A silent scream...

Do you remember those "oh-so-boring-classes" in college? Or the seemingly never-ending, highly boring work meetings?? Yeah, those. The ones where as the instructor, or your boss, or the guest-speaker was talking you had this silent scream going on in your brain that went something like this:

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, nobody ask a question puh-leeeeese. Everyone, just be quiet and we can get out of here ASAP. (and) Good Lord, can this person be any more boring?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?! Please let there be a fire alarm, anything so we can leave!!!! Let me outta here!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Understand? Okay, all you lawyers (and families of such) stop reading here...

Today at my CPS training, we had a lawyer present the "Laws Pertaining to Child Abuse and Maltreatment". I thought this would be a great primer on everything I wanted to know about the laws of my new job (but were afraid to ask). But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, the lawyer they had was just so dry and well, boring.

She basically just read her 'PowerPoint' presentation to us. Yeah, for SIX freakin' hours! OY. I mean really, I have my Master's Degree, I can read the damn 'PowerPoint' - she did hand it out of course. Uggggg. She read it in a mono-tone voice and had a hard time making eye-contact. I'm sorry, but she wasn't just boring, she was damn boring! AND, to make matters worse, we have some of "THOSE PEOPLE" in the class (which by the way has 23 people in it) who INSIST on asking questions - yeah, like 5 minutes before we are supposed to leave, they ask a 10 minute question. Well, it wouldn't be so bad if the instructor didn't have to consult her 500 page book on all the codes because she thought we should know the exact code (and paragraph) she was talking about - but good grief lady, it's all in the 'PowerPoint' hand-out!

Oh, and don't you dare promise a room full of social workers that we're going to get out early if you don't really mean it. EARLY means an hour early or at least 45 minutes early. NOT, I repeat, NOT 25 minutes early when we never did have our 15 minute break (so therefore we were "supposed" to include that 15 minutes in our 25 minute "early leave time"). Is that "Lawyer-talk" for "early"? Did you all feel the "woosh" of air as we all sped out of there at approximately 4:35pm this evening? Sorry to all you lawyers and friends and families of ones, I know "your" family member is totally not like this lady, no, it's not possible. But then again, you aren't reading this part are you?

Can you tell I didn't have a wonderful day? Is it obvious? Sorry. Tomorrow should be much more interesting and relevant - it's the start of "CMI" (Child Maltreatment Indicators) - or what I need to be looking for when I go out on an investigation. Seriously, I really am looking forward to this - because this is the stuff I need to know to do a good job.

Oh, and to answer the "What new thing did I learn today?" - I learned that if you threaten a CPS worker with bodily harm - that will earn you up to THREE years in jail. So don't do it okay?

Okay.