What might be making you a tad apprehensive, but might not, as it's too soon to tell

[Griff]

nice

[classicman]

Eh hem ... I believer there is more news to share. El Sic!!!!

[elSicomoro]

Oh, I put it in the "Happy" thread...got the job, going to Detroit for 10 weeks. Gonna kick ass!

[glatt]

Sweet!

[orthodoc]

Great! Congratulations!

[Clodfobble]

Stepdaughter got fired yesterday from her job at my kids' school. Apparently there were four main issues:

1.) Her group never got anywhere on time
2.) She couldn't/wouldn't communicate what was going on with other adults
3.) She routinely drifted into inappropriate conversation topics with her kids--never sexual, but often death-related, like how the -icide in suicide can also be found in matricide, patricide, etc. Not awful, but not something all parents want her going on about with their kids. She'd been warned and continued to do it.
4.) She was yelling at the kids constantly, in a shaming and aggressive way.

The first three don't surprise me in the slightest. The last, however, was stunning to me when I first heard of it (again, there were multiple warnings, and the program director even reached out to me as a friend to find out if there was anything else going on,) but in retrospect it's obvious that she was screaming at the kids because that's how her mother treated her. We're waiting for the right moment to gently share this insight with her, when she's not still teary over getting fired.

The thing is, we knew she had no ability to project authority and would not be a good teacher in the long run. She had said before that one of the reasons she thought she would make a good middle school teacher is that she could be a great friend to all of them. We told her that's absolutely not what makes a good middle school teacher, but she insisted being a great listener was critical because, "Every teacher I ever had said to me, 'you know, if there's ever anything going on that you want to talk about, you can tell me.'" Well, no shit, honey--anyone can see you have major emotional problems, and they were only saying that to you, not to the kids with a fully-developed ego. To which she replied that she didn't act like a depressed unstable kid in school, she was more like [insert half a dozen super-obvious maladjusted attention-seeking socially-inappropriate behaviors here.]

Anyway, it's not necessarily a bad thing overall, hence the "tad apprehensive" thread, because we knew she needed to get off this teacher career path and onto something more suitable, and she also needed the experience of getting fired to convince her that the real world has real consequences. But we thought it would be more like, "Ugh, these kids are so annoying, I think I want to quit," not "You are so terrible at this we can't even let you stay on for a seventh week." The thing we thought would get her fired, oversleeping, has not yet been an issue, except that now that she's been fired from the job she really cared about, there's a distinct possibility she'll say "fuck this other job" and stop getting out of bed for it.

Meanwhile her first driving instructor passive-aggressively fired us, but now that she has all this room in her schedule we could probably find another one. Sometimes she's fine on the road, and sometimes she tries to change lanes into the car directly beside her and doesn't stop until I grab the wheel. But at least I have one fewer place to escort her to every day...


TL;DR - Stepdaughter got fired, which was inevitable, but the brutality of it may be too much for her to handle. I'm sick of cleaning up her mother's mess and I'm not anywhere near finished yet.

[Sundae]

I get why she was fired. And I know you get why too.
But that's really shitty. She'll have issues with that for years. Well, maybe. Maybe she'll shake it off. Don't want to be too negative.

But I am genuinely sorry you are having to pick up the pieces.

When I've messed up something important to me, there isn't really anything anyone can do but love and support me. I'm smart enough to know when it's my fault, but it doesn't make it hurt less. When it really hasn't been my fault (lousy boss, clash of personalities etc) it's hurt more initially, but I've faced it down. It's when I've caused the problem - emotional issues, drink, health - which recur in dreams and I end up reliving them every time I'm upset.

If you ever need someone to go round and kick her Mum up the cunt, I'll do it.
Prison can't be worse than hospital, right?

[sexobon]

Scratch my previous suggestion that SD consider being a nursing assistant. She apparently lacks the sound judgement needed to be a people person in the workplace.

Perhaps she needs an occupation working primarily with things rather than people, where one learns through on the job training and progresses by becoming skilled in a wider variety of things; or, on more sophisticated things rather than by supervising or taking care of others.

With her disposition, she may sooner or later find herself somewhere in logistics. The sooner the better. Companies like to train them young to add long term stability to their workforce. She could start out with something like packaging things in a factory and move up to operating machines that make the things. Could be there's an analogous situation in construction, shipping, maintenance ... etc. that she might like if she tried it.

Guard against her repeatedly applying for jobs she doesn't have the profile for. It's just as tempting to some to become a professional "terminee" as it is for others to become a professional student to get out of working for a living. I wouldn't give her more than three chances (i.e. jobs) to learn that she has to conform to doing what it takes to hold a job without getting fired. While getting fired may be devastating the first time, by the third or forth time it's old hat.

You may have to reassess your priorities and focus on first getting her independent transportation in that city. Her best bet may be working through a temp agency where she can experience a variety of places without having them as references. A single cumulative agency reference will take into account the totality of her work and obscure the places she went to that may have made her DNR (Do Not Return). She can still ask supervisors at the places that really liked her if she can use them as phone references.

[Clodfobble]

She is not polished enough to work for a temp agency. She has mild hygiene issues and no care for her appearance. Most temp jobs are at reception, and she is scared to answer the phone.

Independent transportation is absolutely our number one goal, but it's still up in the air as to how long that's going to take. What she'd honestly be great at is programming. She could get away with her social awkwardness in that environment, and she does well when left alone with a defined non-social task. She did very well in the one low-level programming class she took, and even enjoyed it, but the problem is she relies 1000% on peer validation, and no one in her computer class ever complimented her (adult compliments don't count because adults are all idiots.) But one time this one kid thanked her effusively for tutoring him, which is the moment she became convinced that teaching was for her.

[sexobon]

I brought up agency work because my BIL owns and runs a couple of factories in two states which are reliant on agency workers since the workload ebbs and flows too much to maintain a full complement of permanent employees. Some of the same temps have been going there for years and a few even hired for training to replace retiring employees. I suppose your city isn't exactly a manufacturing; or, transportation hub though.

Still, agency work is popular for its flexible scheduling. She might be able to find an agency that provides temp staffing in something like data entry or transcription services (where she would have her nose to a monitor all day and minimal contact with others) which would allow her to pursue additional coursework in programming or other area of interest.

Just a thought, maybe a contingency plan.

[monster]

CF, does SD see a counselor of any sort?

[Clodfobble]

Oh for sure. She was in therapy on and off from ages 4-10, then continuously (and on medication) from 10 until today. For the last 2.5 years she's had a separate, second counselor in Austin, because her mother insisted on sitting in on all her Houston sessions and then holding everything she said against her, so we set her up with one here that she could actually trust. We were limited by who would take Saturday appointments, though, so I wouldn't necessarily say the one in Austin is especially great, but it's been a neutral 3rd party for her to talk to, at least.

[Clodfobble]

And again with the apprehensive, but might be okay... She passed her driving test!! Is she safe on the road? Not really. Is she worse than any other teenager? I don't know.

What I know is I don't have to drive her to and from work every day, and we have an umbrella policy with our insurance. So I'm happy, at least, and whoever's car she inevitably hits, well, it'll be paid for.

One of these days I'll stop being a one-topic pony, but apparently not today.

[Lola Bunny]

As some of y'all may already know because I posted it on FB, I recently got into a car accident and totaled my car. Fortunately, I am okay. I need a new car ASAP because I don't have a set work schedule, so my husband can't always take me to work. We're going to go look for a car tomorrow. I can only afford a used car at the moment. I hope we don't end up buying one with hidden problems.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G850A using Tapatalk

[footfootfoot]

Well buying cars with obvious problems is overrated. At least the hidden problems give you surprises to look forward to.