Job..family...thoughts

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All,
I recently graduated from college (in Dec 2011) with by BA in Criminology. For a long time I wanted to work with troubled youth. I prayed and prayed and finally God answered my prayers in February. I got a job a juvenile detention center approximately an hour away. At first the drive didn’t bother and I did my best to ignore the other staff’s comments about management, the way things are run, etc. However I am starting to see for myself how things are done and the drive is starting to get to me. APART from all of that, I do not think I have the personality for this job. In order to do this job you have to be able to tell a group of 23 15-16 year old boys to sit down and be quiet. Seems simple enough right? Not so much. They call you names, make sexually suggestive comments etc. I always said I wasn’t going to let this stuff bother me but I am human and I am normally a quiet a reserved person. I do not see myself doing well in this job. I recently completed training which means in the next few days I could be left alone on the mod with these kids and though I am not scared of them, I feel I do not have the personality to deal with them.
Overall I am writing this because I am not sure what to do. I feel God answered my prayer for a job in my field and now I am considering leaving it and going back to previous job. :confused: I feel like I’m betraying God.
 
Your first job out of college is always tough. Yours especially. But you are young and inexperienced, give yourself time to learn, practice, and get used to the environment. You may learn not only about the job, but about yourself and find that you do have the strength to excel at this very challenging but meaningful job.

My first job out of college was a position overseeing several Section 8 housing complexes in a St. Louis slum. As timid as I was at first I was sure I wouldn’t make it. But with guidance and experience I grew in to the position and did very well. While I never want to go back to that I am so grateful for the experience. I was able to use it to get a better job in a much bigger city.

Don’t give up without trying with your whole heart!
 
Most people don’t stay at their first job right out of college. For me, my first job was just to get my foot in the door so that I could later do what I really wanted to do.

However, be sure to give the job a real honest try without talking yourself out of it first. Sometimes the perfect job doesn’t seem like the right job, right away.
 
Scc11,

It could be that God answered your prayer to show you that the career you thought you would like, would not be the type of you. This way God helps you see how it would be as opposed to not letting you experience the truth then always questioning why your prayers were not answered getting angry as some do with thoughts of “why did God not answer my prayer”. For helping young people is very noble of you. but there are some that just refuse to be helped.

Just my thoughts, but do not get discouraged it maybe that you will be able to reach one or two out of each group and that may make worth while in the long run.

May God bless and keep you.

Winter
 
Sometimes when God says “yes” to our prayers, I think it is only to prove God has a wry sense of humor.

Your job is to deal with young men in a group, the vast majority of whom have a lot of hormones to deal with and a very bad sense of how to incorporate their masculinity into their outward behavior.

A 20-something who describes himself or herself as either “quiet” or “reserved” may not be the best choice to lay down the law for a group of 15 and 16 year old males big enough to form 2-3 good-sized mobs, all of whom lack the common sense and self-control to stay out of the criminal justice system. As my friend the boys’ soccer coach put it: One boy, one brain. Two boys, half a brain. More than two boys, no brain at all. While that is admittedly a bit hard on boys, if this is not a challenge that makes you hop out of bed in the morning, I will assure you that there are people who look at it that way (although I don’t know of anyone who is keen on downer co-workers).

For as long as you have the job, find a way to look forward to the challenge. Pick up the gauntlet. Just Do It. All of that. Find a copy of *Stand and Deliver *and Dangerous Minds and The Ron Clark Story and have a inspirational teacher film festival. Check out Ron Clark’s audiobooks and listen to them on the way to work (*The Essential 55: An Award-Winning Educator’s Rules For Discovering the Successful Student in Every Child *, The Excellent 11: Qualities Teachers and Parents Use to Motivate, Inspire, and Educate Children, and The End of Molasses Classes, etc.) Whatever it takes to look yourself in the mirror and say, “I gave it everything that God gave me to give it.”

But yes, feel free to look for a new job, in case the thrill of occasionally succeeding with these diamonds in the rough does not grow on you. God won’t hold that against you. 😉
 
I’m in the same boat as you. My rosary is starting to get wear marks on the beads, and I keep holy water in my desk to help me when things get really tough. Sometimes I wonder if sprinkling my clientele with holy water will make them stop re-offending, it at least for a month so I can get caught up on paperwork. Meanwhile I have prison ministry members on my case because I think some people do belong in jail rather than out in the community.
 
My first job was on a teen girl psych unit. I was a target because I am short and pretty calm and quiet. I switched to the boys behavioral unit after about 9the miserable months and did much better there. I think it was a good experience because it made me fear girls a bit, and, now as nurse practitioner, I get to avoid womens health because I focused on mens health in school. All of our experiences teach us who we are and who we are not!
 
scc11 said:
All,
I recently graduated from college (in Dec 2011) with by BA in Criminology. For a long time I wanted to work with troubled youth. I prayed and prayed and finally God answered my prayers in February. I got a job a juvenile detention center approximately an hour away. At first the drive didn’t bother and I did my best to ignore the other staff’s comments about management, the way things are run, etc. However I am starting to see for myself how things are done and the drive is starting to get to me. APART from all of that, I do not think I have the personality for this job. In order to do this job you have to be able to tell a group of 23 15-16 year old boys to sit down and be quiet. Seems simple enough right? Not so much. They call you names, make sexually suggestive comments etc. I always said I wasn’t going to let this stuff bother me but I am human and I am normally a quiet a reserved person. I do not see myself doing well in this job. I recently completed training which means in the next few days I could be left alone on the mod with these kids and though I am not scared of them, I feel I do not have the personality to deal with them.
Overall I am writing this because I am not sure what to do. I feel God answered my prayer for a job in my field and now I am considering leaving it and going back to previous job. :confused: I feel like I’m betraying God.
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Are you female? I do not think women should be in a men’s unit at all. I know that there is “equal opportunity” and everything, but that is a scary thing and knowing that those men can easily overpower you would be frightening, I don’t care what kind of training you have. You would have to toughen up a LOT in order to do this job well. And I don’t think you should ever be alone with them. That’s just me, I know it’s normal these days but I think females should never be left in charge of males.

Sorry if you are a male, they are just being macho to intimidate you. Did you take any psychology courses in college?

What other jobs can you get in your field? Sounds like you are more of a desk job type of person than directly in population. It’s a pity your department counselor didn’t let you know what the actual jobs would entail. Or do you have to work your way up from being with the population in order to do a desk job? If you still feel called to work with the criminal justice system, surely there are other jobs you can get!
 
scc11 said:
All,
I recently graduated from college (in Dec 2011) with by BA in Criminology. For a long time I wanted to work with troubled youth. Well, there is working with troubled youth, and working with criminal youths…I prayed and prayed and finally God answered my prayers in February. I got a job a juvenile detention center approximately an hour away. This may not be the kind of job working with youth that you will be happy in.At first the drive didn’t bother and I did my best to ignore the other staff’s comments about management, the way things are run, etc. However I am starting to see for myself how things are done and the drive is starting to get to me. If you were happy with your job, the drive might not bother you so much, or you might move closer, so try not to factor that in too much just yet.APART from all of that, I do not think I have the personality for this job. This, I believe is the key to your problem. You seem to have the heart, but not the thick skin needed. It must be difficult for a female to order of group of males around in this situation. In order to do this job you have to be able to tell a group of 23 15-16 year old boys to sit down and be quiet. Seems simple enough right? Not so much. They call you names, make sexually suggestive comments etc. I always said I wasn’t going to let this stuff bother me but I am human and I am normally a quiet a reserved person. Exactly, the heart that makes you want to work with these boys, is the same heart that feels hurt when they are disrespectful to you. I agree that I am not sure why they threw you in to a bunch of males at all. especially given your age and inexperience. I do not see myself doing well in this job. I recently completed training which means in the next few days I could be left alone on the mod with these kids and though I am not scared of them, I feel I do not have the personality to deal with them.
Overall I am writing this because I am not sure what to do. I feel God answered my prayer for a job in my field and now I am considering leaving it and going back to previous job. :confused: I feel like I’m betraying God.
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The same God that answered your prayers is the same God you should pray to for strength to be able to get through each day. Lean on Him to hold you up and give you the courage, and outspokenness to do this job. He already gave you the intelligence, since you have a college degree! 👍

As others have said, most people do not stay at their entry level jobs forever, but I think you need to stick this one out for a while. Certainly, don’t quit without having something else lined up, that is something that you will always need to do to support yourself. Think of this job as a way to define what it is you truly want to do for the next X number of years in a job. Use it as a way to fine tune your desires to help youth, with the realities of what job will be fulfilling to you. It may only be that you would do better with working with girls and perhaps later on you can transfer to another unit. It may be that you actually desire a more one on one kind of help that would entail some further education on your part perhaps, such as a degree in counseling or psychology. Don’t be too hard on yourself about failing God. He understands what you are going through, just as he knew where your prayers would land you. Remember to find joy in your journey. May God bless you and guide you.
 
TheRealJuliane said:
Are you female? I do not think women should be in a men’s unit at all. I know that there is “equal opportunity” and everything, but that is a scary thing and knowing that those men can easily overpower you would be frightening, I don’t care what kind of training you have. You would have to toughen up a LOT in order to do this job well. And I don’t think you should ever be alone with them. That’s just me, I know it’s normal these days but I think females should never be left in charge of males.
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a) Very few adults could “handle” a mob of young men in their mid-teens single-handedly by having the ability to overpower them one-on-one. This is a job for a group of corrections officers.

b) This is a population that really needs to learn that the people who can make your life the most profoundly miserable for the longest time and in the most exquisite ways (not to mention the people who can offer the opportunity to make your life really good) are not the people who can physically overpower you. They need to learn what side their bread is buttered on.

Sometimes women are chosen for these positions because the goal is to specifically train these young men to respect authority no matter who has it, while they have a chance to learn by enduring some of the less-costly failures that life is likely to dish out. If they learn to respect a female at the jail because she has control of certain transitory priveleges, maybe they won’t ruin their lives by being idiots in court with their female court-appointed attorneys in front of their female judges, where the stakes are too high to learn the hard way that the macho thing does not play well in the 21st century.

But yes, she is going to have to be unusually self-assertive to do her job well–or he, because this is less about gender than about being physically imposing to a teen male–because this particular segment of society does not yet understand authority that does not present itself in a physically-imposing package. That doesn’t mean that she has to be other than quiet and reserved, but it does mean she has to learn how to communcate very clearly that quiet and reserved are not the same as weak or ineffectual. If she doesn’t do that, she is toast. She’ll be miserable, and they will get a counter-productive experience with quiet and reserved people that will have to be un-learned later, to their detriment. She can only help them if she can find the personal strength to consistently give them the message they need to get about the respect due to quiet and reserved people in authority.
 
I’m in the same boat at age 27!

Just keep saying “this is not forever.”
 
EasterJoy said:
a) Very few adults could “handle” a mob of young men in their mid-teens single-handedly by having the ability to overpower them one-on-one. This is a job for a group of corrections officers.

b) This is a population that really needs to learn that the people who can make your life the most profoundly miserable for the longest time and in the most exquisite ways (not to mention the people who can offer the opportunity to make your life really good) are not the people who can physically overpower you. They need to learn what side their bread is buttered on.

Sometimes women are chosen for these positions because the goal is to specifically train these young men to respect authority no matter who has it, while they have a chance to learn by enduring some of the less-costly failures that life is likely to dish out. If they learn to respect a female at the jail because she has control of certain transitory priveleges, maybe they won’t ruin their lives by being idiots in court with their female court-appointed attorneys in front of their female judges, where the stakes are too high to learn the hard way that the macho thing does not play well in the 21st century.

But yes, she is going to have to be unusually self-assertive to do her job well–or he, because this is less about gender than about being physically imposing to a teen male–because this particular segment of society does not yet understand authority that does not present itself in a physically-imposing package. That doesn’t mean that she has to be other than quiet and reserved, but it does mean she has to learn how to communcate very clearly that quiet and reserved are not the same as weak or ineffectual. If she doesn’t do that, she is toast. She’ll be miserable, and they will get a counter-productive experience with quiet and reserved people that will have to be un-learned later, to their detriment. She can only help them if she can find the personal strength to consistently give them the message they need to get about the respect due to quiet and reserved people in authority.
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Sorry, I’m not going to roll with putting females in charge of males in order to train dangerous men to respect feminine authority. No way, no how. Males should be in charge of males, in a prison society. Period. Women are WEAKER physically than men, and the only equalizer is a weapon, which could also be taken away.

But I am not going to get into a protracted debate about it on this thread. Let’s just say that mostly, we all agree that putting a woman alone in a bunch of male inmates is a stupid idea.
 
I can’t disagree with what some of you say about putting women in harms way with behavior disordered men. However, it has been my experience that the men and teens I have worked with were less likely to harm me than the girls and women were. I have been attacked by female mobs and several individual females, but only one male ever tried to harm me.

These experiences were on locked psych units and I worked as a nurse. It seemed to me that the men and boys had an innate respect for me that the women and girls didn’t… also, the man who tried to kick me cried and apologized the next day. No female ever did.

Maybe there is something about me that other women don’t like, who knows?
 
littlenothing said:
I can’t disagree with what some of you say about putting women in harms way with behavior disordered men. However, it has been my experience that the men and teens I have worked with were less likely to harm me than the girls and women were. I have been attacked by female mobs and several individual females, but only one male ever tried to harm me.

These experiences were on locked psych units and I worked as a nurse. It seemed to me that the men and boys had an innate respect for me that the women and girls didn’t… also, the man who tried to kick me cried and apologized the next day. No female ever did.

Maybe there is something about me that other women don’t like, who knows?
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No, I don’t think there is something about you - when I watch documentaries like “Beyond Scared Straight,” it’s obvious that the female inmates are in some ways more difficult to deal with than the males.

Come to think about it, don’t we have robots who can do this work???

🤷

I don’t really mean that but…you know. It’s a difficult problem. Probably the people who CAN do the job, are few and far between.
 
=scc11;9269233]All,
I recently graduated from college (in Dec 2011) with by BA in Criminology. For a long time I wanted to work with troubled youth. I prayed and prayed and finally God answered my prayers in February. I got a job a juvenile detention center approximately an hour away. At first the drive didn’t bother and I did my best to ignore the other staff’s comments about management, the way things are run, etc. However I am starting to see for myself how things are done and the drive is starting to get to me. APART from all of that, I do not think I have the personality for this job. In order to do this job you have to be able to tell a group of 23 15-16 year old boys to sit down and be quiet. Seems simple enough right? Not so much. They call you names, make sexually suggestive comments etc. I always said I wasn’t going to let this stuff bother me but I am human and I am normally a quiet a reserved person. I do not see myself doing well in this job. I recently completed training which means in the next few days I could be left alone on the mod with these kids and though I am not scared of them, I feel I do not have the personality to deal with them.
Overall I am writing this because I am not sure what to do. I feel God answered my prayer for a job in my field and now I am considering leaving it and going back to previous job. :confused: I feel like I’m betraying God.
Click to expand...
UNREST is the first and most common indicator that your not where God wants you to be? But don’t be rash; maybe talk to your priest and listen closely to the advice he shares.

TRY to spend some time before the Blessed Sacrament on a frequent basis.

God First:)
Family second
Job THIRD
then everything else:thumbsup:

I’ll pray for you too.

God Bless,
pat/PJM
 
Deo_Gratias42 said:
I’m in the same boat as you. My rosary is starting to get wear marks on the beads, and I keep holy water in my desk to help me when things get really tough. Sometimes I wonder if sprinkling my clientele with holy water will make them stop re-offending, it at least for a month so I can get caught up on paperwork. Meanwhile I have prison ministry members on my case because I think some people do belong in jail rather than out in the community.
Click to expand...
I agree that some people just belong in jail. Re reading that made me think this: could it be that part of the problem is personnel? Medical and social work fields are very prone to harboring toxic work environments. That creates unease and can lead to further confusion about the job itself. Confusion and unease are indeed in the devil’s playbook, and it is hard to sort out from whence it has come.
 
All, thanks for the advice. I have decided to do whats best for me and that is to leave the detention center. For a long time I wanted to help kids but I just dont have the personality for it. Also on Tuesday something happened at work that I just cant shake…a kid tried to commit suicide. I walked in and he had a tshirt tied around his neck and his eyes were rolling back into his head. It was scary. Its all I can think about. I dont know what to. When it happened, I followed our centers operating procedure by calling the proper code over the radio and I went in and took the t shirt off. I checked his breathing and pulse. He ended up being ok and talked to someone in mental health. For some reason I keep having flashbacks to that moments. Any advice?
 
scc11 said:
All, thanks for the advice. I have decided to do whats best for me and that is to leave the detention center. For a long time I wanted to help kids but I just dont have the personality for it. Also on Tuesday something happened at work that I just cant shake…a kid tried to commit suicide. I walked in and he had a tshirt tied around his neck and his eyes were rolling back into his head. It was scary. Its all I can think about. I dont know what to. When it happened, I followed our centers operating procedure by calling the proper code over the radio and I went in and took the t shirt off. I checked his breathing and pulse. He ended up being ok and talked to someone in mental health. For some reason I keep having flashbacks to that moments. Any advice?
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Debrief. Talk to a psychologist. A similar thing happened where I worked, but, thank goodness I wasn’t there at the time. One of the psychologists offered all who were there a “mental health check-up” and debriefing after the incident, and as long as they needed it. The other patients were also given support. You have got to do this. Do not let it paralyze you. Don’t let it get under your skin. Maybe you were supposed to be there only until now. Could it be that you are supposed to pray for people in danger of suicide?

Also talk to a priest. Many people will blame themselves, even if there was nothing they could possibly have done. You did what you could. The kid is safe. Carry no guilt for this.
 
scc11 said:
All, thanks for the advice. I have decided to do whats best for me and that is to leave the detention center. For a long time I wanted to help kids but I just dont have the personality for it. Also on Tuesday something happened at work that I just cant shake…a kid tried to commit suicide. I walked in and he had a tshirt tied around his neck and his eyes were rolling back into his head. It was scary. Its all I can think about. I dont know what to. When it happened, I followed our centers operating procedure by calling the proper code over the radio and I went in and took the t shirt off. I checked his breathing and pulse. He ended up being ok and talked to someone in mental health. For some reason I keep having flashbacks to that moments. Any advice?
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I agree with the previous poster. Tell your supervisor that you need to talk to a psychologist. They will have a procedure set up for this. You need to do this before you quit, or you could end up with some level of PTSD, and no benefits to get help.

Yes, see your priest. You have no culpability in this situation.

Talk to your supervisor anyway, there might be some other job you can apply for, where you can use your talents/education and not be traumatized. I don’t think you’re on the wrong path, just maybe on a side track of that path.
 
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