Thursday, January 14, 2010

oh the things they say

Yesterday was a rather amusing day in terms of the things my clients were saying and doing. It's important to keep in mind that I work in an employment agency for adults with mental illness to put at least one of these in context.

First of all, I was talking to a client on the phone who has recently begun job searching again. She has a great resume and TONS of relevant experience so I was very surprised she'd only gotten 1 phone call given the number of resumes we'd sent out. To my surprise I discovered that she had gotten many phone calls which she had ignored/turned down because they were from "chincy community agencies". Apparently she had driven past some of them and decided she didn't like the exterior of the building so wouldn't follow through with them.

Then, I spoke to a client who was very upset because her psychiatrist told her that being depressed is part of having depression. This caused her to lose hope and believe she would never be able to do anything for the rest of her life. I'm honestly not sure exactly what she was hoping her psychiatrist would say...

Next came the client who states they went to a job interview but had no idea where or what the company name was. In fact, they couldn't even remember what street it was on. They gave a vague area of the city. At this point we are not entirely convinced the client had a job interview at all, but who knows.

Finally, right after this client, another client called excited about a job interview, but once again, they didn't know where. However, they did reassure me they were going to get a hair cut, which means my persistence in the area of personal grooming for clients may finally have paid off uncomfortable as it is for me to discuss with them in counselling.