First of all, I want to apologize to everyone for lack of blogging. I can’t believe it’s almost a year since I last blogged. I had a very hard year where I had to find myself again.
Unfortunately I am no longer working at ASD. Today marks the one year when I began the job of residential counselor (RC) at American School for the Deaf in West Hartford, CT. It continued through the school year until end of 2012. As you may have previously read my blog about the summer employment there, I was very happy and excited about working there. I went in there completely lost about my future goals to developing long term goals of either become a Crisis Intervention Specialist or return to college to get a master’s degree in counseling for the deaf. The employment at ASD confirmed my passion of working with kids.
So what happened? The first few months of my employment were great. In the last blog, I stated that my summer employment was ending at ASD and that I have asked HR to consider me for a position in the regular school year – there weren't any openings so I was offered a sub position. The position of RC counts on the students’ enrollment number in the PACES program which students often came at many different times throughout the year so there were chances of openings throughout the year. However, I got called in to sub every day. I was very happy about that, but it was more difficult as a sub because I got assigned to different students daily so I don’t always know their routines or background information which is necessary in helping them meet their needs.
Soon enough I got burn out because I wanted a permanent employment. I continued to work hard, trying, and it was still not good enough. I put in my bid for about 6 openings in the time period from September to December but the priority of the job was given to people who had been at ASD longer than me. There also were other reasons that made me unhappy to work at ASD. Summer was great because it was flexible time for everyone. During the fall, I realized that I wasn’t getting good leadership from my supervisors so that didn’t help the workplace to be a happy place for me. They never supervised me in action or communicated to me about my work performance, so I had no idea how I was doing. There also was a strong dislike towards ASD from other staff so it was difficult to work in high negativity environment.
Despite lack of leadership from my supervisors, I continued to be devoted employee of ASD by showing up early every day, never saying no to picking up on extra shifts, and being available to everyone. I was a very reliable employee that allowed ASD to become my life too much than I should have allowed. It affected my life to where I was living ASD 24/7. However during winter break, I went home to Upstate NY where I had PLENTY of time to think about everything, I decided that it was best for me to leave ASD because I wasn’t satisfied. I also wasn’t impressed with the supervisors’ lack of leadership which killed my passion because they didn’t let me grow. So how can I grow with that lack of leadership from them? I was turned off by that, so that played a huge factor in my decision to leave because I didn’t want to work for them when they don’t allow me or others to grow. I am looking for an employment where I can grow and learn every day. The supervisors didn’t give me that challenge that I’m looking for (but the students did).
I wish that the ASD chapter could have been much better, but it did teach me a lot of what I want in my work environment. I realized that due to poor leadership from the supervisors, I wasn’t confident in my role because I never was properly guided by them. In my heart, I know that I remained a very devoted employee to ASD and I gave them my all. I remember the Welcome Back assembly for staff on first day of school year in September 2012, the assistant executive director quoted “I want all of you to get up in the morning excited to come to work at ASD!”, I sat there in the back of the gym proudly thinking that is me. I came every day very excited to work with these amazing students. It is ASD that is missing out on one of the best employees that they could have had.
