Back From my Florida Trip

So all that whining in this journal about not being worked hard enough payed off. The gods heard me and gave me stuff to do. So the next day I went to the Hard Rock shelter and yes, it was an inappropriate place for a shelter being attached to a huge casino. I wound up getting in 25k steps in loading and carting peoples stuff down through the casino to buses. It was chaos. On my first run I was stopped by some guy I don’t remember if he was Red Cross or security but he was super serious and intense about telling me I could not take people down, only their stuff because it was not okay to have a bunch of people standing around before the buses show up. So I have to tell the people to trust me with what’s sometimes the very last of everything that they own, let me take their stuff down but they have to stay behind. Then I get down to the loading area and the buses are all there and the folks there are like “Why didn’t you bring the people down? Why would you separate all these people from their stuff? We’re here waiting, ready to go.”
Every step of the way it’s just chaos but in the end it gets done. We got in a groove and I spent several hours hauling stuff down to load on the buses.
I’m trying to think about these kinds of situations, like how do you organize a whole group of people to get a thing done like this. Like what are the best strategies, and I think in these cases, first of all in the future I think I’m just going to put my foot down when people ask me to separate clients from their possessions. It’s just not reasonable for us to expect them to trust us when we are this disorganized with what few possessions they have. But some folks were trying to create lists and stuff and that just didn’t work. In these kinds of situations you need to be like a leader but not a micromanager. Just explain the goal and destination, explain the resources, the base plan, then leave folks to figure out their own specific situation and ask for help if they need it.
“Label your stuff, find a spot on a cart, load your stuff, stay with and follow your stuff to the bus, onto the bus and to the new location.” Then just let people figure it out. When you start trying to create rosters and telling people who can go where when you don’t have any automated system in place to do that and no experience in this location, micromanaging just isn’t going to work.
Anyway, don’t know why I went on like that. Red Cross is not bad about micro managing. Usually we are left to figure stuff out for ourselves.
So then someone wanted to give me a rental car so I took that to the new shelter at a rec center just like 8 minutes away which apparently the plumbers had told us they’d have the toilets and water running by the time we got there but no, when we got there they still did not have functioning toilets except the trailer ones that wouldn’t flush until they got fully set up.
Anyway, they were desperate to get out of that casino.
Oh, I also watched a guy have a seizure. Some lady got in a yelling match with the lady from the nurse station because she felt she was handling the situation wrong. But over the whole trip that’s the most dramatic thing that happened.
But then I got a call saying that I wasn’t actually supposed to be at this new shelter. I thought it was the supervisor at the mega shelter but turned out later it was actually the supervisor from the Hard Rock shelter. See that’s the problem with doing everything via phone instead of an app like Slack where everyone has a profile and you can clearly tell who is who. I need to be diligent about entering absolutely every red cross person who calls or texts me from now on. anyway, they told me I was only on loan from the mega shelter. I needed to get back there ASAP because they were desperate for help.
So I told the rec center shelter supervisor that I had to leave and so she’d need someone else for serving food and something else I’d agreed to do for her which I forgot. So we carpooled back to the mega shelter and of course they were like “I wonder why they sent you tonight. We got nothing urgent going on. Just be here in the morning.”
So then the next day at the mega shelter they actually had work for me. I worked two full 12 or maybe even 14 hour days, tending the front desk, organizing stock, feeding. Dealing with more confusion. The contractors helped me serve food my first day but then they got in trouble because they’re not authorized to serve, only Red Cross can do that, but it’s not like I have a food workers permit or anything like that so I have no idea why we have that rule.
There were three security guards with guns in the front office that made me sort of uncomfortable especially since they were seated behind me. I have so much trauma with authority figures abusing their power that I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe in those kinds of situations.
Then another Red Crosser working SRT turned on the TV saying he can’t stand the silence but didn’t really ask anyone elses opinion, then put it on the news, but it’s like I know I have no right to complain because I didn’t speak up. I could have said something and asked “hey can we put on something a little less depressing and political, maybe something more appropriate for the kids.” They no doubt would have handed me the remote.
But most of us don’t think about that kind of thing. The background of mainstream news may not seem like anything, but it drills into your subconscious. It’s all depressing and it sinks into your soul, even when you don’t notice it. It’s super subtle of course, subtle enough that I didn’t speak up about it, but see over time, exposure to that stuff just brings you down emotionally and distorts your view on the world and that’s really not what people need when they’re on the edge of homelessness and wondering what they’re going to have to come back to.
There was another moment where I really regret not speaking up. There was a lady who couldn’t get her pain medication. All she needed was a ride to the pharmacy. At the time she talked to me, I didn’t have a rental car and didn’t realize I could just ask about anyone and they would just throw me their keys and I also didn’t know if it was acceptable to drive her. We have rules back in Pittsburgh that we can’t transport clients. She said she’d talked to medical a couple times and they gave her a tylenol and said they wouldn’t help her get to the pharmacy. I really should have followed up with medical and asked them what the rules are, was there a miscommunication, because half the time, your problems can be solved with a bit of improved communication. But I could have asked “will I get in trouble for just taking a vehicle and driving her to the damn pharmacy cuz that’s actually all she needs?” But I guess my excuse was we were in the middle of moving the whole shelter and we had a deadline I guess. Then I had to leave.
Anyway, I worked two good days at the mega shelter and learned a lot, like nothing super specific, just some general concepts about running a shelter, like how we are all volunteers and no one’s really actually in charge. Your supervisor probably got promoted on the fly because he had two more days experience than the other folks. You’ve got to figure it out and make the best choice for the clients to meet their needs instead of blindly listening to rules. People kept telling me to be flexible. You won’t survive in Red Cross if you’re not flexible. That’s definitely true.
Anyway, flew home a week ago today. We had evicted one of my roommates while I was away so that’s even more emotion packed into me during those two weeks. So I just spent the weekend doing nothing. Playing Brotato.
Brotato Brotato, you are nothing but boiled down concentrated addiction. They came out with an update.
I curse my other roommate for getting me into it. No I’m just kidding it’s not that bad. They just released a co-op mode and it’s been kind of a household bonding experience just discussing the different strategies and character builds.
But I was super lazy this weekend. I did do a quick and easy Red Cross call on Saturday but otherwise I vegged out.
But overall the trip was well worth it.
I’m more committed to Red Cross than I was before. I saw it as a passing interest. I joined in 2020 because my roommate was hardcore into COVID lockdown and wouldn’t let me do anything so I figured Red Cross was the only way I could get out of the house without her screaming at me and accusing me of being reckless and selfish. I figured I’d quit after the lockdown but I just kept going, like not wanting to make that awkward call saying I’m done but also it’s like, as much as I hate going on the local calls, they do make me feel like I’m doing something of value. Short term going on a call rather sucks but long term they’re more than worth it. My mental health has no doubt been massively helped by Red Cross.
So now I’m more dedicated to them as an organization even though I’m more aware of their flaws. I mean the disorganization can be solved they could come into the 21st century and get a Slack server and solve half their problems right off the bat. I’m 46 and I feel like I’m one of the youngest people there. That could improve.
But at the core of this organization is thousands of employees but mostly volunteers who are dedicated to this shared mission of actually doing something to contribute. It’s like a big peace-loving semi-anarchist hippie commune but with a purpose. I fucking love it.
I kind of want to do a month next year and become a shelter supervisor. I also kind of want to learn damage assessment — but I wonder if really some of the most value I could provide is in SRT but the real SRT not just intake/triage, the part where you sit down with the client and actually problem solve. You find numbers for them to call or you call them yourself, you brainstorm about how to actually solve their problems, get a job or find housing.
But we will see what I do going forward with them. I do know I’m more dedicated to Red Cross than I was before.

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