Finally I’ve gotten my shit together to write a proper post. And even having said that, I might cut myself off halfway through because I actually don’t feel like writing right now.
So I had my first day on my brand new job. For the sake of privacy, there isn’t a lot I can reveal about what organisation or target population I’m working with. Let’s just say, it’s a ethnic community organisation, of which I belong. It has been my dream to work with my own community since God knows how long. Probably since I worked in the UK and realised how awesome it would be. When applying for placement, I specified I wanted to be placed either in mental health, or my particular community. Or in a location where my language skills can be used, and improved upon. I had also attempted to score placement in my home country, which unfortunately wasn’t successful for many a reason.
I finally landed it. After a long and tumultuous, often depressing, ride through unemployment, my final chance lay within a recruitment company. I didn’t much like the idea of temp work, but it seemed the only opportunity I had left. Literally a day or two after signing up, my consultant called me up with a job offer, saying that my language skills and working with refugees and immigrant populations would make me perfect for the role. Of course, within moments of having the role described to me, I jumped at it. Despite the role being aged care case manager, which I have no experience in (nor previously had any interest!), I said that I’m in need of a challenge, I need something new and different.
The interview fell on the same day as an interview I had for a part-time position as a respite worker in mental health. I had literally about 20 minutes to drive from one interview to the next, and by some miracle I managed to make it just in time (only to wait another 10 minutes because of course us social workers always have ‘just one more quick phone call’ to make). Both interviews went quite well. I had psyched myself up, prepared myself by reading up on both target populations and care provision on the net, I relaxed into the interview, made jokes, said all the relevant things, but because of my heightened pessimism from being unemployed 4 months, I still thought I had no chance.
The next day, respite called me back saying I missed it by a hair, only due to having never worked in respite. Apparently, it’s competitive. No, actually, I think it’s more apparent that everyone is looking for a fucking job right now.
I waited another 2 weeks til I had the good news from my current employer. An excruciating 2 weeks. Filled with more job searching, and massive procrastination, hoping that I maybe by some fluke I wouldn’t have to put any applications in…
—Fast Forward— (I was tempted to blog over Christmas and New Year because a LOT of shit had gone down in my personal life that I desperately wanted to get off my chest – but it just never seemed appropriate, either time-wise or otherwise).
I started today. My previous job was rife with problems. Management kicking up a shitstorm, changing very nearly everything for the sake of getting more money (complex cases were seen to be quite lucrative – although I’m sure that the federal funding body will soon realise that they’re casually rorting the system; client-centred funding $50 000 for 6 months work on one family being divided up so that a percentage flows back into the company for the purpose of obtaining a fleet of company cars), while not giving two hoots about the actual ‘case’ involved. High expectations neutralised by dismissive feedback on service provision. Poor, or non-existant supervision. No HR (until recently, but I’d long since left by then). Contradiction and hypocrisy on more levels than bare admitting. Anyway, the nightmare is long behind me.
It is so darn strange stepping into a role in a community organisation that is so vastly different in a million and one different ways. The only similarities I can currently see, other than the vague fact that both were community organisations serving migrants to Australia, is that both are in massive change mode. The way the other one was heading, is where this one is just coming over the crest of. Politics, there is no doubt about it, are rife in both.
The first minute was interesting. The first minute! Upon stepping through the door! 4 ladies were standing around reception chatting in the mother tongue, and I walked in, inter0rupting the conversation. There was a casual remark about me being ‘one of the new ones’, and I introduced myself to the best of my ability. It was a strange out of body experience. I was nervous, because I was stuffing up grammatically with every verb and pronoun and tense, but at the same time strangely at peace with the situation. I guess maybe maturity has kicked in, maybe I suddenly realised that I don’t have to prove myself to anyone? Maybe.
Although my name is a bit obscure, slightly old-fashioned in English, it is extremely common in my language. So much so that there are four others with the same name working alongside me in the organisation. Comforting, for me. The others around reception seemed almost…annoyed! One of them asked me a question that I struggled to understand. Perhaps it was a weird bastardisation of two languages, perhaps I was a little ignorant, perhaps I just didn’t hear her properly, but I finally figured out that she was asking me what my surname initial was. To set me apart. And I think at that stage some of the others raised their eyebrows, and noses, at me, for not understanding or interpreting her question properly. Despite being later introduced to some, despite walking past them in the hallway, despite deliberately smiling at them when they looked in my direction as they passed my office, there were a handful that were completely stand-offish. The three that most talked to me as the one who shared my office (a 2-week temp, she’s usually a personal care worker), the IT guy, and the Team Leader.
I was given the run-down by the Team Leader almost immediately about the situation politics-wise. She was one of only two Australian-born workers. She had also been working as a social worker for around 17 years. She described the situaton when she first arrived as more than slightly disorganised. It seemed that workers (who were either under-qualified or not qualified at all as social or welfare workers) were overloaded, were ‘making do’, and were picking up anything and everything, because that’s just the way it’s always been. In walks Anglo worker. Makes changes. Puts forward policies. Plans. Strategies. New workers, new rosters, new ways of care provision. Structure. Accountability. This, understandably, rubs them up the wrong way. An outsider has waltzed in, thinking she knows best. Well, in this very case, I agree with her. And she is being faced with good old-fashioned stubborness, distrust and caution. I would say it’s an incredibly predictable reaction they’ve had, knowing my people. I have a feeling though, that over time, and hopefully with me on board, things will change, and it’ll be more streamlined, less stressful.
Now one more thing before I go. Well, two more things. First of all, writing ‘knowing my people’ made me feel a little strange just now. Do I know my people? I mean, what do I really know? WHO do I really know? My parents, my aunts and uncles, my grandfather? A selection of cousins, a pen-pal, some tv characters, a few movies from the 70s and 80s? I hardly think that represents a community, and I hardly think it is a fair representation in any sense. And this understanding I have, can that really be applicable to generation of elders, with whom I have little experience? I’m scared that my limited understanding of issues, of generational conflicts in my own community, of the elderly in general will not make me successful in this role.
Which brings me to my final point, my final worry. I have had a very loose, very distant relationship with death. I have unresolved feelings, as well as unresolved desires surrounding death. The grandmother I was the most close to passed away a year after I had seen her last. Following a heartrending story of the pain of seeing her sick I had read out in Grade 11 English, I had made a promise to myself, and to the class, that I would write to her. I would try to write to her more often. It wasn’t long after that that she died, on 16th November 1998. The fact I can remember that, well. The date still haunts me. I never did end up writing to her. I don’t even write to grandad, her husband. I can think of many excuses. It’s too hard, I struggle with the language. In fact, they are probably the most easy to justify, if not the most ludicrous and lazy excuses. But perhaps I’m also scared. Scared of getting too close, then having to deal with loss again.
Despite having very few memories of my grandmother, largely because of coming to live in Australia, she is really everpresent. I just heard her voice in my head, and it was crystal clear as if she was right here in the room. And, unsuprisingly, I am now sobbing.
What scares me about this job is being so close to this feeling of loss. Being surrounded by it, as it is what I understand superficially as the very nature of aged care work. It was enormously difficult to deal with then, it continues to be to a lesser (but more vivid) extent with random pet deaths, but I fear that coming face to face with it professionally means I need make my peace with it, to try and remember without guilt, without fear and to understand it to some degree. And to respect the memory.
Issues need tissues 