for all my girls out in mental health.....

So, I stole this from Jen...my buddy from The Relatives.... we got into the mental health field together... learned a TON of what to (and not) to do when working with clients, and had a lot of fun in the process....She's now working as a social worker,and I, well, we all know I stopped working in mental health after 4 years....

You know you work in mental health if...


1. You think $40,000 a year is 'really making it'.
2. You don't know what it's like to work with straight men.
3. You know all the latest lingo for drugs, where to get them, and how much they cost, and how to administer them.
4. You routinely start a sentence with 'So what I hear you saying is...'
5. You’ve had 2 or more jobs at one time just to pay the bills. (yeppers... bartended through more than half of my mental health work)
6. You tell people what you do and they say 'that's so noble' or 'why?' (as they try albeit unsuccessfully to mask their disapproval)
7. You have had to explain to people that not all social workers take away kids and not all mental health workers are therapists.
8. You use the words 'coping skills', 'prompt', 'validate,' 'appropriate' and 'intervention' daily.
9. You spend more than half your day documenting and doing paperwork.
10. You think nothing of discussing child abuse over dinner.
11. People have said to you 'I don't know how you do what you do'.(see #6)
12. You’ve never been on a company-paid business trip or had an expense account.(but I've paid for my own conferences and to take continuing ed classes to keep to my job).
13. You meet new coworkers on a monthly basis and know that 85% of them will leave the profession for another within the next 5 years.
14. You’re very familiar with the concepts of entitlement, ignorance, and displacement.
15. Staying at a job for 2 years makes you "senior" there.
16. Your phone number is unlisted for good reason.
17. Your professional newsletters always have articles about raising salaries...but you still haven't seen it except on the higher up administrative level.
18. You’re very familiar with the term 'budget cut'.
19. You can't imagine working at a bank or crunching numbers all day (or to have a job where you can go more than a few hours without getting cursed out).
20. You’ve had clients who liked you just a little too much.
21. Having lunch is a luxury many days.
22. You’ve been cursed at, threatened, and assaulted...so many times that when it happens again you barely notice it-it stopped bothering you a long time ago. (true that, i've been kicked, punched, spit on, snot on, had desks thrown at, pushed down stairs so many times that few things with the "crazies" actually phased me by the time that I left)
23. Your job orientation has included self defense... and you've used it on more than 1 occasion to keep yourself from having an unplanned trip to the hospital courtesy of your clientele.
24. You have the best stories at any cocktail party...or any party... and everyone wants to hear how "crazy" how some of the kids really are...
25. Your parents and spouse don't know half of the stuff that you've dealt with at your job...and they think you're crazy to do it for what little they do happen to know!
26. You know all the excuses clients use for a failed a drug test, missed appointment, skipped school class, or blown welfare check.... by heart, and can anticipate it before they even say it.

"Change in America...."

...or what I like to call, the end of American capitalism as we have known it....

I have done well not commenting on the recent economic and political "changes that have come" upon America as of late...

However, my friend Joel posted this quote by Henry Hazlitt that I found to be an insightful and amusing commentary on our current state of affairs....

"The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects - his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity."

Our Photoblog

We started a photoblog... who knows how much it will get updated, our goal is each of us upload pics daily of what we are doing while the other is at work (so don't expect any shocking or ridiculously exciting pics) in an effort to stay more in touch with us working opposite shifts. Who knows, at least it's off to a start tonight with some pics :-)

www.saundersphotoblog.blogspot.com