COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN:
Sort of like the Led Zeppelin song, but not really.
Prior to starting, I need to reiterate that there is a “personality” involved in whether burnout will affect you. Just because you are in an environment where everything is torn down for you, doesn't mean that you are going to get burnt out. If you have the ability to remain passive and non-emotional and remove yourself from the community, you may be able to function effectively. If you are an “island”, unlike John Donne's comment (no man is an island, after meeting helpers at my last job, I totally disagree), you could exist. Now, are these good qualities for being a helping professional? No, they are totally paradoxical to the point of being a helping professional who bases his work on helping others change. If he is so afraid of change himself, how can he help others do something that he cannot? This is why it makes me happy that a friend listened to my advice and stood up to her supervisor. The supervisor wasn't happy, but my friend was ethical and followed appropriate guidelines of social work practice.
Break down of community:
Here are three elements that contribute to a breakdown in community followed by examples from my job.
A. fragmenting personal relationships
B. undermining teamwork
C. working separately, not together
Obviously, all three of the elements listed above are based upon appropriate communication. That communication only exists when modeled by an appropriate leader. If the leader refuses to communicate, there is a breakdown in community.
A: Fragmenting relationships: Since there were no strong personalities in my office, or no personalities at all, I will eliminate the “personal” relationships part. Everyone at my work was an island. My supervisor, “Clam Chowder”, (this name is appropriate because it is fattening, evil, chalked with chunks of indeterminable substances and more than any other fattening soup, won't talk) remained in her office, especially when there was something going on that needed to be discussed. Sometimes, she would sneak out of the office, her face bright red, saying she was sick. I think she just jonesing for McDonalds (Damn I'm a bitch). Even though she was about 40 meters from my office, she usually blocked herself off and made herself scarce, which is not welcoming of open communication.
One word to describe the other clinician at our office, would be constipated. When I tried to talk to him about anything, he was so constrained by his role as “clinician” that he was unable to reveal true interaction or emotion. For a couple months, I shared the office with two ladies who were funny. This clinician would stand awkwardly at the door while we were bullshitting and laughing. Rather than saying, “hey guys, sorry to interrupt- but there's a situation”, he would wait for someone to acknowledge his presence. When I say constipated, I'm not kidding: a rounded, bronze color face, scrunched red cheeks, little wrinkles around the edges of his eyes, brows raised on the inner part. I was often tempted to ask if he needed some Ex-Lax. If there was a real life version of Hansel from Hansel and Gretel, he would be it. He would have fit in wearing leiderhosen and yodeling at the Hofbrau Haus. His body language was stiff and tensed, ready to recoil like a scared Pomeranian. My favorite story about him: I was scheduled to work the day after Thanksgiving and he came to me the week before Thanksgiving and said, “my plans fell through, so I could come in to the office so you don't have to”. I said, “Sure”. Didn't think twice. I don't think he was expecting that, but why would someone be so self-deprecating to even offer? Oh, right, because he's a social worker! It's their job to self- sacrifice and look constipated!
On the one hand, he was irritating, but he was not the problem that I took home with me. He was sort of like the dread locks on a hippie. Not necessary, but adding more description to an already defined stereotype; a side note. But he didn't make any waves either, which of course left him on better terms with “Clam Chowder”.
You might think that I was a main issue involved in communication issues with the supervisor, being so judgmental. But while I am aware of the judgments and stereotypes in my head, I don't necessarily let those ideas affect my behavior. I can give myself props on leaving this part at work. This does not make it impossible for me to communicate with the person. In fact, it drives me harder to do so. I thrive on trying to make unlike people understand one another and communicate. I have never encountered such hostility towards this goal before.
(*Someone recently reminded me that in order to have an effective relationship, you have to have two parties willing to participate. I was definitely one of those parties. This is really important to remember if working in a hostile environment. Regardless of your efforts, if other people refuse to cooperate or meet you half way, you cannot communicate needs to refusing parties.)
Example:
At team meeting, “Chowder” gave the illusion of paying attention to comments, but simply argued as soon as an idea was presented. At one point, when she asked us what we thought, I actually said to her, maybe you'd like to share what you think first because you obviously seem to have an opinion about the matter. Smug smile, no words. Pattern: time to shut my mouth. Bottom line, no community. How do you feel like a community if you don't know what your supervisor's goals are? Sharing yours at that point is pointless, especially because the little man named “shhh” is the only one hearing them. Simply put, you can talk to a paper bag all you want and it still won't understand you.
As time went on, towards the end of my employment, she changed my exit plan (which had been determined four weeks in advance) 4 times for my exit, in her own mind, so upper management could blame me for “not listening”. I was not aware of these changes. She had a new employee show up on my last week who sat at my desk and waited to be trained. “Chowder” also took it upon herself to avoid the office for that whole week. I am proud to say that I was a total bitch to the new woman (who didn't even know what bipolar was because she hadn't been in mental health for ten years since they renamed it from manic depressive disorder. This was a real slap in the face to me. As I was told, I am not special, I just do a job). I refused to train her and told her that she could not hang out at my desk because I had enough paper work and final client meetings to attend. I told her that she could meet my clients, but not sit for a whole session with me.
*Side note: This was the last straw for me and I couldn't figure out why I did not just pull a Sarah Connor, tell everyone their heads were up their asses and let them deal with the consequences. I should have made a stand. I confronted my supervisor, when she crept into her office one afternoon about what was happening and she told me she would handle it, obviously not a priority. What was it that I was not being clear about. “I can't deal with more work. I do not have time to train a new employee. I could have had you told me about it 2 weeks ago, as planned, but I do not have time now. My days are scheduled out. It is not my responsibility that she was trained in advance.” Nothing happened.
Obviously this is a communication breakdown/community breakdown. Me trying to communicate and getting more direct and forceful and her avoid communication at all costs. This is not an effective work environment, this is not team spirit.
B. Undermining efforts:
As previously mentioned, “Chowder” consistently undermined my decisions which contributed to a loss on my part of understanding of our purpose, goals and the system. What is my role, what is your role? If you are going to tell clients that it's okay for them to continue dry drunk behavior and I'm not telling them that, what is a client to do? And if I am supposed to let some things slide, which ones when there are cumulative effects? So, it's okay that our client wore a Jack Daniels teeshirt to your group, and not to mine. It's okay that the client was caught hanging out at a bar and buying beer at the supermarket, but because we like the client who was caught, we give them a break and don't tell their P.O. All these “individual case basis” were way too confusing to me. If my supervisor liked someone, she would stand up for them at all costs, not considering that they could be lying to her face. She felt special because they were telling her the truth, but lying to me because they didn't trust me. That's pretty narcississtic if you ask me. I said I was cute, but she claims that she's superior because knows that clients are telling the truth to her and not me. Sounds “unfair”, undermining (if you believe clients over staff), breaking down community and working separately.
Obviously, personal relationships were fragmented, obviously there is undermining of clinical efforts and last, and I think it's pretty clear that everyone is working separately because no one will get on the same page. But here's a further example.
Working Separately: Smells like Team Spirit: (Can't you just picture Kurt's grungy striped tee-shirt and smudged make up on the cheerleaders?)
I once had a supervisor who would give us 10 minutes to talk about one client and if we weren't able to agree on what to do, he would make the decision and we would move on. This really forced everyone to work together to solve an issue and come to resolution. This is effective communication.
You're probably wondering if I was undermining teamwork, if I made a suggestion, I would always ask people what they thought about proposals. I asked whether they agreed and I tried to pull together everyone's comments and then sum up the ideas to see if we could come up with an effective mission statement. When I got, yet again, stupid looks from Hansel and a smug smile from “Chowder”, I asked “Chowder” alone to find out whether I was stepping on her toes, because whenever I made a suggestion, there was no response. She said, “I never worry about stepping on other peoples' toes”. You would have thought that I asked her the temperature in Kathmandu! What the fuck does that have to do with anything? I began to wonder whether she was actually a paper bag.
So, sum of all three things, “the Smells Like Teen Spirit” team who spends a total of 2 hours together a week talking about nothing and listening to a supervisor promote pointless discussions about one client and making sure that we don't understand company policy that continues to change weekly is not the way to develop community.
Individual values and company values don't match:
I have one thing to say about this. If you don't know company values because no one will tell you aside from the fact to set company values is a problem (the conspiracy of Ron Hubbard- give yourself over and win, fight and lose), then it seems impossible to determine your own values in line with company values. If your supervisor refuses to openly discuss and facilitate discussions about these issues, it accentuates the confusions. Last, if no one seems to have any values because they don't show any emotion about anything or excitement about discussing their beliefs, values schmalues. The policy of the agency was to manipulate people into sharing personal values, to use that personal information to sabotage employees. I know that sounds like an Roswell Area 51 conspiracy, but it's totally not. I believe the agency would elicit information from you to determine what type of person you are in order to manipulate you into staying or doing their work. They would play on your vulnerable and weak points that they learned from “eliciting” information to get you to give into them.
Lack of Fairness: While I feel that it is obvious that much of the treatment I received was “unfair”, here is a good example. I believe that by rebelling against what was going on, I did make myself stand out, but this was no reason to be punished. I was always the last to know about all the meetings and things that were mandatory for us to show up at. My email system was down a lot because I was using the newer computer and so I didn't always get emails, or for some reason, no one else got my emails. I tried leaving notes for people in their boxes. I was very clear about all my communication but was blamed for being unclear and unreliable at meetings, but never directly. Through knowing glances by my supervisor or passive aggressive comments about me not being at some meeting that I didn't know about. After a while I really did start to feel like the joke was on me. Why did everyone else know? And who sends out notifications the night before about meetings the following morning? And if I was the only and last person working the night before isn't it weird that I STILL didn't know?
While I do like standing out to some extent, I like it to be in a positive way. When people consistently comment on my differentness, it gets really obnoxious. I remember occasional awkward staff luncheons where everyone would pick on my eating habits or the fact that when I have cheese fries, I don't eat the WHOLE thing, so I tried to talk about something benign, let's try travel. Well, “I don't understand why you would want to go to Italy, it's scary. In fact, I don't know why you would want to leave the state”. I'm wondering why a simply conversation changer, seeing as how we were sitting in a restaurant with a bunch of pictures of Italy around us, was a problem with me rather than just a conversation starter.
Once again, Fairness, schamirness.
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