delights of working with the mentally ill...

having worked in an office that deals with severely mentally ill patients for about a year now, i pretty much know what to expect when clients call in.  like the other day, an enraged man called after having complained to my boss that i had brought my baby to supervisions (supervisions, which i don't do, and furthermore, i don't even have a child, but i held my tongue).  he was also ranting about how a phone call about a new worker 'should have come from me', even though he was already fully aware of the situation.  so i finally said, with a very sarcastic tone, "oh!  so what you're saying is that the phone call should have come from me?"  to which he responded, 'yes, it should have come from you'.  i then asked when he wanted me to come to the meeting that he was trying to have me set up, to which he responded "oh i don't need you to come.  so i guess she can just call us directly".   it took all the strength i had not to reach through the phone and strangle him.

story number two is a tale of a crazy lady saying that she works for our agency, when in reality she was fired about four months ago.  she actually had the audacity to go to another agency and claim that there were some clients of hers that were there, and she was there to help them, when in reality, they belong to another one of our case managers. 

another delightful anecdote involves one of the inept case managers who works with the program i run.  basically she does not understand english, and is always trying to get me in trouble.  after calling me twice in a 24 hour period she freaked out and called the parents of one of my clients, bitching and moaning that she could not reach me, and that i wasn't responding to her calls.  this was after she hung up on me after our most recent phone conversation, but before she decided to make me drive all they way out to kailua for a meeting, that will quite honestly, take about 15 minutes.  i might kill her at the meeting on monday.  

did i mention that these are just employees and parents, not clients?

i have to say that our clients are sooooo much easier to deal with, only because you expect them to act out in some way.  it's when the 'regular' people start to act like clients that i start to get worried.  how can we expect the mentally ill population to become more self sufficient when the 'normal' people that are walking around are just as crazy as they are?  and with the government making crazy cutbacks to mental health funding...it's absurd.