Up and down...

Boy, I tell you what; this job feels like bi-polar. One day sucks beyond all suckiness, the next, I can't believe I get paid for what I do. Case in point:

I worked all weekend this weekend, and it was terrible. On Saturday, I worked with the one staff memeber that I just CAN'T get along with. He provokes the kids and never fills out any paperwork, which drives me bonkers. The kids are always on edge when he's around and there are ALWAYS more fights and incidents and restraints when he's working with them. They don't respect him at all. One of the smallest kids on campus put him in a restraint once. Another time one kid held him down while another kid punched him. And he doesnt' do ANYTHING about it!!

So, anyways, this Saturday was a hassle. There were a few fights and incidents, but the most major thing that I can think of that happened involved the biggest kid in Cabin B. He has an extremely low IQ, and doesn't have normal reasoning and comprehension skills, so when he escalates it is VERY VERY difficult to get him to deescalate. I don't remember the exact situation, but something happened with one of the other boys that set this big kid off. He was really upset about something, so he went into the cabin and grabbed the fire extinguisher. He then began to swing it around at people's heads before finally throwing it into the wall where it proceeded to explode all over the cabin. Talk about scary. So I pulled him aside and tried calmly to inform him that if he had hit someone in the head with the extinguisher, he could have killed them. Bad idea. That freaked him out even more, so he ran off into the woods without any shoes. I followed him, because that's what we're supposed to do. After getting reamed out by a case worker, he headed back to the cabin, where he was certain the rest of the kids were going to jump him. About halfway back, he sat down on the trail and began telling me that he was going to commit suicide that night. Great. Of course he didn't, but it just meant that I had MORE paperwork to fill out that night.

So, that was Saturday. Sunday was almost as bad. The one blessing was that I didn't have to work with the guy who provokes the kids. The thing that sucked about Sunday was that I worked with someone who isn't trained to perform restraints, but he likes to initiate them anyways. So, I was invovled in my first two restraints on Sunday. The first one was with one of the two smallest kids on campus, but man was he a fighter. I came home with bite marks and scratch marks and a couple bruises from some punches and head butts he threw my way. BUT, on a positive note, he calmed down after the restraint and was positive for the rest of the day. The second restraint involved the fire extinguisher kid. I don't know why the restraint was initiated, because I wasn't there, but when I walked in, this guy that I worked with was taking the kid down to the ground, so I had no option but to get invovled. Now, this kid doesn't like to take showers. He also doesn't like to wear pants that fit. My lucky position was to hold down his legs. As I was holding down his legs, his pants kept falling further and further down his legs, so by the end of the restraint I was sitting there with his stinky unwashed ass in my face. YUCK!!!!!!

Now, Monday was a complete 180 from the weekend. Yesterday was the first snow of the season here in Colorado, and up in the mountains, where this facility is, we got almost a foot and a half of snow. So, yesterday, I got paid to go sledding with the kids, play games like Jenga, Mad Gab and Chess and drink hot chocolate all day. How awesome is that??? The kids were relative angels all day (and by that I mean, there were only a few punches thrown, and the profanity was limited to maybe once every five minutes or so). And the one that I had to restrain on Sunday was completely calm and collected all day. I tell you what, I'm sure glad that I get a few days like this every once in a while, other wise I'd go completely nuts.