I wrote this last Thursday, but still needed to cool down and recuperate from it (and finish writing the post) before I posted it… so here it is:
I know this is really long, but please read it.
Today was difficult.
This internship has shown me things that I would never wish on my worst enemy. I know that makes me sound like a martyr and I’m not trying to come off that way at all, so if I am I apologize. I also don’t want to come off as a complainer because that’s not my intention either. I’m using this blog to document my internship, and unfortunately the bad things happen more often than the good. You’ll see me write about the perfectly sweet and innocent moments that I’ve experienced—an honestly I cherish those. Because when bad days, like today, occur—it’s those sweet moments that remind me that things will be okay.
Today, a team of interns was sent to a site to administer a mass quantity of surveys. This was my third day at the site so I was pretty confident in my capabilities of handling the parents and children so I volunteered to run the check-in table. This position entails checking in each child on the master list. The master list has every single person that has taken the survey as well as those who have not taken the survey. It was my job to get a name—check the list… and if the name was on the list—check the other information (middle name, address, birthdate). We do this to make sure: 1. the child has not already taken the survey (scamming us out of extra $$), 2. that this is the correct child by checking the other information (again scamming us by stealing some other kid’s information) and most importantly 3. that the child has consent. If the child’s name is not on the list we tell them that they have to come back with a parent or primary guardian to get consent to take the survey. So, this job is a little strenuous when children try to scam us or when parents get angry because they have to come in to give their child permission. But, I’ve done it before so I wasn’t worried.
The site we were running the surveys at is a women’s shelter as well as a community center. We check the children in downstairs in the community center/office area and the surveys are administered upstairs in the bedrooms. I know that sounds a little strange, but when a place allows you to administer surveys for free you kind of have to work with what they’ve got. So we’re all set up and ready to start checking people in when an older man under some influence comes into the center screaming. This is a woman’s shelter, but the workers here do allow men to come in and use the bathroom or drink from the water fountain. Every man I’ve seen has been polite, grateful, and charming. They appreciate the fact that the center lets them come in and even some of the men are welcomed to use the phone and even join in on watching The Price is Right—why because they’re appreciative and well-behaved. But, this man was known by the center for not being well-behaved and I got to experience that. He came in swearing and slamming doors. The secretaries asked him to leave right off the bat but then he started screaming about the oppression her felt from everyone in sight. Then he asked to use the phone but then ran into the bathroom and slammed everything in the bathroom. He was obviously drunk and it was 10am, but it was just honestly scary. It was especially scary because I was right next to the men’s bathroom and I was in the hallway where he decided to throw his fit. While he was continually and continually being asked to leave by the staff a fellow intern and I just stared. He yelled and yelled more. He finally slammed the door and left. We were really shaken up by this point and we hadn’t even started our administration yet. At this point I was just mad. I know it’s not fair that this man has problems and I don’t know him well enough to judge the situation that just occurred.
So check-in was running pretty smoothly. We consented new people and got other returning participants in to take the survey. But, one thing that really makes me mad about consenting the participants is that parents lie. Parents lie about their child’s age, their relationship to the child, and even if the child has ever taken the survey before. Kids lie, but it’s expected—the fact that they’re children doesn’t make it okay but we can understand it better. But, grown adults who lie in front of their children right to our faces is absolutely not acceptable. It makes the kids think it’s okay to lie and it’s just awful. We deal with this all of the time. It’s frustrating and it really makes you feel cheated. This will come into play later.
So the day’s weather went south pretty fast and a horrible thunder and lightening storm came through. We thought that this would either make our survey site completely dead or that it would be ridiculously busy. Dead because people wouldn’t want to trek through the weather to get here. Busy because the parents/family members waiting for their children to be done would wait inside and cause congestion… everywhere. The latter is of course what happened. Allowing people to stay in the community center while it’s storming is not a problem at all. It just makes things chaotic. The children who have already taken the survey try to sneak back into new survey administrations and run around like crazy. It’s difficult. Today made this even more difficult because the community center was running a senior citizen arts and crafts project in the middle of our survey ‘holding center’ (for the children signed in and waiting to be put in a group for survey administration). These three young girls came up to the check-in table wanting to sign in. One of them gave all of the correct information so we let her in. The second one stumbled over her name, how to spell it, gave a wrong middle name and birthday, and took forever to tell us her address. These are all telltale signs that the child is trying to scam us. I told her that I thought she was lying about who she was and she gave me attitude and argued that just because she was ‘slow’ that I shouldn’t judge her for not knowing how to spell her name. Meanwhile, her friends are all giggling behind her. So, I told her that she would not be taking the survey today and that she could call our office if she had problems.
The next girl was on our list, but already took the survey. I told her that she took it two days ago and she said that wasn’t possible. I shouldn’t have—but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and called the office to verify. It was a waste of time so I told her she wouldn’t be taking the survey either. They were obviously bummed, but didn’t seem too upset and ran back outside to play in the rain. About twenty minutes later I find the two of them back in line. I told them that I recognized them and that they still couldn’t take the survey and they laughed and ran away. I let them stay inside because it was pouring, but twenty minutes later they started acting horrible. They asked to use the phone and I was fine with that because I was hoping it would get them out of there asap. It didn’t. And they started acting worse. The office staff was annoyed with them too, so I told the girls that they had to leave the premises because it was private property. They gave me attitude but left. Yes it was still raining but there was an awning and they just called their mom who was on her way. The office staff thanked me and I didn’t think it was a problem because the girls were playing in the rain earlier.
That’s until the mother got to the site… running in, slamming the door, and screaming about some bitch who wouldn’t let her daughters stay inside in this storm. I knew she was referring to me so I confronted her because I didn’t want anyone else to take the blame. I told the mother the story—that her daughters lied, acted awful, caused chaos, and were really rude to the staff. The mother didn’t like my answer so a staff member stepped in and told the mother to look around and realize that every other child was behaving and that her daughters were absolutely not. This verbal yelling from the mother went on for a while and I’ve never felt so small. I didn’t raise my voice, I listened to her, and I didn’t fight back. There was no use and it wasn’t going to change her mind about how much I didn’t know about how to treat people. The staff finally got her out and then the waiting parents and staff members made sure I was okay and told me that the lady was crazy and not to take it personal. It’s hard to not take things personal, but I really couldn’t let it get to me. The other parents were honestly appreciative that those girls and the mother left because they were disturbing their peace and quiet. I was just really mad and a little upset. Especially when the mother called me out on “not understanding her situation in life,” insinuating that I was “too privileged” to relate to people in “her state” in life. I just felt really judged and belittled.
It was only 2pm. The storm continued and we lost power—if you could imagine three groups of ten children each being in creepy bedrooms in the absolute dark. Thank God the lights came back on pretty quickly.
After a younger group of children finished the survey and were let out a little boy came up to the office crying. He was being ushered into the office by a staff member so I went up to his sister to ask what was wrong. She told me that someone stole their money. Who would steal two 10 year olds money? I asked her to tell me exactly what happened and she said that before her uncle brought them to the survey he planned on taken $5 from each of them for signing them up. I remembered her uncle—who evidently lied to us about being the children’s caregiver. This was an extensive lie because he went on and on about how the children live with him full time and how he was their only parental figure in their lives. I really hate when adults (he had to be in his 30’s) lie. It’s just so wrong. So we told the little boy to call his mom and that we weren’t letting them go home with the uncle. Then the uncle comes in and he was furious. He yelled at the little boy and then grabbed his arm, shook him up, and vigorously escorted the two kids out. I’ve never witnessed a child being roughed up by an adult and honestly I don’t ever want to witness that again. After that we were all shocked and really didn’t know what to do. We didn’t witness the uncle “hit” the child so we couldn’t report it, and even if we did report it child services would have most likely thrown it out. It’s just so sad. What’s even sadder is that the grandmother showed up to the center just as the uncle and the kids were leaving and the kids refused to go with their grandmother because they were too afraid of what their uncle might have done to them if they did.
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