Monday, April 29, 2013

Ravelry and the death of my free time.

I am proud of myself for making a "to do" list for today, and getting some items checked off that list.

Since starting to teach myself crochet, I've learned a great deal through watching videos on YouTube and checking for tips through Google.  How to Crochet - For Dummies has come in handy many times.  But in the midst of getting things done yesterday and today, I've found a new way to procrastinate in Ravelry.com.  My user name is Porkyporkerton, if anyone reading this is on there. I could spend hours browsing patterns for projects.  It seems like it has opened a new world of possibilities for community and project planning.  The site even allows you to keep track of your hooks and yarn stash!  Come check it out if you haven't already!

This is what I'll be working on first:  Waffle Dishcloth!  I've come a long way from being stuck on single crochet and simple square coasters (see pic).  I look forward to working on a granny square afghan sometime soon!


Sunday, April 28, 2013

The best laid plans...

I was thinking that I was going to spend more time blogging during the spring this year.  Plans change when you least expect them.  I had grand plans for starting a new position with my beloved supervisor, who was moving to a new counseling company.  In the process of moving myself and my clients the new company, there has been an unexpected gap in work and pay.  It's now almost a month where I haven't been able to see my clients, and when I do I haven't been able to get paid. I needed to make a visit to sign papers with one family, and my client (a child with autism) was jumping on the bed with a bread knife!  Talk about having a heart attack!  I don't remember disarming a hyper, giggling, jumping child, as being part of my safety care training. I was confident that I was going to have to make a 911 call that day, but thankfully he deescalated quickly.  This family, and my other client, have gone for almost a month without my support, and I can't seem to make things move along any faster.

Working with Medicaid and government funding can be difficult and irritating.  However, what makes my situation many times worse,  I think my old company screwed me over on purpose.  For ease of conversation, lets call them company A, and new company will be company B.

Company A has demonstrated significant problems in the last two years I've worked for them, including:  forcing a clinical director to resign without hiring a new one, forcing another supervisor to take on the jobs of 3 people without a pay raise, not hiring new counselors when old counselors move on, not investing in expansion of services provided when counselors express interest in outpatient and parole monitoring, and refusing to allow workers to attend vendor fairs for increased exposure.  Also, there is a regional director in place who has admitted "I don't care about these people." aka the clients and their families.  What makes her want to work in the counseling field, I have no idea.  I thought the point was to help people!  Hah, silly me.  In addition to all of this, there was a bizarre drama unfolding between the regional director and my supervisor, undeserved by my supervisor and perpetuated by the regional director.  This is what finally spurred my supervisor to leave, and what motivated me to leave instead of remaining in such an unhealthy and unhelpful work environment. 

The woman responsible for filing and Medicaid at company A, told me that my client's Medicaid authorizations would need to be closed out so that the new company could open their authorization.  My regional supervisor at company B told me the exact opposite.  Now I firmly believe that the people at Company A deliberately tried to make my transition harder, out of bitterness that I was leaving to continue working with my supervisor.  In closing out the authorizations in Medicaid's system, we will have to start the application for services over again, and unfortunately it can take an unreasonable amount of time.

All in all, I'm enjoying time off...but it would be better if I didn't have to stress about the financial issues associated with not working.  The good news is, I'm motivated more than ever to find stable employment with benefits, where my pay does not depend on a laundry list of variables that are not in my control.  I should probably work on my Etsy shop too, but I'm having fun gardening, crocheting, and catching up on my reading!  I've been cooking dinner every night, and packing the husband lunches.  I've had time to clean the house and fold laundry.  I have been working on teaching myself more crochet stitches!  So far, I've got a half double, and a double crochet down! This month, I participated in Reddit Gifts Star Wars exchange and made some fun clay stuff that I will post pics of soon.

I will do my best to keep enjoying the calm while it lasts.

 “The only order in the universe is just a cycle of calm and chaos.”
Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity