I Hate Where I Work

So, I'm sitting here at work taking a break from filing paper, and decided I'd blog a little bit. For those of you who do not know, I work as a counselor for a non-profit that works with folks with developmental disabilities (intellectual disability, autism, and cerebral palsy). I mostly do vocational rehabilitation, but I've worked in the residential system, ran a day program, and worked as a behavioral counselor for the company I'm at right now.

Today I've decided that I really love what I do for a living. I just hate where I work. Because our society doesn't put much stock in folks with developmental disabilities, the bar for adequate service for agencies like mine is pretty damn low. While I'm sure I could find another agency to work at, it'll be tough finding a place where I'd be happy. Folks here are way too concerned about money and not enough about the services provided. There's rampant nepotism, no human resources personnel, idiotic spending, inept leadership, embezzlement, ethical violations, and a general loss of mission. Staff are poorly trained, and our hiring practices are something to be desired. The executive director shows up maybe once or twice a week for a few hours and doesn't really do much of anything.

Despite all of this, we still manage to help people and help folks to live fulfilling lives. At least in the vocational program. Could we be three times as good if our shit was together? Absolutely. Would we be nearly broke all the time if our shit was together? No. Would we have all these lawsuits we are paying on for unprofessional personnel practices? No.

Our clients are supposed to be paid based on productivity. But, they aren't. The Executive Director doesn't want to spend the money to pay the consumers what they're worth. So, their wage studies have pretty much been manufactured by upper management. I've been fighting it for years. We have clients that are in the behavioral program that don't need to be so that we can keep the funding coming in. Additionally, my vocational program is nearly at a standstill because all the job development is being focused on the behavioral program. The job developers have little to no oversight. And any new developers that we hire are poorly trained, inexperienced (translate into cheap), and are hobbled by the current developer as soon as they walk in the door. We haven't had a new job for quite a while even though other agencies are being successful at finding placements.

I can't think of a reason why our agency needs to operate like this. It's not a money issue. It's not a experience issue. It boils down to a leadership issue. Our non-profit has a board of directors made up of friends and family of the executive director. Nearly every upper management position is held by a member of his immediate family. As a result nobody challenges him. They have family on our payroll that don't actually do anything for the organization. And they have absolutely no accountability. That's not how a non-profit is supposed to work.

I've tried for years to try and fix it, but the people in power don't want it to be fixed. And the folks who could actually do anything about it, don't have the power or authority. They shine you on just enough to get you off their back, and that is it.

And the state is aware of the situation. They turn a blind eye because there's no place else for our clients to go.

So, I think it's finally time to leave this sinking ship.