Tweet
So, that happened. I got a job.
Where I live there is Urban County, Suburban County, and a great many rural counties of varying degrees of middling. If you want to work with the big league, big-time problems and real depravity, you work in Urban County... except that in Urban County you must bring your A game, they're rather full of themselves, and they never tire of telling you what tough, smart, streetwise badasses they are. You could, of course, also apply in Suburban County but they know they're desirable as well and that means they can demand big degrees for even the smallest job positions, just like Urban County can -- they're just less of a dick about it.
And then you have the rural counties. Yes, there are pockets of wealth here and there, and yes, as people are pushed out of Urban County by the stratospheric price of housing they're forging new paths out into the rural counties. However, this is still Appalachia and despite the new golf course, and despite the subdivision with estates so large and luxurious that the neighborhood has its own helipad, once you get beyond those moneyed enclaves you're still in a region whose hills and hollers resound with the dulcet tones of the banjo and talk of purty mouths.
After exactly zero success in Urban County and Suburban County, and after having been rejected by fifteen different social services agencies, I finally bit the bullet and applied in a rural county we shall call Dark Corner County. I was hired in the child protective services division and I start work in another couple of weeks.
Go me.
Thing is though, I'm full of questions. I live in Urban County and did my internship in Suburban County. I saw terrible things and I heard them justified with excuses that actually do have something of a sick logic to them if you really sit back and think about it. I also found out that you would not believe how much incest there is going on out there. That being said, Dark Corner County, in its entirety, has roughly the same population as the county seat of Suburban County and its immediate surrounding neighborhoods and towns. There are four times as many people living in my city in Urban County, by itself, than there are living in Dark Corner County. With that the case, just how much mayhem can they really get into over there? And is the mayhem confined to the same handful of ne'er-do-well families that cycle in and out of the office year after year?
On the other hand, it was edifying to learn that the good folk of the Dark Corner County Department of Social Services absolutely loathe those of the Urban County Department of Social Services and feel that Urban County DSS is comprised entirely of arrogant twats. There is also no love lost between Dark Corner and Urban on the issue of how Urban County refuses to allow Dark Corner County to utilize their child advocacy center despite the fact that it's by far the closest to Dark Corner, which does not have its own.
Then there's the driving! I will have to drive nearly forty minutes one way to reach my new job, which is a terrifying prospect for me because I hate and fear driving. My father was a mechanic, but the only thing he ever taught me about cars is that they are the most fragile mechanisms on the face of the earth and that they explode at the slightest touch. But the drive over there is not all... my job could involve a great deal of travel indeed, because once a child is removed from a home a county can legally place that child in foster care anywhere in the state. If they got such a bee in their governmental bonnet, they could place a child an eight hour drive away on the other side of the state if they so desired, or if it was deemed feasible to keep that child safely away from a dangerous parent.
So, that happened. I got a new job. And I wonder, what with the demographics of Dark Corner County, what it will really be like. And I wonder how I'll survive the driving.
Where I live there is Urban County, Suburban County, and a great many rural counties of varying degrees of middling. If you want to work with the big league, big-time problems and real depravity, you work in Urban County... except that in Urban County you must bring your A game, they're rather full of themselves, and they never tire of telling you what tough, smart, streetwise badasses they are. You could, of course, also apply in Suburban County but they know they're desirable as well and that means they can demand big degrees for even the smallest job positions, just like Urban County can -- they're just less of a dick about it.
And then you have the rural counties. Yes, there are pockets of wealth here and there, and yes, as people are pushed out of Urban County by the stratospheric price of housing they're forging new paths out into the rural counties. However, this is still Appalachia and despite the new golf course, and despite the subdivision with estates so large and luxurious that the neighborhood has its own helipad, once you get beyond those moneyed enclaves you're still in a region whose hills and hollers resound with the dulcet tones of the banjo and talk of purty mouths.
After exactly zero success in Urban County and Suburban County, and after having been rejected by fifteen different social services agencies, I finally bit the bullet and applied in a rural county we shall call Dark Corner County. I was hired in the child protective services division and I start work in another couple of weeks.
Go me.
Thing is though, I'm full of questions. I live in Urban County and did my internship in Suburban County. I saw terrible things and I heard them justified with excuses that actually do have something of a sick logic to them if you really sit back and think about it. I also found out that you would not believe how much incest there is going on out there. That being said, Dark Corner County, in its entirety, has roughly the same population as the county seat of Suburban County and its immediate surrounding neighborhoods and towns. There are four times as many people living in my city in Urban County, by itself, than there are living in Dark Corner County. With that the case, just how much mayhem can they really get into over there? And is the mayhem confined to the same handful of ne'er-do-well families that cycle in and out of the office year after year?
On the other hand, it was edifying to learn that the good folk of the Dark Corner County Department of Social Services absolutely loathe those of the Urban County Department of Social Services and feel that Urban County DSS is comprised entirely of arrogant twats. There is also no love lost between Dark Corner and Urban on the issue of how Urban County refuses to allow Dark Corner County to utilize their child advocacy center despite the fact that it's by far the closest to Dark Corner, which does not have its own.
Then there's the driving! I will have to drive nearly forty minutes one way to reach my new job, which is a terrifying prospect for me because I hate and fear driving. My father was a mechanic, but the only thing he ever taught me about cars is that they are the most fragile mechanisms on the face of the earth and that they explode at the slightest touch. But the drive over there is not all... my job could involve a great deal of travel indeed, because once a child is removed from a home a county can legally place that child in foster care anywhere in the state. If they got such a bee in their governmental bonnet, they could place a child an eight hour drive away on the other side of the state if they so desired, or if it was deemed feasible to keep that child safely away from a dangerous parent.
So, that happened. I got a new job. And I wonder, what with the demographics of Dark Corner County, what it will really be like. And I wonder how I'll survive the driving.
on the new job! I hope it's everything you wanted. Everyone is right, you will get used to driving the more you do it. Maybe there'll be some nice scenery on the drive.
Comment