Scratch social worker off the list.

Yeah my mom did social work, she worked in detroit with pregnant heroin addicts on methadone during their preganancy.

She came home with more fucked up stories than i care to remember.

The one that sticks in my mind right now...her client was beaten by her pimp/father cause she didnt get him cigarettes on fathers day with the trick money...did I mention she was 8 months pregnant and miscarried?

Stuff like this got pretty bland to me as a kid, I wouldnt suggest sharing these stories with your kids if you are crazy enough to want to do this kinda work.

....aaaaaaaaaand this is why my mother decided not to switch from wanting to be a social worker to a sociologist.

I want to take this job. It calls to me. I feel like working in cellular sales is simply preparation for greater authority over the lives of deadbeats.

[Edited on Mar 12, 2006 by Jeff_Fries]

For those who do make it work in the field, it's a powerful experience. Every now and then you hear something that just sticks with you for a long time. The first time one of the kids I work with told me I was more of a father to him than anything he'd ever known in his life, well it kind of had me in a haze for a few days, really thinking about how influential everything I did was.

I work in a hospital and the SW's have it horrible there too.

I work with the elderly and some people treat their parents/relatives just nasty. Some people can't wait to ship people off to a nursing home (perferably one far away so they have a better excuse not to visit). (SW's have to set up placements at the homes).

We have quite a turnover with SW's

And the system crushes all idealism out of yet another soul.....God, reading that made me feel ill.

About 15 years back I contemplated a change of careers and took and past the written and physical to be a cop. I knew I would be very good and successful. But I also knew that someday I would come upon some horrible abused kid and the person who did would still be there. I would have no choice but to kill the SOB who hurt the kid.

My sister prosecuted child abuse/sex crimes for about three years. I met one of my sister’s colleagues had been prosecuting those cases for several years there was something missing or dead in that woman. I can’t describe or explain it but she just wasn’t all there.

I was so very happy when my sister transferred to a different bureau.

The thing about making something like that a career is that it means to feed your kids sometimes you need to keep doing things you dont agree with at work.

The social systems in this country are fundimentaly flawed, chances are you will have to do things (or not do things) that you find plain old morally wrong.

You can make a difference without your livelyhood becoming dependent upon it.

My wife is currently working on her Ph.D. in social work. Luckily in all her years in the field, she has managed to avoid most of it.

I ALMOST went back to school to get a master in social work and I really feel for social workers. They've got one of the hardest jobs and they get paid peanuts. I volunteered for a year answering a suicide/crisis hotline and just a few hours of that a day could be emotionally draining. I can't imagine doing that for 50 or 60 hours a week. Is it any wonder that people burn out so quick? I really have a lot of respect for those who can do that job.