A Tangled Web What I really wanted to do was work my profession (although it was difficult at times), in addition to my real estate, which was counseling. I worked for a cheesy organization called the Volunteers of America, in Minneapolis, a place you couldn't tell the convicts from the professional staff; the staff violated the rules more than the convicts, matter-of-fact, they sold the convicts the right to go out past their curfew, to get drunk, for a price, that when they'd come back into the establishment (halfway house), they'd look the other way. The Bureau of Prisons would check this out, not be happy about it, but did little to solve the problem, slap their hands, and they went on with life. I was the only qualified CD Counselor there, with a license to counsel, and two degrees; I was also a qualified Probation Officer. At times they expected me to play dumb, and stoop low, but I couldn't and walked out of the Senior Case Managers office more than once, so I'd not have to listen to his garbage and talk about the stupid inmates. In time I would have to leave, realization filtered in gradually, and I was not complete in this work. But I liked being a counselor, and Probation Officer, but I made more money on my real estate, and that infuriated the Senior Case Manager, and the supervisor, I drove a bigger car that also did not suite their fancy. They struggled with it, until one day the Senor Case Manager, lost it, and created a fire, which allowed me to break my roots with the organization (I was asked to step down by the supervisor, and I asked her: are you asking me to like you? (Which she was asking), and I told her "I'd not lower myself to your level"and all its sinful past would be thrown back into their conscious, which I doubt affected them very much. But this was where I was during my in-between time, from missing Sandy, atavistic (a tangled web), reality. It often surprised me that the staff, starting from the lazy female supervisor, whom fired at will, and almost got fired because of the Arrogant Senior Case Manager, and the Farmer Supervisor, who was ahead of all the staff, but never was around to supervise the female supervisor, that the place run as well as it did. The Senor Case Manager even created a so-called staff Gang to bring her down, and she melted like a candle. From the lowest man on the pole, to the highest, they all mocked the typical client, the man coming out of prison to be helped on "The Work Release Program"and here they were, in a power play. It is often is it not, the helper turns into the natural user; there was no sentimentality there. Thus, I was happy to take my vacations, making them long and far away. |
