Please....

[wolf]

Originally posted by 99 44/100% pure

Wolf, thank you! I had just taken a big slug of coffee when . . . well, there goes the keyboard!
*wipes tears from eyes*

I love a job well done!

I hope you have many such opportunities for this type of 'fun' in what is otherwise a highly stressful, overdemanding, and, no doubt, underpaid job. I couldn't help but get a picture in my head of some stern supervisor reproving you with "Now, how many times do I have to tell you: Don't play with your food."

You hit that particular nail right on the head. I spend a fair amount of time in my supervisor's office answering to such events. I've reached an agreement whereby I take it easy on our own staff. I promised to use my powers of human manipulation primarily for the forces of good.

This is sometimes difficult. The temptation, you know ....

** General disclaimer: Psychologists and Social Workers are wonderful people who perform a valuable set of services for our society. They are just so easy to make fun of during their earnest, idealistic larval stage.

Particularly then. It's interesting to seem them later on. The ones that are fluffy going into it are the ones that burn out fastest. You can smell their fear.

I went to gradual school late. I came from another field entirely and kind of just "happened" into working psych. I got a lot of experience and then started a program. I knew very clearly what I was getting into. Seeing those little girls (and they are almost invariably girls) who have never seen a live psych patient on the hoof gettin' all the book larnin' without any practical experience before completing their degrees is a sometimes sad experience. They get the idealism sucked out of them somewhere in the third week of their practicum placements, if they've managed to get into anything other than slow-paced private outpatient setting. This is, of course, after it's too late to change their major to marketing.

But I do, from time to time have to remind myself, "except under certain, special circumstances, people are not toys."