What is Your Employment Situation?

[nycfem]

I'm a social worker x 15 years and love my job. Up until 2 yrs ago I worked in a psychatric hospital, inpatient as well as outpatient, mainly with kids and teenagers. It was a job that took over my life, and that was good and bad. On the good side I was doing something meaningful that feels like a calling to me, being there for people when they are at their very lowest. On the opposite end, because I was working tons of usually unpaid overtime (even my vacation days sometimes) in an emotionally draining field, it interfered with other areas of my life so that I was not able to have a well-rounded life. It was my husbutch, BB, who finally enouraged me to find something that was also meaningful work but which was not a job where I did nothing BUT work in life. This involved taking a pay cut and I sure was nervous to do that. However, my Honey's confidence in me helped me take that step, and I'm grateful I did ever since. Shortly after I left, the hospital where I worked closed down. Now I work at a small school for kids who have been kicked out of all the public schools. Many of them are foster kids, often born on drugs, and living a life in poverty. This school is the last stop on the train metaphorically speaking. It is a chance for them to get a lot of attentive academic and emotional specialized help with the hopes that they can make it in the community after some time instead of needing to go live in a lock up or be a drop out (We do GED training too.). Even though I work summer school too, I get out in the afternoon which is unheard of for me, and I don't work weekends (plus, gotta love school vacations). I get to make dinner for BB and me every night, and I love that. The school is underfunded and thus I'm not paid a lot but it's a great community of kids and staff. One thing I like that is different from the hospital is that a lot of the staff have had rough childhoods like the kids, and there is not the class/race difference between staff/clients that was more present in the hospital. I feel so lucky to have not only a job but one that I'd want to do whether paid or not. I feel it is a privilege that I get to walk through the doors each morning and be with these special kids. Sometimes the principal gives me the key at the end of the day to lock up because he knows I'm gonna be the last to leave