Tuesday, March 19, 2019

20190319.0430

One of the things I do in my current position--the thing I do most, in fact--is to mind the front desk at the substance abuse clinic where I work. Among others, this means I keep an eye on the entrance to our facility's parking lot--not because it is part of my formal job duties, but because doing so helps me to know when I am about to have to perform some of those formal duties. In essence, I like having a heads-up for things. And it is a useful thing, to be sure; I have something of a reputation in the agency and outside it for offering excellent customer service, and I am able to make that offer in part because I know when I am going to have to do it before I have to do it.
That said, I do find myself sometimes nonsensically annoyed by something I see quite often as I keep an eye towards where those who come to see us must go. For there are a great many people who use our parking lot as a turnaround, ducking in long enough to come about, or using our driveway for one point out of a three-point turn. Most of the time, I pay it no mind; later in the day, I tend to celebrate it, as people not coming in means that I can get my work wrapped up just that much more quickly, and I can get to the other things that matter to me--and, in some cases, far more than the job--in better time.
Some of the time, though, particularly when things are going slowly at the facility, I find myself hating those who duck in for so short a time and contribute nothing to us. We are a bit out of the way, back from the highway and not in easy sight of it, off of a road that does not see so much traffic as might be thought for us to be a common turning-point for drivers, instead of for those who are trying to get themselves out of the throes of addiction. (It never goes away, mind; an addict remains an addict. But that does not mean addicts are necessarily or always commanded by their addiction; we work to help them be not thus ordered, but to order their own lives.) Why we attract so many people who don't know where they're going eludes me, but the fact that we do is somewhat vexing. We could be seeing other people, folks whom we could help, instead of people who don't know how to get where they need to be.
I suppose I ought to look for the positive and think that those who turn around in our parking lot remember seeing our sign when they need the kind of help we offer--or when someone close to them does. It is simultaneously a happy thought and a sad one--happy in that those who might need help have a way to get it, but sad because the help is needed. And it is needed, abundantly, as I have the opportunity to see.

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