Another day, another post about work. Those of you new to this blog, I work in a group home for parenting/pregnant teens, I'm the 24 hour shift lead. And there is one client, that hates me and is certain I am out to "get" her. She's a proven liar, law breaker, and has built no trust with any staff member. Here's how my afternoon went yesterday.

This girl is leaving for work and I ask what time she gets off. She says 5:50 (odd time if you ask me) and I remind her that she has an appointment at 5. She argues and says no she doesn't, blah blah blah and storms out. She walks to work, around 2 miles. She left at 8:40 a.m. and calls us from work at 8:50 (speed walker?) to ask when she gets off, when her appointment is and what are we going to do about it? We tell her that we'll call the woman she has an appointment with and see what we can work out. Let me interject here that these girls are supposed to keep their own schedules straight and normally we would leave it up to them to fix any mess up, but seeing as she was at work we told her we'd do our best. So we call the woman she has an appointment with and arrange for the appointment to be at 6:15. We call the girl back and let her know.

A few hours later the woman she has an appointment with calls and says she really can't do it that late, but I remind her that if she doesn't meet with this girl the girl won't get her evening outing. So, the woman says tell the girl she'll pick her up at 5:50. Still being suspicious of the 5:50 time we decide to wait until 5:15 to call and let her know she had a ride coming. (This girl has lied so many times about her work hours and been caught out and about when she's supposed to be working) We call at 5:15 and are put on hold for 5 minutes. We hang up and call again and are told the girl got off around 4, but she did return a few minutes ago to use the phone.

I notice we have a voice mail and check it and it's the girl, it's time stamped at 5:19 telling us she just got off and she will be walking back. At 5:35 she walks in and wants to know when the woman she is to meet with will be there. I tell her that since we called at 5:15 to tell her she'd have a ride at 5:50 and she wasn't there that we had called the woman who then said she wouldn't be coming at all. All hell breaks loose. She says she got off at 5, ate something then came back.

The girl goes on a tangent (she talks in circles) and insists I call her work again. Ok, so I call and talk to the manager on duty who checks her time card and says the girl clocked out at 4:36. I inform the girl who then says she got off at 4:30, ate, hung around then left at 5:20. But she's still throwing a hissy fit, insisting I call the woman who was to meet her. I try, get voice mail and figure that's the end of it.

Technically the girl should have gotten a consequence of no privileges, but I hadn't done that yet, just pulled her outing because we were instructed she couldn't have it unless she met with this woman.

The girl continues to cry and scream and protest, too much. She then calls her manager, a different one, and I and another staff hear her tell him what he wants us to tell me. He calls and tells me what she told him to say. BUT, he also says he left work at 5:30, checked his watch, and she was still there, after having gotten off at 4:30, ate and hung around, and was making phone calls to her boyfriend (who she is court ordered to stay away from) to get a ride but was having trouble reaching his cell. Hmmm...so now she made it back in 5 minutes. So I tell the girl what was said and she continues to throw a fit.

I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt, since I got 4 different stories, including hers, I don't put her up for no privileges, but I cannot let her have her outing. She still screams! I tell her even if she is telling the truth and she was there the whole time, knowing there was a glitch with the appointment, she should have called us at 4:30 when she got off and come back then. She pisses and moans and says I don't believe her. I tell her to write her version down and I'll make sure it gets in her file. She doesn't, of course not, that would be too fair of me and she wants to paint me as the bad guy.

She talks to another staff telling them that I am out to "get" her, again and that I just hate her and want to get her in trouble.

I'm telling ya, sometimes I love my job, sometimes, well, NOT SO MUCH!