And we know this because the impending sense of doom is only intolerable today, instead of completely unbearable. Because the idea of putting one foot in front of the other in a connected effort to slog through the day brings only a grimace and a groan instead of random bouts of uncontrollable weeping and hysterical laughter. Because the physical act of putting one foot in front of the other in a connected effort to slog through the day is only mind-numbing and physically exhausting instead of actually painful.
Because it’s 9:00 PM and I’m still awake and posting to Ratlands.
OK, it isn’t really that bad, I just like stringing together depressing verbiage. Unfortunately, that first paragraph sucked. I’m apparently out of practice.
After 5 months, my new job is still kicking my ass. The Juvenile Justice system in Kansas is a lot more complex and convoluted than the Adult system. In the Adult system (the part I worked in, anyway), you get convicted, you get put on probation. You mess up probation, you get put on Intensive Probation. You mess up Intensive Probation, you get sent to me at the Residential Center. You mess that up, you go to Prison. (Yes, there are various permutations and exceptions, and it isn’t always that clean, but that’s basically it.)
In the Juvenile system you get picked up, they may charge you or send you home with your parents, or both, or you might get removed from the home on a temporary basis if “home” seems dodgy. You might get put on probation or declared a Child in Need of Care (CINC) or both. If you mess up your probation they can do a probation violation hearing where they can terminate your probation, continue your probation, put you on Intensive Probation (that would be with me), sent to a Juvenile Correctional Center (juvenile prison, but no one uses the “p” word and only if the crime you committed or the combination of your crime and criminal history make you eligible), or, if you came to the juvenile system from the CINC system, you can be taken out of the juvenile correctional system and put back in the CINC system if the Court thinks the services you would receive in that system would be better for you than if you stayed in the juvenile correctional system.
Notice that only one of the available options gets you to me.
If you do come to me on juvenile intensive probation, you see me for office visits, we go visit you at your house, your school, we check on any treatment you may be attending, etc. If you mess up, we do combinations of sanctions and incentives (stick and carrot) to try to nudge your behavior in the right direction. We send you to classes, we get you treatment, etc. If you continue to mess up we can do a Probation Violation hearing (PV), but to put you in juvenile jail before the hearing, we have to get an order authorizing removal from the home, an order authorizing a warrant for your arrest, and the warrant. At the PV hearing the court can put you back on Intensive probation, stick you in the juvenile jail for a few days as a sanction and then put you back with me, or put you in the custody of the Commissioner of the Juvenile Justice Authority.
In the Adult system, if you get put in the custody of the Secretary of Corrections, that’s a euphemism for “you’re going to Prison.” In the Juvenile system “custody of the Commissioner” means your Intensive Probation is terminated and you come back to me for Intensive Probation (only it’s called Case Management and not Intensive Probation), usually with a placement in a group home of some kind which you have to complete successfully, then you go home. But you might not be able to go home, so you might end up in a different type of group home or independent living facility until you can go home, or until you mess up and I send you back to the first type of group home, or if the crime you committed or the combination of your crime and criminal history make you eligible you might have a PV hearing and get sent to the Juvenile Correction Center, or you might get sent to a group home or a psychiatric residential treatment facility or correctional foster home. Every time you change facilities, we send in paperwork to Social and Rehabilitation Services stopping payment to the facility you left and starting payment to the facility you arrived at.
If you actually do time at the Juvenile prison, when you get out you can be sent home or to a group home and if you mess up you can be sent to another group home or back to Juvenile prison.
If you’re on one of the probation statuses and do well the Judge can let you off probation. For some situations you get “off paper” (get off probation) at age 18. For some crimes and situations, the Juvenile Justice Authority can keep you under supervision until you turn 23.
Except in certain circumstances, your case plan has to be revised every 6 months, but sometimes more. Every 6 months there is a hearing. One is called a permanency hearing which is designed to make sure you don’t fall through the cracks by making sure I’ve got a plan for getting you home or out on your own when you successfully complete whatever it is you are supposed to do, 6 months later there’s an Administrative hearing to make sure you are making progress in whatever it is you’re supposed to do. Then 6 months later another permanency hearing, etc. There are also 100 day reviews after you’ve been in a placement for 100 days.
Now, aside from the obvious oversimplifications for dramatic effect, you should know that the process isn’t as random and chaotic as it appears. At every step of the way, every decision on placement and program is about getting you into the programs and services that give you the best chance to learn to be a responsible person. It is, however, pretty much exactly as convoluted as I’ve portrayed it.
Actually, it’s more convoluted. I guarantee I’ve forgotten to include half a dozen options. I guarantee there are glaring errors of fact in my description. You’ve heard the expression “couldn’t find his ass with both hands”? Well, I’ve been at the new job for 5 months now. On the occasional good day, I sometimes feel like I might be able to find one ass cheek with one hand, maybe 3 out of 5 times.
Then someone comes along and points out one of my glaring omissions or errors of fact. I should also mention that I don’t actually do any of the stuff I’ve outlined above. I just supervise the people who do do all that stuff and who come to me to authorize them to do it and who are required to act like I know what I’m doing.
I was telling one of my former co-workers the other day about going to Topeka for training and how I’d left town at 5:30 in the morning. She was giving me a hard time about it, saying that she didn’t know that I knew there was such a thing as a 5:30 AM. I reminded her that I had told her several months ago that I love sunrises, it’s just that I prefer to go to bed right after.
So, for those of you who know me in real life, here’s an indication of how weird my life has gotten:
1. I see the sunrise pretty much every day, except when I get to work before sunrise.
2. I’ve been at work before 8:00 AM (sometimes considerably before) every day but 2 since the first of August.
3. I’m having fun.
Tagged Personal, workplace, wtf?