Sentimental Sunday: Post 611 - Back to School in 2014

Today's sentimental post is another short one. The random number generator spat out #611 which happened on August 13, 2014. (You can find that post here.) I am enjoying the opportunity to glance back at various thoughts and days and ideas that I experienced way back. This was an interesting memory as it brought up all sorts of things about being told different things every single time I went anywhere near anyone.

Here was what was happening. We had been through about a year of renovations and having to provide music therapy sessions in five different buildings. We were told that the music and art therapy programs were going to be in their permanent homes on this day, but it did not happen. Most of what we were told by administrators in this period of time did not happen. All of those administrators are no longer with the company, but they caused significant damage while they were in charge. We have been without the principals that we had at that point for almost two years now, and the decisions that they made about us are still having significant ramifications. It is pretty sad to have to fight battles set up by people who have been fired.

So, I was resigned to having to spend time in a great big building with my Creative Arts therapy mate all by myself, but these plans actually did not hold either. I think, by the end of this week, we were told that we couldn't stay there - it would be too expensive - and we were both stuffed into a very small closet until our rooms were done. We had quite a bit of financial mismanagement happening - they didn't have enough money to continue to rent the rooms and storage that we had lived in for the previous year. So, we had to move ourselves, attempt to organize all the stuff that goes with both art therapy and music therapy in a tiny space, and still do music and art therapies. The attitude from administration at the time was that we should have known that this was coming so there would be little to no help from others. I remember feeling frustrated and feeling very ignored in the entire season.

I moved from that closet, where my intern, my Art Therapy colleague, and myself were crammed into a conference room with all our stuff because that was the only free internet access point - our rooms were not ready to move into yet, but we had to vacate the place we were officing because of lies told to us at the start of the previous break. Everyone else had new rooms and new bathrooms, but the art and music areas were not priorities, so we waited and waited. The art therapist had to wait even longer than I did because, while they had gutted her room during the renovations of other rooms, they did not put the room back. When she asked about the cabinets that she had been promised, there were lots of vacant stares. My "new" room, which I had not wanted and had protested due to its lack of space, was about the size of my medium sized bedroom in my house now. It had only one straight wall. The rest of the walls were curved. There was no space for clients to move. The ceilings were low. There was absolutely no sound protection, so I could hear everything the teacher next to me was saying, even over my music being played. There wasn't a light switch. In fact, when I first looked at the suite that I was crammed into, there was no way to turn off the lights at all. They had forgotten that there might be times when we didn't want all the stuff lit up and going. I was part of the multi-sensory room area, but I wasn't allowed to use that area for music therapy. I had originally thought that the multi-sensory room was going to be my room, and I was pretty happy about that, but no. More lies.

MJ, stop dwelling, and let's get into some synthesis.

I know that I do not thrive in situations where there is little to no consistency. I know that I do not respond well to wishy-washy announcements and decision-making. I want leaders who mean what they say and say what they mean. I also want leaders who admit when they don't know things rather than leaders who say what they think you want to hear in the moment and then immediately tell you something different. The leaders that we had at that point would tell you two completely different things in 20 seconds.

I was pretty miserable during the next three years of my music therapy life. I would get an injury in 2015 that required 18 months of surgery and recovery and therapy. I would stop accepting interns because of the injury and because I simply couldn't cram another human being into the space I was crammed into. I had a room with little space for the type of therapy that I wanted to do. I had "leaders" who did not care at all about any of my concerns and told me that very rudely while threatening my job in ways that were illegal. In fact, when I called them on their illegal practices, I was told that I would be fired if I ever sent out another email to a distribution list. This was after being told that I had violated the email policy and after I had asked for a copy of the policy. I was then told that there actually wasn't a policy on email use (which I knew). I refused to sign the written reprimand since they had not followed the procedures in the Master Contract. Things were messy at my facility. They got much worse before they got better as well. Thank goodness that they are better now.

Are things perfect now? Not at all. Are things more stable? Definitely! Do I trust our current leaders? SO much more than the ones during 2014. Am I glad that I went through this period? Yes and No. I was able to find different parts of myself in these years. I went out and explored job options and thought about my future in a serious way. I feel that I am a much better therapist because of the experiences that I had while I was crammed into that little, bitty, depressing space, surrounded by leaders that lied.

Happy Sunday??