Ready to Work

this little birdie is ready for work too

I figured I should let you all know a little bit about my job, well two jobs, now that my job search of months is finally over (hooray for that!). But first, in reference to the title, does anyone else remember the original Warcraft? I haven't played any since I tried Warcraft II once or twice, and that came out in 1995, though my brothers have continued to play World of Warcraft. Anyway, what I remember most from those games were the voices and sounds of the game, particularly the little orcs saying "ready to work!" and "zug zug." If you don't know what I'm talking about, or do and want to relive the glory, you can hear all the little sounds and snippets in this youtube video. To be fair, I didn't listen to all 6 minutes and 20 seconds, so you probably shouldn't either. Righto, the point of this post is not to go on about Warcraft.

I started working at the Arc of Centre County (which I was a little familiar with from Key Club in high school) about a month ago. I work as a residential program worker in a house with four women with various mental and physical disabilities. I cook, clean, get them up, put them to bed, help them work on their various goals, physical therapy, help deescalate their outbursts, take them on outings and drive them about, help with hygiene, and so on. I haven't done medication training yet, but I'll be giving them meds once I am certified. So far I have enjoyed it. There is always something to do (except maybe from 9 to 10:30 at night once they've gone to bed for the most part, but it depends on the day), and the challenges are always interesting. The ladies are generally quite pleasant, and my coworkers have been nice and helpful as well.

I recently got another job, which is pretty much full time (Monday-Friday 7-8 hours a day), with PA Treatment & Healing (PATH). They have a program for adolescents with mental and/or behavioral problems, so I will be working with them. During the summer it operated during the day, but now that school is starting up, the program runs after school. I will be picking them up from school and bringing them to PATH, helping out through their program, preparing dinner for them, and taking them home afterwards. Since I have a bachelors degree (knew it'd come in handy eventually!), I will get to do extra things with the program, perhaps lead some life skills sessions and organize some educational things that are of some interest to me and benefit to them. I just got back from safe crisis management and restraint training (plus free lunch. minus two and a half hours on the road), which was at least more interesting and effective than watching a series of training videos from the 80s. So, I'm pretty excited! I will be able to keep my job with the Arc as well, since it is part time and I will still be available week day mornings and on weekends. Two jobs plus GRE studying, grad school applying, and wedding planning, I will be a busy lady! Don't worry, I will keep blogging, too.

The job search has taken longer than I would have liked. If you know me you know that I really only need a week off before getting back into things, so the last few months have been a little stressful, especially now that I'm a real person with vet bills, car insurance, gas to make the car go, groceries, rent, etc. I also grew frustrated because I noticed that potential employers are kind of...not very well functioning in the summer months. They go on vacations after an interview and can't get back to you for at earliest a month. If they do you the courtesy of responding at all in a timely manner. I hate hate hate when professional people to do not call or email you back within an acceptable period of time (which has also been annoying with wedding things already). I also did not want to settle if at all possible with doing something unrelated to my degree and future career/education goals, so I held out a bit longer for things to come along. I did have a few other opportunities earlier on, but I didn't want to be juggling more than two jobs, or take a job that was 45 minutes away where I was warned I might get punched. I think both these jobs will be good experience and help me figure out even more what I want to do in the future.

- From the desk of Mrs. M