Skeleton Crew

Wow, it’s been a while since I posted last. But I would say that I’ve been really busy (who hasn’t been though). I had some interesting experiences this last weekend at work. I want to describe some brief glimpses into some of my job (working with at risk teens in a live in facility).

The holiday season, is some of the most difficult times for these boys. There are a select few, who are able to go home for the holidays, but it is a very select few (about 4 out of 35). Only the students who have been in the program over a year, and are at least a level three, are able to go on home visits. That means there is a dorm full of boy’s missing home. Christmas day was an interesting day. I worked the night before, and whenever I work atleast two days in a row, I stay on campus. My cummute to work is about 50 minutes, and gas is way to expensive (Leesun, I wish I had enough guts to hitch hike to work). When I stay on campus, I just take over a room at the unused dorm. I was awoken Christmas morning, with only a few hours of sleep early. They staff brought the students over to the unoccupied (other then my sleeping self) dorm to open up presents. I had stayed up till the early part of the morning playing Halo 2 with one of my coworkers. Yes, I got killed… but he owns the game and I don’t. Luckily I was able to fall right back to sleep and get more then just a few hours… When I woke up a few hours later, I went for a quick run, and then off to the cafeteria. I was greeted by an awesome sight. There where a lot of cars in the parkinglot, and even more family members inside the cafeteria. It makes the boy’s day, when their parents come up, and it is expecially needed for the holidays. But upon walking into the cafeteria, my plans where instintaly ruined. I had been hoping to cook nice breakfast, quietly eat, have a cup of coffee, and mentally prepare for being at the dorm. Well, the instant I walk into the cafeteria, as always I had several students running up me, there need being the most important possible need in the universe. I had to sneak away from the bombardment, and go into the kitchen and make breakfast. I figured that I could start my day a little sooner then my time card would say…

Christmas was not all fun and games
Christmas is meant to be a time of giving, fun, love…etc, not a night that the dorm goes on lockdown. Lockdown is when all the boys are required to go to their rooms, not leave without permission, be quiet, and a punishment (or way of getting stolen items). There were a lot of reasons that the boy’s ended up going on lockdown, I list them off.

1. We linked up 3 X-Box’s, and set up mass group games of Halo 2. This is something that is not normally done, so it was a very anticipated event for the boys. Two of them started arguing, messing with each other and a controller cord ended up getting unplugged and whapping the ther student (broke the controller). This moved into a shoving match. Some students tried to break it up and it turned into a shoving punching thing between them.
   
2. We allowed lots of snack food to be in the dorm, cookies, Christmas treats, chips and dip… etc. This also is not common, no food is allowed in the dorm. Somebody messed up another student’s room. This is actually not very uncommon, but this case was very bad. Many times they “flip” other’s mattress (sometimes even when they are occupied), drop the closet rod throwing cloths around the room…etc, but this time they dumped after shave all over the bed and pillow. The perpetrated student freaked out, and started throwing food around the dorm. He also started chasing and though food at another particular other student (unrelated in the bed incident). This same student was caught with some walki talkie’s, that was contraband but he fought getting them taken away.
3. The dorm, started to look like a tornado had gone through it.
4. To much yelling and arguing, by the students
5. There was some stuff stolen, but this was returned very quickly.

As you can see, it turned out to be an eventful night. But this is not uncommon. Part of what adds to this, is the amount of staff that we had on at the time. We only had 2 people working. Talk about a skeleton crew. What would be perfect, is a one to one ratio… but I don’t think that will happen. To properly function we really need at least four staff on the clock, but that is like a minimum. The think about the dorm, is every night there is another new story. The next night ended up being eventful in its own rights. But befor the night could come, I was on in the morning (I worked from 7:30 – 23:00, pulling a duble… nice for the pay check). That morning, was also plagued by the lack of staff (still only two people on). We had to managing chores, prepare for church, meals (and supervising “meal restriction”), and wishing to be able to have an activity other then the “baby sitter,” also know as a movie. So the night came, and we added another staff member. After dinner we put on the first Superman, but that didn’t keep everybody enthused enough. We had three students run away, which means searching…etc. As far as I know they haven’t been caught yet.

All in all, it was an interesting Christmas. I did get to have breakfast with my mom, on Christmas Eve. That is when we did the present thing… it was nice to be able to spend a little time with her.