the new job coach assigned to him, me. Lori mentioned that her son missed the support that he was getting on a very regular basis with the visitations from Jessie his prior assigned job coach. Though it wasn't outright stated, Lori's concerns may have stemmed from a lack of visits from anyone in supported employment to her son's job site since Jesse's leave of absence at the end of the previous summer. Looking back in the ISP notes, Mike did indicate that he did visit with him on a weekly basis, but was this just not true?
February 14th 2023
Met with Maddie at Chili's, the site of another of her consumers' work. Maddie seemed a little cautious around this consumer. She said that in this person's psychological report she read the diagnosis of schizophrenia and was nervous about having this person on her caseload as she was not familiar with mental illness and didn't realize the job included people with disabilities other than developmental disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder. With my multiple years of experience working with people with mental illness including schizophrenia, I reassured her that people with that diagnosis can lead very productive lives. She also expressed her concern about this gentleman's chain smoking and I explained that oftentimes habitual smoking is a side effect of some of the medication that people with schizophrenia are on.
February 15th 2023
I popped into the Case Management office to Ask Christina if she had read the note I had completed on JB, my first follow along note. She said she hadn't had a chance to read it yet. I mentioned how Mike instructed me to complete notes and remark that I felt that they were very brief and that I usually try to include more details, I asked her which method was preferred, Christina said that Mike's notes tended to look a little like copy and paste.
February 17th 2023
Mike logged into the computer in the office, hunted through his unfiltered, unsorted massive inbox in his Microsoft Outlook email account, ask me if I knew why he was subjected to so much spam email, I told him I didn't know why, found an email with the HITT Zoom meeting login and used it to access the zoom software as the meeting was just going underway. Either the network connection or the zoom software was having an issue causing the video to freeze and glitch out repeatedly over the next few minutes as he attempted to attend the meeting. Eventually turned off the speakers and minimized the zoom window, ignoring the meeting without addressing the technical difficulty and didn't reach out with an email explaining his non-participation. I thought this was very interesting yet a little disturbing.
February 21st 2023
Today I attended the goals and documentation orientation module conducted by Christina. In this lesson I learned that, in fact, the scale that is selected for the level of accomplishment of the client reviewed should be changed if progress is noted. I told Christina that Mike instructed me to leave it at the level called “emerging” and not move it from there. Also in regards to Rights and ANE, Mike said that any topic could be discussed, not just the one that was selected for that particular month, Christina said “No it should be the topic designated for that month.” She indicated that Mike did things a little bit differently than how they should be. I thanked Christina for her clarification. I later addressed these concerns with Mike and he advised that I should still stick with his way of doing it and ignore Christina.
At 2:30 I dropped by Publix to pick up a few items for a late lunch, and saw that consumer SC was bagging at one of the registers. I checked out at that register and as SC was bagging my items, I asked her if she saw Mike today. She said she hadn't seen him. A few days after this visit, I read in therap Mike's note saying he saw her and observed her work from 10:00 to 11:00 on this date.
February 22nd 2023
Today I attended the driver's training orientation module conducted by Tonja. In it the clear and explicit policy regarding cell phone usage while driving was outlined. In that policy the use of cell phones while driving, whether transporting a client or not, was expressly prohibited while driving the vehicles on company time. Within an hour or so of learning of this policy, Maddie happened to call me and I heard by way of the clicking sound of directional signals in the background that she was driving her car while talking on the phone. I had mentioned this before whether it was safe and she had mentioned that she uses it via Bluetooth through her car radio making it hands-free. I told Maddie that I asked Tonja specifically about that and she said that even hands-free it's a distraction and its use of a phone during driving on company time which is not allowed. Maddie said well Tanya is just a bitter person. I asked Maddie that maybe she should not use her phone while driving and maybe it would be safer to pull over when using the phone. Maddie ignored that and continued to use her phone while driving.
February 24th 2023
Maddie handed me a handwritten note indicating some vague facts about past work experience and asked me to build a resume for her consumer. This seemed odd since I thought we were supposed to work with the consumer in building the resume but I followed her directions and did as she asked and submitted the resume as a shared document on the Google Drive.
March 2nd 2023
I met with Maddie and her consumer, the one I had written the resume for, at the resale store. There I assisted the consumer in selecting an interview ready outfit. In the small employee break room area of the store, I disclosed to Maddie my observation the week before regarding Mike's consumer at Publix. She admitted that she knew he did this. She said that she'd gone to Kathleen in the past and expressed her misgivings about the way Mike did his job. She said that she got frustrated by the lack of action from Kathleen. She started to get a little frenzied about her frustration with many of the people working in the administration building. She said that Tonja was just a terrible person and was quite critical of Julia as well. And that all of them including Kathleen are just judgmental and catty gossiping about everything.
February 27th 2023
I asked both Mike and Maddie if they could review my ISP clinical reports prepared for billing as this was the first time I was doing it independently to see if I had completed them correctly, I got no response. I asked again the next day, again no response. I submitted my reports without their input.
March 9th 2023
Attended the Lake Placid High School career day with Maddie. We arrived in separate cars. Maddie helped me with the table dressing items, and we walked to the entrance of the school. Once inside the volunteers indicated that we needed to check in at the office and we did so. The school staff needed us to present our driver's license for identification purposes. Maddie did not have her driver's license and she stated, it wasn't in her car it was at her home. Maddie did have her purse with her. I found this very curious. I mean who doesn't carry their driver's license with them while they're driving? Maddie was able to somehow talk her way out of having to present her license and was allowed to enter the building. I've been prepared to conduct the presentation at our table alone if Maddie had indeed had to drive home to get her license and come back. But I can't help wondering, was there really a license to retrieve?
Maddie had brought with her a few pages of VR applications and repeatedly questioned what our purpose at this job fair was to be. The email sent to us described quite adequately what the function would be; We would talk to students about employment opportunities at the Arc. It was a duty outside of our usual role working with folks with disabilities as the expectation would be the majority of students would be able-bodied. Maddie's presentation, in the beginning of the day, focused solely on employment opportunities for the disabled. She heard my presentation to the kids, which was focused on employment opportunities for them in either working the ADT, or group homes, or even volunteering. Eventually Maddie realized our role and modified her elevator speech.
March 13th 2023
At 10:30 Maddie and I met with my consumer to do a CSI. We completed the interview between us, the consumer, and the consumer's mom. Maddie had never mentioned to me the fact that a CSI needed to be completed before the end of the first 30 days after a consumer's acceptance from their referral from VR. This consumer was accepted back in August of last year. No CSI had been completed for him. When I brought this to Maddie's attention, she claimed she didn't know. Another curious aspect of this day was the fact that the roads leading to this consumer's house were unpaved and subsequently after leaving the meeting, my little car got stuck in the sand that called itself a road. Luckily I had roadside assistance but the customer service representative indicated it could be up to a 2-hour wait. Maddie very nicely stayed with me initially and even called Mike to let him know I was stuck in the road and it was great to see us having a bonding moment, but as they both waited out my time waiting on the the tow truck, I couldn't help wondering what work they were deferring in order to stay out here with me even though I told them I was fine and could manage this alone knowing they had things to do.
March 20th 2023
I talked to Mike and expressed concern about how things weren't adding up. I tried to have him explain to me how the lack of documentation in perm didn't indicate an abandonment of these clients. I asked about specific clients on his case load and how there hadn't been notes for months. For each of them he basically verbally repeated his actions as he wrote in the last note. For instance, he was working with Mickey in HR at Walmart for one client. I asked if he contacted him on a regular basis, is it over the phone or in person? Does this person know the nature of the individual you're trying to place, How many hours a week does this take up? To all these questions Mike chuckled and didn't have a straight answer. This was just one example of the frustration I was feeling regarding accountability and documentation of hours worked. I asked him has Kathleen never asked questions regarding how we fill our work day? He said no.
Later that day I talked with Maddie and expressed the same concern not only about Mike and his work or the perceived lack of it but asking for her own productivity to be stepped out so that I get a better picture of what the expectations are in the job. Maddie seemed to take a defensive attitude to this, perhaps thinking I was prying where I shouldn't be, but I was asking this in earnest honesty to get to the bottom of how it all adds up to the amount of hours we get paid versus the amount of work that we get done. I asked her if she thought that it was off the wall to try to make sense of this and she said no.
March 22nd 2023
I talked to Mike about annual reviews and raises. He laughed and said What annual reviews and Raises? Mike Confirmed that annual reviews were no longer done and that there were no merit and or cost of living step increases from year to year.
March 27th 2023
Met with client JT and his mom. We discussed plans for seeking employment for JT and talked about his past experiences. Mom mentioned JT had worked in the resale store as a student, but then was told that he would not be able to get employment beyond that learning experience program, that we know is w b l e. when she found out that another consumer had been hired on there she said “that really burned my britches.” She mentioned that Mike had taken JT to one interview at Winn-Dixie and left JT with the interviewer alone to struggle with the questions. She said she really got upset about this.
March 30th 2023
Kathleen called me over as I was visiting the admin building and expressed her concerns regarding Mike. She stated that among other red flags, she had run into the mom of one of the clients on Mike's case load and the mom expressed to her that she was upset how her son had been virtually ignored for the past few months. Kathleen mentioned that it didn't look like Mike was really pulling his weight and that she may have to put a Band-Aid on it. I misinterpreted the Band-Aid metaphor to mean pulling a Band-Aid off, that is, to do something that might hurt in the short term but be the best result when comparing it to allowing a situation to stretch out, like pulling a Band-Aid off slowly is more painful than a quick pull.
As I was attending the Autism Speaks webinar in the office, Mike comes in and says he has to meet with Kathleen. (by the way when reviewing our discussion on this day on a future date Mike deny that this was the reason he was in, so there's a conflict in the truth there) Mike meets with Kathleen presumably, and is back the next day with no mention of anything that occurred, from either him or Kathleen. I've gotten used to the fact that odd things like this happen here and I am just shrugging It Off.
April 11th 2023
Maddie calls and starts to talk about all the difficulties with her caseload and how she never has time. I listen attentively and try not to absorb the negativity. She asks how my caseload is going, and I tell her that since I write up my MPR's pretty much right after doing any activity with my folks, it's all there for her to simply read. She says she doesn't have time to do that. I say well then it would take up more time for me to have to repeat everything I spent time in writing to have to verbally report that so that now we're getting into whose time is more valuable? Is that fair? Admittedly I was terse with Maddie having become a bit overwhelmed with what I saw as a crushing wall of negativity about this job on the whole from Maddie over the course of the past few months. Whether it was the job duties themselves, the difficulties in communicating and learning the ropes from Mike Martino, her ongoing perception that Mike was shirking his duties or her misgivings about the office politics and gossip culture as she saw it among the staff at both the ADT building and the admin building, Maddie felt overwhelmed. I empathize but not wanting to get into another conversation which amounted to furthering the gossip grapevine despite saying she was against that behavior, I quickly said “Is that all, because I am about to go on lunch?” I could tell my approach was too brusque, by her reaction, and I should have apologized for my tone. Maddie said she'd speak with me at a later time later in the week and our call was disconnected.