I kinda want this to be the last time I
talk about work for a while. It shouldn't be long.
I bring a certain kind of philosophy to what I do. One, it's rare that I get called to a house that isn't under a fair amount of duress. That duress looks something like the varying degrees of fallout related to addiction. It's one or more of your family members having spent time in prison. It's the legion of things from cleanliness to attitude that accompany generational abuse or poverty. If it's 1/12 families I might ever substantiate on, it's 1/25 where both mom and dad have working cell phones that they answer immediately, with a clean and nice smelling house, a basic consistent income and habits that match that income, and literally no excuse, it's just a reasonable explanation or miscommunication, for why I'm there. My habits aren't bred from interactions with “normal” people.
I think about this when it comes to other people who routinely deal with this class. Apparently, police have an even easier time with this crowd that we do. They just arrest them, write up a report, and move on. We sit, and coach, and look for services. We remain polite and conversational as someone, very often, tries to unload their 10, 20, or 50 years of trauma over the phone. We try to treat your situation as “normal” as we watch cockroaches crawl over your baby's face. We genuinely have to worry we'll get infected with bed bugs if we sit on the wrong surface. This does something to you.
I don't like to scroll through 15 years of unsubstantiated histories and calls made to your house. I got a kind of passive aggressive jab for saying I walk into a situation trying to first figure out why I'm there today. I think this is most practical. One, not all reports are created equal. I could literally spend an hour trying to summarize the rambling of another assessor. Two, whether someone has a drug history, violent past, or one of a dozen things that set off the “worker safety” concerns, I already take myself into situations assuming the worst. I ask about your history, I feel out to what degree you're willing to bullshit me. Most people know they can lie their way to freedom and drug screens are voluntary. They already look bad, they don't care if they look worse as long as you're walking away without evidence.
I adopt a tone reflective of a strongly-worded email. Things need to happen, and they need to happen now. Sooner than later is preferred, because when I hang up the phone with you, you're never going to pick back up. That's what people in my world do. They have a dozen phones over the course of a year, throw out incorrect numbers, and then disappear. So tomorrow, when I'm hunting down the person who hung up on me today, even if my sternness led to the hang-up, I need the severity of the situation to translate above the niceties I put on to get you to listen for as long as you do. I know you're an addict. I know you'll probably deny and decline. I also know that me being there is part of a larger trap State intervention sets.
We cause trauma. We ratchet up people into going overboard. It's our presence that takes someone walking a fine line and tells them, “I should make this public!” And then an assessment I just closed turns into mom getting arrested the day after. We're at once a light getting shed and the false relief that once I'm gone or you haven't heard anything for a while, you can go crazy. I, to the best of my ability, try to get ahead of that. I try to appeal to your capacity to be honest or work with me. I assume you won't. I politely ask you to do the things I need. I assume you won't. When you don't have a job, don't have the kids with you, and I can come to anywhere you are in a moment's notice, there aren't enough errands on the planet to justify you playing games with me about “tomorrow” that never comes without a court order.
There's something to be said about not kicking people when they're down. It's the same thing in this job as I do in the rest of my life. My language describing these people is horrible. I never bring that to their face. I get off the phone with, “This crazy bitch fucking lying to me,” and it's “I'll sit with you and explain everything I possibly can to make the process suck less!” an hour later. Their depravity doesn't feel personal, and I get paid to try, not to win. I understand what being helpless feels like. I also understand that as a function of my youth an ignorance and work obsessively to try and mitigate. No, most people aren't born like me, so of them I ask that they put on the same face to society required of us all, and at least go through the motions for getting caught.
I've also managed to get offered “permanency” with my job. It took about 6 months. Whether it's some odd timing with some vacation I want to take in the summer, or I just show a basic apt and work-ethic, I'm unsure. But, this kind of thing keeps happening to me. My baseline suggests I do things well even when I have no desire to do them. I went from 14 assessments on my screen down to 7 in 2 days because I just stopped pretending I couldn't fill in a couple forms. If they would pay me double for the more assessments I'll get assigned for having “less to do,” I'd really kick it into high gear and bother to bring my laptop home. It's just kind of annoying to watch myself, yet again, take my capacity and watch it reduced to achievements I don't want and clout I plan to do nothing with. I'm attending extra training hours and looking for new windows into DCS as well...yay.
I think about this class of people when considering a universal basic income. They get tax checks and spend it on heroin. That's a real and consistent thing. There are people who handcuff themselves to their status in life because they know they can't handle existing beyond a certain kind of mean. Would an extra $1000 a month actually help you and me? Of course, the word “budget” exists in our vocabulary, and the edge we walk is from the stress of managing bills in under-paying jobs. Will it address “poverty” as a philosophy and mental condition? Will it erase the felony convictions, the credit history, or influence of trailer-trash friends and family? Will it stop people from lying about their addictions and abuses, or help them exacerbate them?
The more you see it, the familiar patterns and nonsense, the less, as if I had much, sympathy there is. They need to love each other, there's nothing else. They need their sugary drinks and snacks. They need to cultivate some kind of emotional boost of a lie to build their lives around. So, what's my job really? Kick in the door and tell you how it “ought” to be? To the extent you're hurting the fuck out of your kid, sure. That's society's obligation because they're blameless. But everything else? The world you brought them into that I can't fix? The history you saddled them with which motivates poor decision after poor decision? I'm supposed to “assess” it as anything other than what it is? A deeply inured human condition no amount of money or “resources” can fix.
The best I can do is relay the process as honestly as I can and make it as smooth as possible. I'm learning that for as impatient as I am in observing my own life, I have all the time in the world to drone on about what I know about the process. And it is a process. It's a necessary not-so-evil. It will never cease to amaze me that the people who get the worst aspects of that process literally have to beg for it. They have to take every suggested behavior and piss on it. They have to take every court order and tear it up. They have to scream, cry, and fight for years over every detail of the shit they took in the middle of the process. That's personal to them. Not everyone, not most, are like that. That's a you thing, not a poverty thing.
---the drift away---
Barring getting fired, I see myself in this job at least through my birthday. With the house flirting with functional, I need to pay off credit cards, the back taxes, and the vacation I'm taking, and then I don't know if I get gung-ho about entrepreneurship stuff, or more rooms, or just kinda sit and try to save up a ton to breathe a little easier and go at a slower pace. There's 9 checks between now and my birthday, $6000 of the low-end $9000 I'll make from them already gone if I pay off everything besides my car, electricity, and internet. $3000 in the bank isn't freedom with car debt and utilities. God knows I'll keep eating like shit too because I don't have a kitchen and still don't like to cook. At the very least, once back taxes paid off, I'll be able to pay 2.5 months labor for a year of security? That'll put me just over a year at this job. Then if I get the car paid off or sold, It's 1-1.5 months labor for year of security, assuming over-paying electricity. Can I keep it together till then? I mean, I have daily reminders of the kind of person I don't want to be by picking anything else, not that I ever needed them.
I bring a certain kind of philosophy to what I do. One, it's rare that I get called to a house that isn't under a fair amount of duress. That duress looks something like the varying degrees of fallout related to addiction. It's one or more of your family members having spent time in prison. It's the legion of things from cleanliness to attitude that accompany generational abuse or poverty. If it's 1/12 families I might ever substantiate on, it's 1/25 where both mom and dad have working cell phones that they answer immediately, with a clean and nice smelling house, a basic consistent income and habits that match that income, and literally no excuse, it's just a reasonable explanation or miscommunication, for why I'm there. My habits aren't bred from interactions with “normal” people.
I think about this when it comes to other people who routinely deal with this class. Apparently, police have an even easier time with this crowd that we do. They just arrest them, write up a report, and move on. We sit, and coach, and look for services. We remain polite and conversational as someone, very often, tries to unload their 10, 20, or 50 years of trauma over the phone. We try to treat your situation as “normal” as we watch cockroaches crawl over your baby's face. We genuinely have to worry we'll get infected with bed bugs if we sit on the wrong surface. This does something to you.
I don't like to scroll through 15 years of unsubstantiated histories and calls made to your house. I got a kind of passive aggressive jab for saying I walk into a situation trying to first figure out why I'm there today. I think this is most practical. One, not all reports are created equal. I could literally spend an hour trying to summarize the rambling of another assessor. Two, whether someone has a drug history, violent past, or one of a dozen things that set off the “worker safety” concerns, I already take myself into situations assuming the worst. I ask about your history, I feel out to what degree you're willing to bullshit me. Most people know they can lie their way to freedom and drug screens are voluntary. They already look bad, they don't care if they look worse as long as you're walking away without evidence.
I adopt a tone reflective of a strongly-worded email. Things need to happen, and they need to happen now. Sooner than later is preferred, because when I hang up the phone with you, you're never going to pick back up. That's what people in my world do. They have a dozen phones over the course of a year, throw out incorrect numbers, and then disappear. So tomorrow, when I'm hunting down the person who hung up on me today, even if my sternness led to the hang-up, I need the severity of the situation to translate above the niceties I put on to get you to listen for as long as you do. I know you're an addict. I know you'll probably deny and decline. I also know that me being there is part of a larger trap State intervention sets.
We cause trauma. We ratchet up people into going overboard. It's our presence that takes someone walking a fine line and tells them, “I should make this public!” And then an assessment I just closed turns into mom getting arrested the day after. We're at once a light getting shed and the false relief that once I'm gone or you haven't heard anything for a while, you can go crazy. I, to the best of my ability, try to get ahead of that. I try to appeal to your capacity to be honest or work with me. I assume you won't. I politely ask you to do the things I need. I assume you won't. When you don't have a job, don't have the kids with you, and I can come to anywhere you are in a moment's notice, there aren't enough errands on the planet to justify you playing games with me about “tomorrow” that never comes without a court order.
There's something to be said about not kicking people when they're down. It's the same thing in this job as I do in the rest of my life. My language describing these people is horrible. I never bring that to their face. I get off the phone with, “This crazy bitch fucking lying to me,” and it's “I'll sit with you and explain everything I possibly can to make the process suck less!” an hour later. Their depravity doesn't feel personal, and I get paid to try, not to win. I understand what being helpless feels like. I also understand that as a function of my youth an ignorance and work obsessively to try and mitigate. No, most people aren't born like me, so of them I ask that they put on the same face to society required of us all, and at least go through the motions for getting caught.
I've also managed to get offered “permanency” with my job. It took about 6 months. Whether it's some odd timing with some vacation I want to take in the summer, or I just show a basic apt and work-ethic, I'm unsure. But, this kind of thing keeps happening to me. My baseline suggests I do things well even when I have no desire to do them. I went from 14 assessments on my screen down to 7 in 2 days because I just stopped pretending I couldn't fill in a couple forms. If they would pay me double for the more assessments I'll get assigned for having “less to do,” I'd really kick it into high gear and bother to bring my laptop home. It's just kind of annoying to watch myself, yet again, take my capacity and watch it reduced to achievements I don't want and clout I plan to do nothing with. I'm attending extra training hours and looking for new windows into DCS as well...yay.
I think about this class of people when considering a universal basic income. They get tax checks and spend it on heroin. That's a real and consistent thing. There are people who handcuff themselves to their status in life because they know they can't handle existing beyond a certain kind of mean. Would an extra $1000 a month actually help you and me? Of course, the word “budget” exists in our vocabulary, and the edge we walk is from the stress of managing bills in under-paying jobs. Will it address “poverty” as a philosophy and mental condition? Will it erase the felony convictions, the credit history, or influence of trailer-trash friends and family? Will it stop people from lying about their addictions and abuses, or help them exacerbate them?
The more you see it, the familiar patterns and nonsense, the less, as if I had much, sympathy there is. They need to love each other, there's nothing else. They need their sugary drinks and snacks. They need to cultivate some kind of emotional boost of a lie to build their lives around. So, what's my job really? Kick in the door and tell you how it “ought” to be? To the extent you're hurting the fuck out of your kid, sure. That's society's obligation because they're blameless. But everything else? The world you brought them into that I can't fix? The history you saddled them with which motivates poor decision after poor decision? I'm supposed to “assess” it as anything other than what it is? A deeply inured human condition no amount of money or “resources” can fix.
The best I can do is relay the process as honestly as I can and make it as smooth as possible. I'm learning that for as impatient as I am in observing my own life, I have all the time in the world to drone on about what I know about the process. And it is a process. It's a necessary not-so-evil. It will never cease to amaze me that the people who get the worst aspects of that process literally have to beg for it. They have to take every suggested behavior and piss on it. They have to take every court order and tear it up. They have to scream, cry, and fight for years over every detail of the shit they took in the middle of the process. That's personal to them. Not everyone, not most, are like that. That's a you thing, not a poverty thing.
---the drift away---
Barring getting fired, I see myself in this job at least through my birthday. With the house flirting with functional, I need to pay off credit cards, the back taxes, and the vacation I'm taking, and then I don't know if I get gung-ho about entrepreneurship stuff, or more rooms, or just kinda sit and try to save up a ton to breathe a little easier and go at a slower pace. There's 9 checks between now and my birthday, $6000 of the low-end $9000 I'll make from them already gone if I pay off everything besides my car, electricity, and internet. $3000 in the bank isn't freedom with car debt and utilities. God knows I'll keep eating like shit too because I don't have a kitchen and still don't like to cook. At the very least, once back taxes paid off, I'll be able to pay 2.5 months labor for a year of security? That'll put me just over a year at this job. Then if I get the car paid off or sold, It's 1-1.5 months labor for year of security, assuming over-paying electricity. Can I keep it together till then? I mean, I have daily reminders of the kind of person I don't want to be by picking anything else, not that I ever needed them.
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