Plans

Long ago in a far off land, the girl who would one day be Ramblin' Red made rather grandiose plans.

She planned to go to CSU, obtain an undergraduate degree in the scintillating field of psychology - one that was of a scientific nature, and thus afforded lots of laughter when she would later say, "I have a B.S. in Psychology" - and later pursue graduate education of a similar ilk, and live happily ever after; knowing the causes and fixes to the problems in others' lives, she planned to become a fat-cat therapist listening and talking with others.

She was rather ignorant of non-profit organizations in total, let alone those providing mental health care to those in need.

And when she found herself graduating, married, pregnant, and so NOT going on to grad school, she found out just how idealistic and oblivious her plans were when compared with reality. She came to know just how much of a joke a BS in psychology, independent of a subsequent stream of alphabet soup, truly was.

In 2002, a year after graduating, now the mother of an 11 month old infant, Ramblin' Red put her BS to use. She was now a case manager for the local, non-profit/quasi-governmental mental health center. Case manager/Housing Coordinator = 20 hours, and Case Manager/BenefitsAcquisitionist/Homeless Outreach Worker = the other 20 hours. It was a lot of hats to wear, for a meager $10.11/hr, which required this BS degree whose price tag was way more than that. But, wear them she did, and fairly well for a girl of 22.

Now, the 20 hrs week that went to the homeless outreach gig was a program where there was a Designated Therapist to whom Ramblin' Red would make homeless client referrals. And above them both was the very thinly spread Project Manager/Supervisor, whatever, who also oversaw many other projects at the center.

The programs Ramblin' Red was involved with were about to fold. She asked a LOT of questions, read up on HUD regulations like nobody's business, and got the ball rolling with the right people to whip them into right good shape. Or, as good of shape as they could get with programmatic barriers in place, but better, nonetheless.

Along the way, she'd had some ethical differences of opinion with DT re: what exactly constituted work for the homeless program. She'd work so hard for her homeless folks, and BAM! They'd hit a wall when DT entered the picture. PM dismissed her as overly green and idealistic. They knew how the world worked, after all. They were veteran adults, whereas Ramblin' Red was relatively new to this adult reality thing.

She was like, so whatever...and just kept trying to change the world and make it a better place.

More and more ethical differences arose between Ramblin' Red and DT. She went to PM again. When he again shot her down, she went to the HR woman. Which then led to the Assoc. Director of the Center. PM got sick with a stress-related disease and went on FMLA for his guaranteed 12 weeks. And never came back.

For 6 mos, Ramblin' Red didn't have a supervisor. She became her own boss and became a verifiable expert on her programs.

As Ramblin' Red celebrated her 1st anniversary of employment with the Center, a New PM came in, internally, and Ramblin' Red briefed her on the work she did, as well as the problems she'd had with DT. Other co-workers also had problems with DT.

NPM gave DT cautious benefits of the doubt. Which meant - she did nothing.

Ramblin' Red then gave birth to Punkinhead, and decided to drop the Homeless Transitional Program and only return at .5 FTE for the housing programs. She was so done with DT.

As another year and a half passed by, Ramblin' Red grew frustrated with barriers to continuity of care, and state budget cuts to vital programs. Also, with the new business like model of measuring "productivity," which was great for therapists, but not so great for housing coordinators who had copious amounts of paperwork, or indirect - and thus - non "productive" units of work to do.

She heard about a city gov't position with a woman whom Ramblin' Red knew and liked, and she applied for it.

She got it.

And that's how she came to be where she is at now at this stage in her career.

Also? DT was fired one year after she left the center - for the very things she had been telling them for years.