Karla Noyes' Captain's Log Series

18 months; 78 applications; 17 interviews; 1 one-month job. I should put Job Hunting on my resume. If you’re looking for a job: Be prepared. Specifically work up some stories of 1.) how you’ve dealt will a customer who was screaming at you; 2.) your team-work experience; 3.) how you handled an employee who wouldn’t give you information you need to do your job; stuff like that. I love to get questions I’m not prepared for like: “you get a call from the parents of a Department of Rehabilitation client demanding to know about changes to  their child’s plan of action. The client is 22 and not conserved. What do you do?” It’s kind of a trick question, the clue is, “not conserved.” The answer is “it’s none of your business, your kid needs to learn how to man-up and we’re here to help them.” Well, said with great tact. By the way, I have the greatest respect for what the Department of Rehabilitation is doing, really giving people self-determined goals, guidance and support. They’re mak...

My mother was a tomboy and so was I. She loved to run barefoot through the woods of Nanaimo, British Columbia, and could spit through her teeth farther than any of the boys. I loved climbing trees and sliding down the wet, spring-grassy hill on a sheet of cardboard with the neighborhood kids in The Gully, across the street from my home. As a kid I remember attending parties and being shooed into the kitchen with the women to help with the dishes while the men lounged in the living room. The women talked about their families and relationships; I was sure the men were talking about politics and things that really mattered. Imagine my crushing disappointment when I snuck into the living room and found the men talking about football. Life is not fair! Krist! Where could I find some interesting people? (Now, I understand the importance of relationships and would prefer to be ‘in the kitchen.’) When married, decades ago, I organized a dinner party for my husband’s closest friends, ...

After lunch Friday, I was called into my supervisor’s office, again, given another 2 page letter about how unprofessional and insubordinate I’ve been, and given 2 Administrative Directives to read, sign and return by the end of the day. Since I’ve not completed my 12-month probation period she could fire me at any time without cause, maybe it’s better for them if I quit. What really upset me was knowing that BOTH of my two co-workers were ratting on me, I thought I could trust one. I went back to my desk and my entire body was roiling, not just my stomach but arms, legs, everything. This might be the fight or flight response. The short story is I calmly told my two co-workers, in the presence of two accounting personnel that share the office, that obviously you both don’t like me and rat on me all the time, I can’t stay here, which is too bad because I like the work and you’ve invested a lot of time and energy in training me. I’m sorry to leave you with all this work on my desk (well...

I work at Napa State Hospital, the bulk of the patients are there because they have been homeless, mentally ill and have done something against the law, been caught and have been processed through the criminal-justice system which has determined that they are incompetent to stand trial, until they get ‘stabilized’ on a cocktail of medications (this place is Club Med.) Previously I mentioned what an unpleasant place it is for the residents: the pale-green walls, the heat, the fence topped with razor wire. I guess it’s a minimum security prison, for the mentally ill. There’s no ‘getting better’ and going back to your family, job or community. When you ‘get better’ you go to jail. To think that California’s prisons are full of the mentally ill. First you’re mentally ill and then you’re stuck in prison. What a nightmare! Thank you, Ronald Regan, when you were governor and shut down the places for these people and turned them out onto the streets to become our homeless problem. This isn’t...

At the end of my second full-day at my desk I was given two reprimand letters from my supervisor. That must be some kind of record. The first was for wearing one of my hand-spun, hand-knit, keyhole scarves in the office because I was cold; apparently a patient had strangled someone and now there’s a facility-wide ban on wearing anything around your neck (so much for my collection of beautiful scarves.) The other letter was because I was away from my desk without permission. I was at the benefits office choosing my health insurance plan. While I had permission for a 1 o’clock meeting, I spaced that out and remembered it at 4, but no permission. Sheesh! This was one of those personal growth experiences. My first impulse was to say, ‘Hey, how about a verbal warning first?’ As in ‘this isn’t fair.’ The second impulse was to just let it go, know that she’s strict about the rules, and vow to keep my distance from her. There isn’t going to be any relationship other than me doing my job, pla...

After 14 months, 69 applications and 16 interviews I finally landed a job. I told that to a woman in my orientation class, she said it took her 4 years! In both cases we’re lucky. I work in the Trust office tracking the Medicare, Social Security and Veteran’s benefits of the patients at the Napa State Hospital http://www.dsh.ca.gov/Napa/default.aspx . This place houses people with varying degrees of mental illness and criminality, although the ones who are civilly committed are there because they pose a threat to themselves or others. A good portion are there because they have been found to be incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity. There are 1,250 patients, 40 or 50 are really dangerous, (3%). I’m told that most of them have schizophrenia and an assortment of other maladies, bipolar, depression, etc. Some of them go to great lengths to kill themselves which has caused the staff to remove all of the possible physical opportunities; the State can’t have people ...

When I was 7, in 1960, I remember bemoaning my only career options were secretary, like my mom, nurse, or teacher. Later I learned that other girls had nun as a possibility. Life didn’t seem worth living if that’s what the future held. It was an era of pointy-boob bras, you had to stuff toilet paper in the ends to fill them out because breasts aren’t shaped like that. It was an era of girdles and nylons – that always got runs even though they knew how to make them so they wouldn’t. An era of dirty jokes and cat-calling, which were obviously aggressive and implied some sort of violence, so I wore clothes that hid my gender, generally floppy tops. At my wedding reception my father derisively said, I bet she’s pregnant. I wasn’t. As a kid I didn’t want any part of The Feminine  so played in the mud, climbed trees - falling out and breaking my arms, twice - and ran barefoot in the grass. At Christmas I got a doll, what am I supposed to do with this? At 7 I swore I would never, ever, ...