Retail Slavery

Yep. That's me, a retail slave. But I'm so done with this crap. I started looking for jobs in the mental health profession again. Although, I could do without the injuries I sustained, I can "negotiate" better now with a screaming crackhead tripping on bath salts or a person attempting suicide with a bedsheet wrapped around their neck.

It takes a lot of people skills to talk a person out of their rage. It takes patience and understanding what they want--mostly, the person wants out cuz they don't know why they're 'locked up in a mental hospital'. Those are the places I've worked in the past; locked units. People's attitudes often change when they're explained why they're there but its not the staff's job to let them go home; its their talk with the doctor.

And some people are belligerent enough to cause trouble for everyone both staff and other patients, where they create rampant destruction and be a general pain in the butt. That's when the nurses call the psychiatrists and treatment team to see what they can do for the patient, who are sometimes really manipulative and try to bend rules for their benefit. Some just need to sleep a few hours...then they come back to their senses.

Everyone is different so each is treated differently. But the characteristics are usually all the same. I remember a patient who didn't want to be in the locked unit where I worked and tried everything to get kicked out like flood the toilet with bedsheets and towels, yet when it came time for him to be discharged, he didn't want to leave. He had to be escorted by security and several male staff off the unit as he was screaming and yelling profanity at the top of his lungs, promising to "sue the hell out of the hospital". He never came back.

The jobs I've worked in the past, I've made a higher income than working retail--where I'm on my feet almost all shift, and this brings my feet great pain. Every time. Heavy manual labor blows, is all I have to say.