bad bad day

I had a bad day at work last night. There's no other way to describe it. Yuck. Part of it is that I'm really stressed about packing, cleaning and moving, but part of it is just that last night sucked. I went into it with a really good attitude, but alas... it sucked all the same.

The drunk tank was a gong show. It just never slowed down all evening. At one point we had seven police cars waiting outside. Seriously. Don't they have anything better to do then pick up drunk people?

But the thing I found hardest was a woman who was going through a psychotic episode. Situations had lead to her going off her meds, and here she was, drunk and delusional. She was just freaking out, and my supervisor would NOT let me go into her cell to calm her down and it pissed me off. I was eventually able to calm her down through the window, but seriously. I mean, the poor woman was lying on cement crying and shaking, she's wasn't violent. But, I know he's just trying to protect me.

We called an ambulance, because we couldn't release her to herself in that state, and she'd been there a LONG time. Because it's a mental health crisis though, it's not an "emergency" apparently. We'll, I'm sorry. She was far more in need of intervention then many of the people I call the ambulance for who have physical complaints. This woman was seriously, seriously freaked out and desperately needed help. Bah. It took 40 minutes at least for an ambulance to arrive. I mean, I call for a possibly broken ankle and it comes with sirens blaring (read: not an emergency), and yet for this, they just slowly drive up.

We were also short staffed. TWO people called in. Thankfully a couple people but in a little over time, but we were still short. We'll be short again tonight. I am NOT impressed.

So much more happened, but nothing all that exciting. I just feel very...beaten down. Most of the time I find with my job, but tonight just really wore at me. A lot. sigh.