Tough Decisions

"No Copyright Infringement Intended" T-Shirt
http://amandaliauw-04-2-7.blogspot.com/....
No Copyright Infringement Intended

Anyone who reads my blog or who is one of my Facebook friends will know that I will use phrases such as "No Copyright Infringement Intended" or "Modified without Permission" quite regularly, and that I will always include my source for images and/ or quotations.

It might be argued that this is abnormally important to me, but my reasons are manifold.

Many of my friends are artists of one form or another:  painters, illustrators, musicians, authors, dancers, mermaid tail makers, et cetera.  They invest time, talent, money, physical endurance, and perhaps most importantly, their reputations into their work, regardless of whether their pursuit be full- or part-time.  Occasionally, someone will alter one of my friends' works as pass it off as his or her own, and that is far from the idiom "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."  It is instead theft - a violation of the highest degree.

"Five W Chalboard"
http://www.fastcompany.com/....
No Copyright Infringement Intended

At one time, my art, if you will, was to write behavior reports for my residents at a faith-based, non-profit organization.  The documentation was required to answer all of the standard questions:  Who?  What?  Where?  When?  Why?  How?  It was never quite as simple as a friendly game of Clue, of course, because it was real life, and actual individuals were involved.  The vast majority of the people that we served were formerly homeless.  Many had mental illness, chemical dependency, criminal records, or a combination of these.

I want to talk about one such report.  The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, enacted on August 21, 1996 - as well as common decency - prevents me from getting into specifics, but what I *can* say is this:  one of my residents was exerting influence over another, due to an alleged romantic connection between the two of them, and it was my observation that his behaviors potentially compromised the ongoing housing of the other individual.

I documented an interaction with the resident whose behavior I was calling into question and fulfilled all of the requirements in detail.  As there were some additional concerns about the matter, I also recorded my personal observations.  To separate the actual from the observational, I inserted a dividing line:  ~~~~~~~~~~.

A few weeks later, my worst fears came to fruition.  Everything - every single thing - about which I had expressed potential concerns turned out to be a grim reality, one with which came the loss of housing and corresponding safety of the second resident.  When I went to review to report, everything below the dividing line was gone!  There was no question in my mind about it being the same report, because the line itself remained intact  ~~~~~~~~~~.

The planet Alderaan exploding in
Star Wars Episode IV:  A New Hope (1977)
http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWsuperl-2.html
No Copyright Infringement Intended

For me, this was not an exercise in "I told you you so," but an effort to underscore my ability to observe and understand the people I was serving, as well as to illustrate how some of them created a genuine climate of harm for others.  When my work was gone, it was a "disturbance in the force," a professional parallel to the destruction of the planet Alderaan.  A foundational chronicle, albeit one of strictly theoretical quality when it was written,  had been eliminated.  Because of the way that the database was designed, there was no backup of the original report, and I had not kept a separate electronic or printed copy for myself, as to do so would have been a violation of company policy.  The only that I *could* determine was the modification history of the report.  In partnership with the database administrator, I learned that it was my supervisor who had altered my work.

As you can imagine, this created profound trust issues for me.  As the second resident lost her housing and support services while the first one maintained his, seemingly without any sort of sanction, the sense of injustice compounded.  Additionally, other residents willfully conducted themselves in various ways as to compromise the safety of their neighbors and the staff who served them, behaviors that were not influenced by mental illness or chemical dependency, but by personal gain.  A primary example of this would be to allow individuals into the building who had been banned because of their actions at our site or at one of our other locations.  As these practices were allowed to flourish, still other residents observed the apparent lack of consequences and adopted challenging behaviors of their own.  Calling law enforcement to resolve matters became all-too-common.

The Art of Walking Away
http://therecordingrevolution.com/....
No Copyright Infringement Intended

This was no longer the company at which I had been hired.  The transformation had gone from "change" to a fundamental shift in the culture at my site, and participating in it no longer made me feel as though I was part of any grand solution, but that I was very much part of the problem.  Transferring within the agency was not a realistic option, as some of the sites offered a more specialized brand of care than I was qualified to provide, or they were in a different division altogether, such as working with children, which is admittedly not one of my strengths.  I chose to walk away from the organization.  It was a difficult decision, because that meant leaving people about whom I had come to care a great deal.  It also meant that I would be unemployed, as I had not lined up anything else.

In the interim, I have had the opportunity to spend time with my family, attend networking events, and to volunteer for a political action committee during the 2012 election cycle.  I am pleased to say that I was an ally in a successful cause.  It has also allowed me to cultivate relationships within some niche communities, corresponding on a daily basis with people locally, throughout the country and around the world.  I am, of course, eager to re-enter the paid workforce and to use my talents to make a contribution toward the greater good for others.

Have you ever been in a situation wherein walking away also meant taking some big risks?  Have you ever found yourself having made a decision that was good for your own well-being, but others do not seem to understand your motivation?  Please feel free to share your comments below.