Sunday March 7th, 2010

The Prodigal One

I’ve just returned from a week long trip to another province – where the hats are tall and the beef is prevalent. I went as a speaking to do presentations for the Org. Thinking it would be fun and well-paid, I even took the week off of school so that I could stay for the full week, speaking to groups of students, parents, and community mental health professionals about the Org and online safety. It was indeed, Online Safety Week.

I worked my ass off. I actually had to ask for a cushion on the plane ride home because I had worn off so much of my ass as to make sitting painful. Actually, that may have been due to the fact that I stood in high heels for most of the week and my butt muscles were screaming in protest. But try to put that aside. The point is, the term “working holiday” is utter bullshit. Even if you have a light official schedule, you still have to be ON all the time. You are expected to have lunches and dinners with people from the regional office, or contacts you are supposed to schmooze. (Seriously?? I’m a counsellor! I have to schmooze? WTF?) For a counsellor, this is dreaded stuff. We already spend all of our professional time listening to clients talk about their problems, now all the people we meet KNOW that we are a counsellor and corner us, admitting with teenage sincerity that they “don’t know why” but they “feel like they can trust” us and just “need to open up to someone.” In the course of a week, I had the ED of a large company tell me in detail about their childhood abuse, a computer specialist discuss at length how they were traumatized by images of illegal child images, a media specialist disclosed her many pregnancy scares and drunk driving, and an employee from a rather large airline disclose the multiple suicides in their family. I was surprised that only one employee from the ORG asked me for advice on a parenting situation (they were worried that referring their emotionally disturbed child to therapy would make the child think that something was wrong with them!) because usually I get asked a ton about this. Oh, and did I mention that absolutely none of these people were actually participants in any of the talks or presentations I gave? These were just people I met professionally – other professionals working for the Online Safety Week.

Naturally, by the end of the week, overworked, having let my schoolwork slip, and quickly slipping into an Alberta Beef coma, I wanted nothing more than to pass out on a plane (thank you lorazepam!) and wake up back home. But no... a lady I met during one of the presentations was on my plane and wanted to chat. I pled sedation and kept her well-meaning, over the top, and loud voiced self a few rows behind me.

Honk-shu.