Just over 7 years ago, I received the job that I truly thought would be my career. I was working with developmentally disabled adults in a group home setting.
The following years seemed to confirm my feeling that this would become my career, as I advanced up the ladder as quickly as I could. Within a year, I was an assistant manager. Two years after that I was manager. I coauthored the Y2k disaster program for the 50 programs under our care, and authored the individual Y2k support plans for our 6 individuals.
Then I saw the dark side of the system, the abuses that came from the bureaucracy, and they were bad. Couple that with 5 1/2 years of giving 60-80 hour workweeks (plus overnights), and I was a walking pile of burnout. I quit as manager and continued to work in a part time capacity, hoping to regain my groove. I didn't. A last ditch effort to apply for a job in work supports narrowly failed, and I pretty much went back to pedestrian work for the next year and a half.
Flash forward to today, as I'm reading a want ad requesting a job coach for work supports in our area. It doesn't pay much, I know, but I apply, tentatively, hoping I will have the wisdom to turn down the job if that's in my best interests. In the preliminary interview, the supervisor mentions they will be opening 6 group homes in the area and looking for individuals to staff them. My management experience makes me a natural.
So here I'm caught up in wondering: is this a case of needing to just "get back on the horse", or should I really rethink this possibility? Was this meant to be a career, and the last year and a half just an extended sabbatical? The thing is, there are no group homes in our area, so they will be open to new approaches, to maverick personalities (which definitely defines me), and I think I can do it. But I just don't know; I'm a little gunshy from my earlier experiences.
But perhaps, in this case "gunshy" just means "wiser".
signing off,
Gideon MacLeish