The Hard Sell

[Antisocial_Worker]

Something odd happened to me the other day, and looking back on it, I suppose it could be chalked up among the other affirming things that have happened to me since returning to school.

After more than a decade pissing my life away in hotels and factories, I decided to return to school this past January in order to finally work my way toward a degree in social work. There is nothing so humbling as going back to school as an older person (I'm in my 30's) and realizing exactly how much you don't know. In time however, you do catch up and I did.

And how. In one week, two of my teachers asked if they could keep assignments of mine for use as teaching aids for future classes. For a Spanish class, I came up with skits that involved, in one, aliens discussing why it would be a good idea to invade Puerto Rico, and in another, Sesame Street-esque sock puppets getting into a fight. The teacher loved them, as she did a family tree I did that traced the blood lineage of various Castlevania characters. In short, I've discovered that I actually am rather intelligent, and that I actually do have a wellspring of creativity somewhere inside, and that I love to use it.

This brings me to the strange occurrence. One of those classes in which the instructor wanted to keep an assignment is a computer class. As we go along through the course, we've been adding onto a semester-long project. The latest portion was Excel, and I had to make a detailed spreadsheet and charts. I couldn't get the program to do what I wanted it to do, though, and I went in to ask the teacher what I had done wrong or if I had actually pushed the program to its limits.

We went over the program, and she looked at the spreadsheet and charts, which I had done my best to make look pretty. Then she made a snap decision, told me that she really wanted me "on our side," asked if I really, truly wanted to go into human services, and then marched me around to every other teacher in the computers department giving me the hard sell. She went on about my talent to the other teachers, and that I was several levels ahead of most of her other students.

She wants me to consider a career in graphic design. Now, I've never considered this before, but as I said, I've discovered that I can be creative if I try. I like that, and I like using that creativity. On the other hand, I have a very well-developed sense of justice and my ultimate goal is to work with victims of crime and abuse. To a person, however, I've been told by actual social workers not to bother. Apparently, the entire social work field exists to push papers, mark time, and go home having not helped a soul and not caring in the least. That, and everyone lies, the bureaucracy is against you, and, invariably, the bad guy wins and the child or the wife or whoever will most certainly be returned to their clutches to be beaten to death in due course. You won't win, you won't change anything, and while you're figuring this out, you'll get to experience the joy of listening to a father justify giving his toddler an STD, and having a drunken middle-aged daughter ask for a cup of coffee in a bored voice upon learning that her elderly mother drank drain cleaner in an attempt to escape her (the daughter's) brother's relentless sexual advances.

Is this a world I really want to work in? Are social workers truly as useless as they all claim to be? I can look at the things that people do to one another (or that they do to themselves to escape other things that people are doing to them) without screaming, and I've always figured that if you can do that, you have a duty to do it. On the other hand... I seem to have some talent. Should I use it instead?

I don't know. Thoughts?

[MoonCat]

All I can say is that I know of numerous cases in my local area in which having just ONE person in social services who actually gave a damn would have saved someone's life.

[Kheldarson]

Great thing about college is you can try all kinds of courses. I'd at least take some design classes with your social work classes to see which program you prefer.

[fireheart]

I totally want to see your sock puppet skit now .

Also, I've found that what you might start with in tertiary study does not necessarily mean you will be this when you come out the other side. A social work degree could lead to other things that aren't necessarily "social work" esque (for instance, quite a few of the counsellors I've seen in the past did a social work degree as an undergrad or a postgrad and then did an extra course to specialise in psychology).

[Pixilated]

It sounds to me as if the social workers you've been talking to are either suffering from terminal burnout or should never have gone into that field to begin with.

Yes, you will lose some cases. Can you deal with that? Yes, you will have noncooperative clients, some of whom may end up dead. Can you deal with that? And yes, you will save some lives and changes some people's worlds for the better. It just won't be 100%. But then what job is?

Can you fit some graphic design courses into your curriculum -- perhaps as electives? It doesn't hurt to give it a try. It's not completely impossible that you might decide of your own accord to switch majors but please don't feel pressured to do so right now because of other people's say-so, whether it's positive (your teacher's praise) or negative (those soured social workers).

[Seshat]

There are other aspects of social work.

Here's some people I know personally who slip through the system in Australia - if similar cases have inadequate support in the States, maybe you can move to this type of social work.

My own family:
Two disabled people - one schizoaffective, one fibro & disabling PCOS. Partially disabled carer. Trying to survive on three pensions. NEED assistance finding medically supportive programs. NEED assistance finding - oh, charities which could help us actually get an air conditioner and/or heater in our house. (Fibro messes with the patient's temperature regulation.) Help getting access to mental health assistance for A. Etc etc.
Fill in 'family with a down syndrome child' or 'adult living alone with cerebral palsy' or 'aging parents of an adult disabled child' or ...

Two neighbours of mine. Frail aged women living alone. One has no living relatives. The other has a daughter. Who is blind, and herself aging.
Both need someone to keep track of their well-being, periodically visit them (and subtly check for the early signs of squalor or other forms of 'no longer able to cope'), ensure that they have carers, etc.

Young people in nursing homes, or disabled enough to need the level of care provided by nursing homes.
There are MANY young people whose minds are perfectly fine, but whose bodies aren't. Sheltered homes and workshops intended for those with intellectual disability are insulting and stifling places for these mentally capable adults to live.
Places intended for children kick them out as soon as they can find somewhere for them to go - they have a waiting list of new children to take in, after all.
And nursing homes intended for the elderly ... can you imagine spending your entire adult life in God's Waiting Room? Where the medical system focusses on palliative care, and the nurses and doctors available specialise in gerentology. Where the friends you meet are many times your age, and simply waiting to die. Where the staff don't expect you to want to have a profession or a career of any sort - just maybe a hobby to while your time away.
I know two such people personally, and they know others.


You'd still be beating your head against the brick walls of bureaucracy; but at least some of your clients would be genuinely grateful for your help. Many may have been actively trying to GET the kind of help you can offer, sometimes for years or decades.

[Grendus]

...
SNIP
...
I've been told by actual social workers not to bother. Apparently, the entire social work field exists to push papers, mark time, and go home having not helped a soul and not caring in the least. That, and everyone lies, the bureaucracy is against you, and, invariably, the bad guy wins and the child or the wife or whoever will most certainly be returned to their clutches to be beaten to death in due course.

Is this a world I really want to work in? Are social workers truly as useless as they all claim to be? I can look at the things that people do to one another (or that they do to themselves to escape other things that people are doing to them) without screaming, and I've always figured that if you can do that, you have a duty to do it. On the other hand... I seem to have some talent. Should I use it instead?

I don't know. Thoughts?

Ok, first thing's first, you should never go into any field because you have a "duty" to. A career should be something that you love, that you're passionate about. If you're only going into social work because you feel like it's your job to help these people and not because you want to, you're going to wind up like those burned out Social Workers who push papers around all day. Social work is a calling, it's not a field you go into for yourself. They deal with some of the saddest situations and the worst human beings allowed to walk free, and they get payed a pittance for it. On the flipside, they get to make a real and direct impact in peoples lives. There are many people who's lives have been vastly improved or even saved outright because of a social worker's intervention. A lot depends on which area of social work you specialize in. As a student caller (yes, I'm that annoying person who calls about donating to your old university) who talks to a lot of social work grads, the overwhelming majority find it to be an extremely rewarding field.

Unfortunately, you have to make this decision for yourself. Graphic or web design is a great field to go into, while you always hear the horror stories about clients from hell there are plenty who are good. It will almost definitely pay better than social work, especially if you're good at it, and while money isn't everything it is nice to have. You have to decide what's best for you.

Remember too that going into graphic design doesn't mean you have to turn into a selfish money grubbing bastard - there are plenty of non-profits that need volunteers, and graphic arts skills could be just as helpful indirectly to those in need by drawing in funding and support. I'm not sure if this is entirely relevant (it's more about business and overhead in charity work), but it might help you see more paths to helping people than necessarily being on the scene at ground zero.

[BlaqueKatt]

I had one social worker that helped me, that being said, the rest, it wasn't that they didn't care, it was the caseload they were buried under, they tried their best.

One thing that may not have been mentioned to you, around 95% of social work jobs REQUIRE a Master's, you usually don't find that out until you graduate, and then realize you now have to figure out how to pay for grad school as well.

[Tama]

Which is why they tell you, if you are going to pursue social work, have an assload of financial aid you don't have to pay back ready...

[trailerparkmedic]

As others have said, you'll need a master's to do much. In my area, you're stuck doing CPS or APS until then. Apparently CPS and APS doesn't care much about degrees because their case workers are so overloaded they need warm bodies. Hospital social workers (what I'm most familiar with) are involved in everything from babies born to drug positive mothers to a raped toddler to demented patients abandonded in the ER by family to investigating why a woman came to the hospital with infected sores down to the bone. Can you stomach sending any of those cases home?

My husband does advertising writing. I'm an ER nurse. One of us comes home and complains about office politics and having boring projects. One of us no longer complains about work to anyone except coworkers, because how can you burden someone not in the industry with things no human should see?

[Antisocial_Worker]

My husband does advertising writing. I'm an ER nurse. One of us comes home and complains about office politics and having boring projects. One of us no longer complains about work to anyone except coworkers, because how can you burden someone not in the industry with things no human should see?

I get to hear about the life and times of the ER. I also work with autistic teenagers who live in the very worst neighborhoods in my city -- we often see drug deals going on whenever we're heading out to do this or that. The things that people do, and the things they do to each other don't scare me -- I've been through too much and seen too much in life for them to. After you watch your father die in front of your very eyes, the world ceases to hold much horror.

I guess what worries me is that every single social worker to whom I have spoken, either here where I live, or in New Jersey where some social working relatives of a friend live, has told me that social work as a field is pointless. I could dismiss one or two as burnt out, but when multiple social workers in two different states are telling me they're just there to collect a check... that's worrisome. They also all think it's just precious how I'd like to do some good for the world. For the longest time I have wanted to go into social work, but to suddenly discover another talent is odd.