Sunday: To begin, we usually operate with a staff of 9-11 people during our long day shifts. However, for the majority of the day there were 5 of us, that doesn't sound terrible, but the ratio between guest and staff was about 22:1. That has the potential to create quite a few issues.
The day started off semi-normally, but began to take a weird turn when the ambulance and fire trucks showed up around 10:30am. This is a fairly normal thing as well. However, the lady we were dealing with was not. We called the ambulance because Diana slumped over in the Smoke Room and started seizing. She was unresponsive, but eventually came to and was able to talk to the paramedics. She told everyone that she had MS and what she was experiencing were muscle spasms brought on by stress. These spasms (according to her) were usually treated by alcohol and marijuana....no lie. Diana claimed this is what her "doctor" told her. Anyways, the paramedics took her to the hospital and things returned to Nativity House normal. The End...for about 4 hours.
About 2 hours after Diana was taken away, she came back. She said she was released from the hospital and everything was fine. Things were fine until she started having her spasms again. She was slumped over a table completely immobile, so the ambulance and firefighters arrived once again. Yet again, Diana claimed that she was completely fine and this was normal. Really? However, the paramedics (being the intelligent men that they are) had to disagree. So, Diana once again rode off in her boxy yellow chariot. Thankfully, at that point, I left work.
Monday: Short-staffed again. Megeen (one of the Jesuit volunteers) and I decided that we were going to take a crack at making lunch for all the guests. Side note...my hands still smell like the onions that I spent slicing and dicing yesterday. It refuses to leave. Anyways, things were going great until we were just about to clean up after the meal was served. This fellow came up and asked for a plate, no big deal. However, I didn't know that he was banned from Nativity House for 30 days and now he was sitting on a bench eating. Cutty (our security guy) went over and the guy got irate and threatened Cutty. He later tried to shove a cupcake in Cutty's face. We won't be seeing him for at least a year and the police have a report against him.
To make matters worse, his friend (we call him Skippy) decided that he needed to follow suit. He started arguing with the staff about some kind of phone charger and going through his not-present "girlfriend's" stuff before brandishing a fork and shoving it in our director's face. Not smart. The police now have his information and he is unwelcome until next year as well.
The day was topped off by some unfortunate information that I will not realistically get a non-LVC retreat vacation until at least February, so our boss, Dominique decided enough was enough. "I'm taking ya'll out for a drink" was what she decided. We went to a micro-brewery in Tacoma and laughed for about 3 hours. I sipped my iced-tea (no alcohol for me...don't worry Mom) and laughed the hardest I have in a long time after a very long and weird work week.
All I can say now is thank the Lord for the weekend....which happens to be Tuesday and Wednesday for me.
Chao.
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