My Old Job

I went to visit my old work for the first time since May 2007. I used to work for the Missouri Department of Mental Health – St. Louis Regional Center. The last time I was there was to clean out my desk, which was pretty sad because I enjoyed working there. I started working at the Regional Center in January 2006. I had a caseload of 50 to 60 clients that lived in the North County area. I enjoyed my job, but did not like the political crap that went along with it. I really liked everyone on my team. They were all so supportive. I did wish that they were more interested in socializing. I mean they were very friendly and talkative at work, but not interested in going out for a drink afterward. Actually, I never asked if anyone wanted to go out after work, so maybe they would have. Many of them were older than I and had families. We were overworked because we had caseloads that were too big. In many of our caseloads we had several emergency situations and / or "high profile" clients. When I told my supervisor that I wasn’t returning, she decided to take a different position within the Regional Center. She said that my decision to not come back, led her to decide to change positions. I was afraid that my team mates would be mad at me. I told them I was coming back and I thought I was, but after I had Kaitlynn I just couldn’t do it. Kaitlynn also refused to take a bottle, so that didn’t help much. I was afraid that they were so stressed from having to take the clients from my caseload that they wouldn’t want to talk to me. I did email with one team mate (Nikki) every once in awhile. Well, Nikki ordered some Avon from me and asked if I could bring it to work. She said people would enjoy seeing me and she hadn’t met Kaitlynn (in person). So I went up there yesterday. It was great to see everyone. I was happy to hear the new supervisor had decreased their caseloads to less than 40 clients. They seemed to be happy and not stressed out. I was glad about that. It was nice catching up with some of them. However, there were a few people that weren’t there that I would’ve liked to have seen - maybe next time.