One of my first real jobs was working in a group home taking care of developmentally disabled adults, and one of them was a severely neurodivergent man who loved SpongeBob. That was my first exposure, and it was on the TV in the living room pretty much nonstop.
It was cute, and certainly entertaining, but whenever a grown-butt adult expresses an intense interest in that show, it sort of puts me on edge, like I have to be constantly looking for signs of an impending meltdown, like "is this person going to randomly freak the frick out and just start beating the shit out of someone and need to be restrained, like the incident with John and Patricia?"
Probably. All of the people working in that group home were uncertified, and knowing now how r-slurred you have to be to fail the certification exams, a lot of things that didn't make sense to me at the time make a lot more sense.
The work culture was very insular and exclusive, and it was the kind of exclusion that's fueled by a deep-seated insecurity, exactly the kind of emotional background noise that leads a person to take out their frustrations on somebody helpless who has no means at their disposal to communicate what's being done to them.
I'm glad I'm not there anymore, and I'm making twice as much money working in skilled nursing.
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One of my first real jobs was working in a group home taking care of developmentally disabled adults, and one of them was a severely neurodivergent man who loved SpongeBob. That was my first exposure, and it was on the TV in the living room pretty much nonstop.
It was cute, and certainly entertaining, but whenever a grown-butt adult expresses an intense interest in that show, it sort of puts me on edge, like I have to be constantly looking for signs of an impending meltdown, like "is this person going to randomly freak the frick out and just start beating the shit out of someone and need to be restrained, like the incident with John and Patricia?"
Jump in the discussion.
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Did Patricia deserve it tho?
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Probably. All of the people working in that group home were uncertified, and knowing now how r-slurred you have to be to fail the certification exams, a lot of things that didn't make sense to me at the time make a lot more sense.
The work culture was very insular and exclusive, and it was the kind of exclusion that's fueled by a deep-seated insecurity, exactly the kind of emotional background noise that leads a person to take out their frustrations on somebody helpless who has no means at their disposal to communicate what's being done to them.
I'm glad I'm not there anymore, and I'm making twice as much money working in skilled nursing.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
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