At A Loss For Cute Aliases

I don't yet have a cute alias for my new practicum supervisor, but I need one. It is now 4 weeks into my intervention practicum at this new site, and I have logged a massive total of 3.5 hours. That's not even direct service hours. That is total hours I've spent on-site. Period. I'm supposed to spend 8 hours a week there (one day a week with the option to come in on Saturdays if that is the only time a client can keep an appointment).

Day One: I check in the week before my first day to inquire what time I should arrive and if there was anything I should do to prepare for my first day. The response? My new supervisor hadn't got around to preparing for my being there and had her hands full with the new assessment practicum student. Could I please wait and start next week? I didn't really have a choice. It's not like I have any power in this situation and the new supervisor is doing me a favour by even agreeing to have me at the setting. Sure no problem! See you next week.

Day Two: I check in a few days before my new first day via email. I'm told not to arrive until 11am because my new supervisor will be busy doing an assessment and working with the assessment practicum student. No problem! I plan to come in for 11 and schedule another meeting at 9 am. Sometime between 9 and 10, I get an email (unbeknownst to me because I am in transit and in another meeting) from my new supervisor telling me not to arrive until 12:30 because she forgot that the assessment would run until noon and she has a meeting from 12 - 12:30. I do not get this email because I haven't undergone the surgery to make my smartphone part of my living brain. I arrive at 11 and am told by reception that there is no desk or office at which to put me -- I can't even wait in the waiting room because it is full -- I need to go away and come back in 1.5 hours. No problem! I go to the chiropractor and check in on some paperwork for my gym membership. I come back at 12:30. My new supervisor is clearly struggling to manage her schedule. We chat briefly about the feedback session she'll do and she throws me a file to look over whilst she runs off to another meeting. All the while she is talking to me, she is checking her own smartphone. She returns, I sit in on a feedback session with a family of an child with autism for two hours. Great! That's what I'm supposed to be doing. But uh-oh! My new supervisor has another meeting for half an hour. She suggests that I go watch some IBI therapy in practice with the ABA specialist. Okay, this isn't really why I'm here as I'm not training to be an IBI therapist. And hey, don't get me wrong, IBI is awesome and IBI therapists are a special cross between working-with-chidren-black-belts and angels and work really hard! But they are trained with much less theory and at the college level. I'm a PhD student in clinical psychology. I will never actually DO IBI therapy with anyone. Still, what else am I going to do while I wait, so I go... That's fine. I return to my new supervisor's office with the ABA specialist. I then sit in on their supervision session... Again, o-kay... Then my new supervisor tells me she has two therapy cases to attend to and I think, "Yay, here we go now learning the actual work!" But then she says that it is the middle of therapy and she hasn't broached the topic of having me sit in and she doesn't want to do that with these clients anyway. So I can go home. I briefly chat with the assessment student (who is junior to me in our academic lab) who laughs about how disorganized our new supervisor is. But hey, at least she is learning something and acruing hours.

Day 3: Again, I check in a few days before Tuesday to see what time I should arrive at the setting. I get an email response from my new supervisor saying she forgot to tell me but it is a holiday in her culture on Tuesday and she won't be in. I'm free to go in and watch IBI if I want. Uh-huh. I politely decline and agree to pick up a teaching gig for another professor who is also on holiday that day and needs someone to sub his class. My new supervisor tells me that she will also be away the next week, for another holiday.

Day 4: Like clockwork, I check in a few days before Tuesday to see what the schedule is and if I should maybe go in to watch IBI (even though that would be me just mindlessly gaining hours for something that would not actually be supervised by the psychologist, nor really useful to my learning). My new supervisor tells me she will check on Monday. At 10pm on Monday, I send her an email saying that since I haven't heard from her, I assume that there are no opportunities that day, so I'll stay home. I mention that I really hope there will be something next week because my program expects that I will be "more active" in the practicum by now. I get a terse email back the next morning saying that she has already explained to me that it will be a slow start to the fall and that I'm only there one day a week so it is difficult to get me therapy cases. She adds that the IBI people don't work Mondays so she was unable to check in with them about observing. Less than an hour after said email, I get a voice mail saying that the other psychologist is doing a consult at 1pm today and I should email her if I want to attend. So I do. I mention that I can come at 12:30 to briefly meet before the consult as I have NOT ACTUALLY MET this psychologist. This psychologist emails me one line: "I'm with a client until 1pm." I respond: No problem! I'll come for 1pm and thank you for having me. I arrive at 1pm. She's on the phone so I wait. She then gets a bit irritated when I don't magically know that she is off the phone. I go into her office and she explains that she has no information about this consult and will be finding her way as they go along, and that they client has not been briefed that I will be there so she'll have to ask her permission. The client arrives. This psychologist does a very poor job of explaining why I am there and I get the impression she is more than irritated that she has to deal with me last minute. The client is a mother of a girl with anxiety. The mother declines to have me sit in on the case or indeed this initial consultation. Time at practicum site: 5 minutes. Time it took me to drive to practicum site: 30 minutes. Amount I am pissed off: 4 X 8 hours - 3.5 hours I actually did practicum-related activities on Day 2 = 28.5 hours.

I am 28.5 hours pissed off right now.