I mentioned the facility coordinator – FC – in my last post
and I want to tell you a little about her. When I first got to PRD there was a
facility coordinator there who was transferred shortly thereafter. The new one
suddenly showed up and made her presence known by posting the rules all over
the house again. All of us residents knew what the rules were but, as I’ve said
before, not all of the rules were followed by everyone. And FC didn’t seem to
mind, in the beginning.
She was pretty stern on the rules with most of us. I
remember one day after school had ended and my kids were in day camp – DOL had
told me that as long as I was fulfilling my obligations with them my kids qualified
for day care or day camp and DOL would pay for it – I was sitting in the lower
common room working on my housing logs. I was on the Internet on my phone,
writing down in my notebook the numbers I was going to call. I had also put on
the TV for a little background noise to drown out the conversation between FC
and the case manager – CM – who were in the staff office just a few feet away
from me.
I had randomly picked a channel to watch and it happened to
be a game show followed by the news. I wasn’t even watching it so I hadn’t paid
attention to what came on after the news. Suddenly FC entered the room to do
whatever it was that she was doing and told me I wasn’t allowed to have a soap
opera on the TV. She had to say it twice to get my attention because I was
engrossed in what I was doing. I asked her why it couldn’t be on and she went
over the TV rules again.
Stupid as it sounds there were specific types of shows we
weren’t allowed to watch: crime shows, court shows, soap operas, talk shows,
reality TV and videos on BET. The TV was supposed to be tuned to kid-friendly
TV or the news at all times when children were in the grounds. On this
particular day, though, there wasn’t anyone in the house but FC, CM and me.
That was it. No other residents were in the house; all the kids were at camp or
in day care and all the adults were running their errands.
When FC finished going over the rules again I, very blatantly,
looked around the room as if searching for someone who wasn’t there. I told her
there wasn’t anyone there but me so there wasn’t any reason for a soap opera,
which I wasn’t even watching, not to be on the TV. I explained that I was only
using the TV as background noise and hadn’t realized it was on but I still didn’t
understand why I had to change the channel. She just smiled and said, “It’s the
rules.” Seriously? So I changed the channel to Nickelodeon and asked her if she
was happy. She just turned and walked away.
However, with a couple of the other residents she’d never
say a word while they were sitting in the upper common room watching reality TV
while their children were outside playing, which was also against the rules.
Kids had to be with parents and vice versa, remember? And reality TV isn’t
exactly considered kid friendly. But mine was not to question; I just did as I
was told and kept my mouth shut.
I also kept quiet when FC allowed kids of other residents to
enter the kitchen alone and make themselves cereal for breakfast or sandwiches
for lunch yet told the rest of us that we had to be up in the kitchen with our
kids. It was really difficult to explain to my kids why other kids were allowed
to get food by themselves but they weren’t. I just told them that our family
follows the rules.
FC’s problem was that she allowed herself to become friends with
some of the residents. She’d be in the office chatting with a resident
occasionally and, if the door was open, everyone could tell they weren’t
discussing PRD or DSS business; it was all personal conversations on a friendly
level. Now, discussing personal issues with staff wasn’t a problem for me
because I’d discuss personal issues of my own with them at times. I’d discuss
things when I needed advice or just wanted to vent. The types of personal
conversations I’m talking about between FC and certain residents was talk against
other residents, basically it was gossip.
That’s not the job of FC, to gossip about residents with
other residents. I wasn’t quite sure what her job was other than to make sure
the house was up to code and that we were all following the rules, not just in
our house but in three other PRD houses. I said that the other day. I’ve
already said that she following the rules was pick-and-choose with her and the
house was definitely not up to code. Had the State ever walked in there, especially
when we had the mouse problem, that house would have been shut down on the
spot.
I don’t know how she did things in the other three houses,
basically because none of us ever knew her to be anywhere but at our house, but
I do know she didn’t do a whole helluva lot in our house other than to try to make
some of us miserable. She spent most of her days hanging out in the office with
CM, who I know didn’t want FC there all the time. CM told me on more than one
occasion that she couldn’t get any of her work done with FC sitting in there
chatting all day long. If FC wasn’t chatting she was surfing the Net, playing
on Facebook, watching videos on YouTube, or checking her personal email. And
she got paid for it because nobody above her ever knew what she was doing or
not doing.
We residents knew, though, but didn’t say anything because
there was nobody to tell. We had discussed it with other staff members on
occasion but even they couldn’t tell anyone. The staff was afraid to complain
to corporate for fear of reprimand and the residents were afraid for fear of
discharge. Not that anyone could just be fired or discharged for no reason but we
were all afraid FC would find anything she could to get rid of us.
She wasn’t a monster, or a raving lunatic, and there were
times when she was quite polite and entertaining, but when it came to running
the house she spent a lot of time harping on bullshit to some, letting others
get away with anything they wanted, and sometimes stepping into our business
when she had no right being there. Most of us dreaded seeing her walk through
the door at 8:00 in the morning and did our best to stay out of her way. She
wasn’t the only one we dreaded either; there was one more like her that I’ll
tell you about tomorrow.
Until next time…peace to all.
No comments:
Post a Comment