Work at Red Door, Volunteering at EAS

This was a rollercoastery day.

I haven't said much about my job. This morning, I was criticized by the AM at work for a few things. It's a continuing pattern of criticism and some degree of micro-management by this person that's made me feel ashamed and unsure of myself semi-regularly. This is a thing I am prone to, I know; there's a lot of self-shame in my life. But this has been difficult. I was written up for something I did wrong last week, and this morning the AM said that board members were very upset at the meeting last night. They criticized the staff, saying that 'if volunteers can do [thing] better than staff, why do we have staff?' I've been doing a less thorough job than I was originally shown because I've been told several times that I'm working too slowly. That, I think, has led to me making some of the mistakes that I've been called to task for. Beyond that, I keep feeling like the only way I learn how to do a lot of things correctly is to do them wrong (in the way I thought I was shown) and be criticized. There's a lot of criticism and very little praise.

I called Danae over lunch and told her I keep thinking about going back to dog-walking while I look for another job. Maybe at a library. Something that doesn't make me keep questioning my own intelligence, memory, and competency. Another staff member is having a lot of problems with the AM too, and has been planning on submitting her resignation this week. She feels that the AM is very inconsistent in her directions and is more concerned about always being right than anything else.

Then, that afternoon, as the AM explained a new procedure related to the board members' issues from last night, she said that she wanted to make sure that she was explaining everything because she really doesn't want to write me up [again]. That I am a good employee and she wants me to stay working at the shelter. Suddenly, I felt like all was well in the world of work. I'm just so deeply and quickly affected by either criticism or praise from other people. Now, this evening, I don't know how to feel about the whole situation. Then, though, it was like everything had changed and all was well again. It makes me feel, in retrospect, unstable and confused.

Talking about it with Danae this evening, she said that it would be so nice if we could categorize people in our minds in terms of who has what access to emotions. If someone doesn't have authorization to elicit a strong emotional response, then we could just react to their words and actions rationally and not allow difficult or hostile people to hurt us. But we cannot.

I feel crappy, physically, because during lunch I bought and consumed a whole bag of Mint Ghirardelli squares, and almost all of a bag of extra dark Lindt truffles. I feel particularly bad about that because I'd been managing my food pretty well for a week, after a long period of abortive one or two day attempts at beginning again to do so. And at the Evanston shelter this evening, I ate several of the Twinkies and cupcakes that a volunteer brought, along with mini Milkyway bars and Reeses Peanut-butter Cups. I get stressed and comfort-binge. So it goes.

Also at the shelter, the shift captain told me that she wants to get me certified to use prong collars. After several weeks of major questioning of my own competence in the dog-handling arena too, that made me feel a lot better. The topic had come up before, and she had me walk a dog on a prong with her once, but then we didn't follow up for a while and I assumed that other volunteers were going to be doing it instead. (It turns out it will be several people, but including me.) It made me feel competent again, in a way that's very personal and important to me.

I dunno; I guess that's all I have to say for the moment. I have a dog and a cabbit to snuggle here.