As studying for the GRE has me running to the dictionary more than an American businessman in Tijuana runs to the toilet, I decided to look up the word "intense" before I wrote on it. I found four definitions: (1) Possessing or displaying a distinctive feature to an extreme degree; (2) Extreme in degree, strength, or size; (3) Involving or showing strain or extreme effort (4) Deeply felt; profound; tending to feel deeply.
Working here certainly involves a show of strain or extreme effort. While expounding on this may be a good stress reliever and even better for my ego, such a description does little to separate this job from any other; and describing what makes this job unique is a tenant of this blog. I intend, instead, to focus on (4). The same event is often both positively and negatively intense.
Example. A totally harmless 65 year old man wants to get his open container ticket dismissed. I walk him through the homeless court process and, after realizing his tickets are alcohol related, tell him he'll have to prove his sobriety by going to AA meetings. "I'm 65 years old and been drinking since I was 17...it's going to be hard to stop." The easy, classic response would have been "nobody said it was going to be easy." Instead I just nodded and thought that, if I was in his situation, I'm not sure I would quit either. I felt pity, and at the same time gave up on the situation.
Last week he came back and had his AA card filled out six times--all at the Champion Guidance Center.
Example. During a walk to work a few weeks ago I watched as a man approached me, his eyes intent on the grass where the nearby fence touched the ground. He reacted with a celebratory fist pump, exactly the kind you see Kobe Bryant do after ducking and weaving, when he found a dirty needle. He immediately hopped into an approaching car and I immediately became an advocate for needle exchange.
Example. A smart, good looking, computer-savvy man with a host of handy man skills can't progress on account of his mental illness.
Example. A tired, partly blind 63 year old man asked me to help him fill out a housing application. He has a thick Southern Accent, wears perscription sunglasses that aren't his perscription both indoors and out, lives out of a slummy hotel, and, in his own words, "I know more about my paperwork than the people filling it out, I can answer all the questions, I just can't write it too good." Despite this and all his years of substance abuse and manual labor with the local labor union moving concrete, he exuded wisdom. I remembered this because during our community meeting he was the only one who said that, rather than taking ownership of the issues which was the point of the conversation, most of the participants were simply pointing fingers at each other. He told me the Southern Accent gets in the way of people understanding him so I told him I went to school in Mobile and he told me he was from outside of Hattiesburg. The small towns he kept naming reminded me of weekend countryside joy rides through the rural deep south--a memory I treasure from my college years. He was surprised, indeed, shocked that I was able to pull up the phone number of the labor union he worked at a decade ago in under thirty seconds with the aid of the Internet. "So that's the Internet, huh?Damn, people who can't read miss out on a lot don't they?" I immediately pulled up google maps and showed him satellite pictures of Laurel, Mississippi, his hometown he hadn't seen in 40 years. The rental application was the least of our accomplishments today: I had the pleasure of witnessing a 65 year old man learn, for the first time, the joy of reading.
I relayed these stories because of their intensity: they were deeply felt by all parties involved. The feeling was, at once, positive and negative, sorrowful and joyful. The feeling was intense.
Working here certainly involves a show of strain or extreme effort. While expounding on this may be a good stress reliever and even better for my ego, such a description does little to separate this job from any other; and describing what makes this job unique is a tenant of this blog. I intend, instead, to focus on (4). The same event is often both positively and negatively intense.
Example. A totally harmless 65 year old man wants to get his open container ticket dismissed. I walk him through the homeless court process and, after realizing his tickets are alcohol related, tell him he'll have to prove his sobriety by going to AA meetings. "I'm 65 years old and been drinking since I was 17...it's going to be hard to stop." The easy, classic response would have been "nobody said it was going to be easy." Instead I just nodded and thought that, if I was in his situation, I'm not sure I would quit either. I felt pity, and at the same time gave up on the situation.
Last week he came back and had his AA card filled out six times--all at the Champion Guidance Center.
Example. During a walk to work a few weeks ago I watched as a man approached me, his eyes intent on the grass where the nearby fence touched the ground. He reacted with a celebratory fist pump, exactly the kind you see Kobe Bryant do after ducking and weaving, when he found a dirty needle. He immediately hopped into an approaching car and I immediately became an advocate for needle exchange.
Example. A smart, good looking, computer-savvy man with a host of handy man skills can't progress on account of his mental illness.
Example. A tired, partly blind 63 year old man asked me to help him fill out a housing application. He has a thick Southern Accent, wears perscription sunglasses that aren't his perscription both indoors and out, lives out of a slummy hotel, and, in his own words, "I know more about my paperwork than the people filling it out, I can answer all the questions, I just can't write it too good." Despite this and all his years of substance abuse and manual labor with the local labor union moving concrete, he exuded wisdom. I remembered this because during our community meeting he was the only one who said that, rather than taking ownership of the issues which was the point of the conversation, most of the participants were simply pointing fingers at each other. He told me the Southern Accent gets in the way of people understanding him so I told him I went to school in Mobile and he told me he was from outside of Hattiesburg. The small towns he kept naming reminded me of weekend countryside joy rides through the rural deep south--a memory I treasure from my college years. He was surprised, indeed, shocked that I was able to pull up the phone number of the labor union he worked at a decade ago in under thirty seconds with the aid of the Internet. "So that's the Internet, huh?Damn, people who can't read miss out on a lot don't they?" I immediately pulled up google maps and showed him satellite pictures of Laurel, Mississippi, his hometown he hadn't seen in 40 years. The rental application was the least of our accomplishments today: I had the pleasure of witnessing a 65 year old man learn, for the first time, the joy of reading.
I relayed these stories because of their intensity: they were deeply felt by all parties involved. The feeling was, at once, positive and negative, sorrowful and joyful. The feeling was intense.
posted by Ryan at 1:27 PM
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