Recently my grandparents came to visit my mother and brother in Guelph, and my aunt and cousin were planning to be there as well. Unfortunately, I'm so locked in with work, it didn't seem that I would be able to make it to the get-together. However, by some quirk of fate, the entire household at the grouphome decided to go camping for three days and two of my direct support contracts went on vacation at exactly the right time. My boss gave me the option of tending to the empty group home or taking the time off, so I just took the time off.
My aunt and cousin stayed over at the Guelph location overnight, which including me made for five people in a two bedroom apartment. Probably the most people to ever stay overnight there.
I was going to stay for two days in Guelph, then come home and do such things as turn my timesheets into Extend-a-Family and visit the Summer Program again, but I kept letting time slip away and postponing things until I heard that the Hattsoff camp was getting called off a day early and I had to go back a day before I thought I would.
Makes sense the Hatsoff thing didn't go as planned, it was awkwardly timed. The week before, two of the kids were away camping, and we got a new kid a couple days before the trip. That means that two of them would be sick of camping, and the other would still be getting used to the house before setting out.
But yeah, last week we were at half capacity with only three kids in the house, and we've had an empty room for awhile now. This is the first time in a good bit that the house is full. Still, I don't make lunches anymore, since it's summer vacation and I don't have to wake the kids up for school either. So some of my duties are still diminished.
We lost two of our summer staff. Without getting into it, they chose to go a separate direction. But that means we have no morning shift, so we've been finding people to fill the morning shift, either through relief workers or getting our house staff to do overtime. We can't get our UMAB trainer to cover only two people either, so unless we hire six new workers, we have to find two new employees that are already UMAB trained.
A neighbor of mine recently got evicted. She was an older woman whose husband left her about a year ago. This overlapped with the time that I was looking for a roommate after my first batch at my current location. Unfortunately, her home was fully loaded with items. Logistically, if I'd moved in with her, there would be no place for me to even put down a mattress or store my clothes. She wasn't willing to part with any of her belongings and she was attached to where she lived. We quibbled about who'd move where, and eventually I took another roommate. Time passed, and she managed to last long enough on her own that I grew to believe she was financially secure and her need for a roommate was more due to loneliness than anything.
But then she got evicted, couldn't find anywhere else, and now she's in a homeless shelter. She left everything behind. Saw her place unloaded recently. People can judge her lifestyle, but it was still pretty depressing to see her lose everything after she fought so hard to hold onto all of it.
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Return to Summer Program
So a little while ago I visited the Summer Program
They kept the staff shirts orange, which is the colour I proposed, and which we changed it to last year. Happy to see that, makes me feel like my influence had some staying power, although because Extend-a-Family apparently can't stand to use the same shirt design twice in a row (their logo changed once per year three years in a row, and then when they finally stuck to one, they changed the colour) they now have the "Leader" and "Peer Leader" print done in large stylized-informal lettering on the back. They also have a logo "Live Life Fully" in the same informal lettering on the front. I like the new print design, but I'm undecided on whether or not they really needed a logo. I like that they changed the word "Staff" to "Leader" since Peer Leaders are staff as well. At any rate, those shirts will stand out more compared to other camp staff shirts.
New staff team doesn't have any green personality types. If you remember, Summer Program always does Personality Dimensions which defines people by one of four colour types: Authentic Blue, Resourceful Orange, Organized Gold, and Inquiring Green. I'm Green, and first year we had one other aside from me, but the past two years I was the Group Green, and now that I'm gone, they don't have any intellectual type. How will they get by.
They have a better spread for conflict intervention styles. Last year we were all but one Compromising, which caused our team name to be The Compromisers. They have four returning Compromisers so it still has a strong tendency that way, but at least the new three are different.
Their team name is The Beehive. I... I don't like it.
They killed Personality Bingo, which was the weekly icebreaker that I used to host. Knew they'd do that.
When I got in, they were playing Mission Impossible, which is the game where people have to steal bean bags from one end of the gym and bring them back. Program Leaders shout a number of seconds, count it down, and when the time is up, look over the gym and try to spot participants. There are a number of obstacles placed throughout the gym that participants need to hide behind when the time is up, and if they are caught, they must return to the front of the gym.
So of course, I show up and everyone is hiding. I get noticed and a bunch of people compromise their hiding spots by exclaiming in surprise.
I just got thrown into it. A staff member needed to do something outside the gym and asked if I'd take over supporting someone. Kept providing support through a game of "Knight, Horse, Cavalier" and "Frogger".
Knight, Horse Cavalier is a new take on Huckle Buckle. Difference is there are only three specific poses in Knight, Horse, Cavalier. Frogger is a new take on Murder Wink, sifference is, instead of having a murderer who kills with winks, you have a frog that licks flies. The implied violence of Murder Wink has been a topic of discussion in the past, but honestly, no participant has ever seemed bothered by it. I used to act all theatrical when I'd get "shot" by the wink. It's hard to know how to react to being licked.
Stuck around for lunch. When everybody was getting their hands washed, I was still supporting someone. One of the staff members asked if I was "good" which is a covert way of asking if you are able to lead the group on your own. I was so stoked! Leading a group again!
It was a good group, lots of people I have a long-standing relationship with, both participants and staff. Some of the new participants were confused at how I fit into the system, and were asking if I was various peoples fathers, and even got asked if I was the boss of the Program Leaders (haha). Even the new staff I was kind of familiar with, since I taught them Safe Management.
A lot of the participants wanted me to go swimming with them, which is what they were doing after lunch. But I'd worked a nine hour night shift before coming to Summer Program, and I'd already worked half a day. I knew if I swam, I'd come back, and then all there is is journals, and then the day is over and I would have officially worked two shifts in a row and wouldn't get any sleep that day.
Really took it out of me, especially since I climbed a mountain the day before (just gonna drop that there casually). I really don't have the time to be running around with my old job.
...I'll visit them one more time before they leave for Overnight.
They kept the staff shirts orange, which is the colour I proposed, and which we changed it to last year. Happy to see that, makes me feel like my influence had some staying power, although because Extend-a-Family apparently can't stand to use the same shirt design twice in a row (their logo changed once per year three years in a row, and then when they finally stuck to one, they changed the colour) they now have the "Leader" and "Peer Leader" print done in large stylized-informal lettering on the back. They also have a logo "Live Life Fully" in the same informal lettering on the front. I like the new print design, but I'm undecided on whether or not they really needed a logo. I like that they changed the word "Staff" to "Leader" since Peer Leaders are staff as well. At any rate, those shirts will stand out more compared to other camp staff shirts.
New staff team doesn't have any green personality types. If you remember, Summer Program always does Personality Dimensions which defines people by one of four colour types: Authentic Blue, Resourceful Orange, Organized Gold, and Inquiring Green. I'm Green, and first year we had one other aside from me, but the past two years I was the Group Green, and now that I'm gone, they don't have any intellectual type. How will they get by.
They have a better spread for conflict intervention styles. Last year we were all but one Compromising, which caused our team name to be The Compromisers. They have four returning Compromisers so it still has a strong tendency that way, but at least the new three are different.
Their team name is The Beehive. I... I don't like it.
They killed Personality Bingo, which was the weekly icebreaker that I used to host. Knew they'd do that.
When I got in, they were playing Mission Impossible, which is the game where people have to steal bean bags from one end of the gym and bring them back. Program Leaders shout a number of seconds, count it down, and when the time is up, look over the gym and try to spot participants. There are a number of obstacles placed throughout the gym that participants need to hide behind when the time is up, and if they are caught, they must return to the front of the gym.
So of course, I show up and everyone is hiding. I get noticed and a bunch of people compromise their hiding spots by exclaiming in surprise.
I just got thrown into it. A staff member needed to do something outside the gym and asked if I'd take over supporting someone. Kept providing support through a game of "Knight, Horse, Cavalier" and "Frogger".
Knight, Horse Cavalier is a new take on Huckle Buckle. Difference is there are only three specific poses in Knight, Horse, Cavalier. Frogger is a new take on Murder Wink, sifference is, instead of having a murderer who kills with winks, you have a frog that licks flies. The implied violence of Murder Wink has been a topic of discussion in the past, but honestly, no participant has ever seemed bothered by it. I used to act all theatrical when I'd get "shot" by the wink. It's hard to know how to react to being licked.
Stuck around for lunch. When everybody was getting their hands washed, I was still supporting someone. One of the staff members asked if I was "good" which is a covert way of asking if you are able to lead the group on your own. I was so stoked! Leading a group again!
It was a good group, lots of people I have a long-standing relationship with, both participants and staff. Some of the new participants were confused at how I fit into the system, and were asking if I was various peoples fathers, and even got asked if I was the boss of the Program Leaders (haha). Even the new staff I was kind of familiar with, since I taught them Safe Management.
A lot of the participants wanted me to go swimming with them, which is what they were doing after lunch. But I'd worked a nine hour night shift before coming to Summer Program, and I'd already worked half a day. I knew if I swam, I'd come back, and then all there is is journals, and then the day is over and I would have officially worked two shifts in a row and wouldn't get any sleep that day.
Really took it out of me, especially since I climbed a mountain the day before (just gonna drop that there casually). I really don't have the time to be running around with my old job.
...I'll visit them one more time before they leave for Overnight.
Monday, July 10, 2017
Tooth fairy, fidget spinners, new staff and roommate
Being the tooth fairy is really intimidating, I don't know who came up with it. Since I'm the night shift worker, it usually falls on me to fill this role. It's one of those things you don't think about until you have to do it, but it's more complicated than you would assume. Not only do you have to plant the money under the kid's head without waking them up, but you have to search for the tooth as well. Absolutely no way that if someone came into my room while I'm asleep and started putting their hands under my pillow, that I would sleep through it. And depending on how clean the kid's room is, and where they are sleeping, the place can be an obstacle course. And worst of all is, what happens if you do get caught? The kid wakes up and asks you why you're in their room. I've spent a lot of time perched outside kids rooms, developing strategies to bypass clutter, and coming up with excuses for why I'm creeping around in their room at night. The whole things is just a bad scene.
You know what the most recent craze is with the kids? Fidget spinners. They're these hand-sized disks, usually with four more disks branching off from the centre, and you spin them. That's all there is to them. I finally got to spin one, and it was like, "So this is what you kids are getting up to these days". When I was a kid, yo-yos came back into trend during a time when technology was on the rise, and that was strange enough. But at least with a yo-yo, there are a variety of tricks you can do (although when I was a kid, they were developing "automatic yo-yos" which even I thought was lame and got so common I had a hard time finding a non-auto.) With these spinners, there's not much to do. Spin them between your fingers, balance one on your finger while it's spinning, put one on the table while it's spinning, wave it up and down while it's spinning to feel the "forces" of the air pressure, buy multiple spinners to compare their weight. Absolutely everywhere sells them now. You can get them glow in the dark and there are ones that make sound effects. They cost $10-$15. I'm failing to see the hype.
I had ADHD growing up, so people would give me little toys like this to play with to occupy my hands while I was trying to concentrate. But kids these days don't just use them to expend excess energy while trying to focus on something else. They will actually spin as a primary mode of entertainment, which to me seems odd in a world developing virtual realities. I've seen "fidget cubes" as well, which are little boxes with dials, switches and buttons that don't do anything, and "fidget flippers" which I don't know much about, but I imagine they flip.
I renewed my credit card recently.You know that three-number code that comes on the back of them? New credit card's is 666. Don't trust that at all.
A neighbour of mine's car broke down and had to borrow a friend's vehicle that was on vacation. During this time, he needed a place to keep his vehicle and a place to keep the vehicle he was borrowing, so he asked me if he could use my parking space. Obviously, I do nothing with my space so I agreed with it. Good old neighbour bought me a bottle of whisky to thank me for it. Actually asked around to see what I drink. Just a sweet, neighbourly gesture.
Since summer vacation started, we have had to hire new staff to cover the time that school used to occupy. Previously, some school staff would come in the morning, help with breakfast and hygiene routines, take them to school and continue from there. But they weren't actually residential workers, so now they're doing whatever school staff do during the summer, and we've had to bring on new residential workers to work a 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM shift. Since my shift ends at 9:00 AM, that means I've been asked to take on a mentoring role, and some tasks such as administering medication have been left to me, since I'm now "Senior staff".
When I first came into my position, I had a nightly sheet to fill as the "Senior night staff" but because there's only one of us, I got to be a senior on my first night. However, with these new staff members, it's the first time I get to have experience over someone else. Living it up.
I got a new roommate. I was considering holding off until September when a buddy of mine would be looking, or there was a guy looking for a roommate in the Bread and Roses next month, which is a spot I've had my eye on. But since then, a neighbour of mine for over a year, who was subletting from a guy whose luck turned south, found himself in need of a room, and so I took him on.
It's only been a couple of days, but he's gotten rid of our cockroach problem, which I'm thoroughly grateful for. I try to keep the place clean over here, but the upper and lower units are connected, and a roach problem has been spreading throughout the complex. We used to have an ant problem, and fixed it, although I must say I prefer ants over roaches. As far as pests go, at least ants are clever and industrious, and mice are cute. Roaches are losers who stumble over each other like they're drunk and live on the corpses of their kin.
I told my new roommate "They can survive their head being cut off for a week, for every one you see, there's seven you don't, they're predicted to survive a nuclear war, the sooner you accept their status as the dominant species in this home, the easier it will be for you". But he beat them. We're the first unit in the complex to beat the roaches!
I swear, these exterminators aren't doing much. We had exterminators come in twice for ants, insisting that poison wouldn't work on them abd only traps would. Then they'd leave and I never saw an ant trap. Then my old roommate put down some Ant-B-Gone and too them all out. My upstairs neighbour has had exterminators come in for roaches but has seen no progress. Then my roommate puts down some poison and voila. Extermination must be one of those fields filled by people who don't really do anything.
You know what the most recent craze is with the kids? Fidget spinners. They're these hand-sized disks, usually with four more disks branching off from the centre, and you spin them. That's all there is to them. I finally got to spin one, and it was like, "So this is what you kids are getting up to these days". When I was a kid, yo-yos came back into trend during a time when technology was on the rise, and that was strange enough. But at least with a yo-yo, there are a variety of tricks you can do (although when I was a kid, they were developing "automatic yo-yos" which even I thought was lame and got so common I had a hard time finding a non-auto.) With these spinners, there's not much to do. Spin them between your fingers, balance one on your finger while it's spinning, put one on the table while it's spinning, wave it up and down while it's spinning to feel the "forces" of the air pressure, buy multiple spinners to compare their weight. Absolutely everywhere sells them now. You can get them glow in the dark and there are ones that make sound effects. They cost $10-$15. I'm failing to see the hype.
I had ADHD growing up, so people would give me little toys like this to play with to occupy my hands while I was trying to concentrate. But kids these days don't just use them to expend excess energy while trying to focus on something else. They will actually spin as a primary mode of entertainment, which to me seems odd in a world developing virtual realities. I've seen "fidget cubes" as well, which are little boxes with dials, switches and buttons that don't do anything, and "fidget flippers" which I don't know much about, but I imagine they flip.
I renewed my credit card recently.You know that three-number code that comes on the back of them? New credit card's is 666. Don't trust that at all.
A neighbour of mine's car broke down and had to borrow a friend's vehicle that was on vacation. During this time, he needed a place to keep his vehicle and a place to keep the vehicle he was borrowing, so he asked me if he could use my parking space. Obviously, I do nothing with my space so I agreed with it. Good old neighbour bought me a bottle of whisky to thank me for it. Actually asked around to see what I drink. Just a sweet, neighbourly gesture.
Since summer vacation started, we have had to hire new staff to cover the time that school used to occupy. Previously, some school staff would come in the morning, help with breakfast and hygiene routines, take them to school and continue from there. But they weren't actually residential workers, so now they're doing whatever school staff do during the summer, and we've had to bring on new residential workers to work a 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM shift. Since my shift ends at 9:00 AM, that means I've been asked to take on a mentoring role, and some tasks such as administering medication have been left to me, since I'm now "Senior staff".
When I first came into my position, I had a nightly sheet to fill as the "Senior night staff" but because there's only one of us, I got to be a senior on my first night. However, with these new staff members, it's the first time I get to have experience over someone else. Living it up.
I got a new roommate. I was considering holding off until September when a buddy of mine would be looking, or there was a guy looking for a roommate in the Bread and Roses next month, which is a spot I've had my eye on. But since then, a neighbour of mine for over a year, who was subletting from a guy whose luck turned south, found himself in need of a room, and so I took him on.
It's only been a couple of days, but he's gotten rid of our cockroach problem, which I'm thoroughly grateful for. I try to keep the place clean over here, but the upper and lower units are connected, and a roach problem has been spreading throughout the complex. We used to have an ant problem, and fixed it, although I must say I prefer ants over roaches. As far as pests go, at least ants are clever and industrious, and mice are cute. Roaches are losers who stumble over each other like they're drunk and live on the corpses of their kin.
I told my new roommate "They can survive their head being cut off for a week, for every one you see, there's seven you don't, they're predicted to survive a nuclear war, the sooner you accept their status as the dominant species in this home, the easier it will be for you". But he beat them. We're the first unit in the complex to beat the roaches!
I swear, these exterminators aren't doing much. We had exterminators come in twice for ants, insisting that poison wouldn't work on them abd only traps would. Then they'd leave and I never saw an ant trap. Then my old roommate put down some Ant-B-Gone and too them all out. My upstairs neighbour has had exterminators come in for roaches but has seen no progress. Then my roommate puts down some poison and voila. Extermination must be one of those fields filled by people who don't really do anything.
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