Cue Standoff Music But Make Coconut Cilantro Rice First

I’m ready to talk about the worst character in my social work experience. I will be posting over the next few days some of my thoughts about this topic. Catch up here. It’s an unlikely person: the school counselor. This guy was the biology teacher before becoming the school’s counselor and had been working there for over 30 years when I came in. Later I will tell you his ideas/theories about some of the students, many of which were my clients (it involved the parents and the troublemaking lineage).

In the two years that services were offered by my employer, I was the fourth case manager in this school alone. Most case mangers had several coworkers to keep them sane but I was all alone at one of the farthest schools in the county. The first and second case managers “didn’t fit.” The counselor would simply state that so and so “was not a good fit for the school” and that would suffice as credible without much, if any, investigation and a dismissal of the case manager. This statement actually meant from him, “I don’t agree with the judge’s decision to court order case management services into all the schools so I’m going to do everything in my power to make it fail.” I found this out late in the game.

I’d heard plenty of times the counselor make inappropriate comments about the judge (I think he has something against women)as well as, several other agencies…I read for myself nasty things that he had said about me and my employer. He sent a message out, halfway through the school year, stating that “no one needs to take the social worker seriously.” Much of this treatment was due to an incident reported to him by the principal (which never happened) while he was on a week-long vacation. I’ll get to that later.

Had I known this information, I wouldn’t have beaten myself up in my attempts to “get along” with the counselor and therefore, the school. Not only his uncooperative, immature behavior, the newer principal was corrupted by this man, “taken under the wing” if you will. My first year there (and only year) was the principal’s second and he came into power with scandal following close behind. I was informed by several people that he was actually the principal at the high school (in the same county) but that something had happened (I never found out but it must’ve been bad) and that half of the faculty/staff went on strike and refused to work with him as the principal. I think those against were reminded how nice it is to hold a teaching position and told that numerous others were in line so they “fell in line” but discourse was all around.

Of course when I came in the counselor had made those persons against the young principal sound like idiots. I bought it for a short time…until I got to know those teachers and they actually made the most sense and were the most respected.

Anyway, the first and second case managers “didn’t fit” and the third, the pregnant case manager that I came in to replace, openly admitted to me that she only did half of her job. Her words were something like this: “I don’t know what to do about the emotional problems of the clients so I just see that they do their homework,” which made her a glorified tutor (no offense I worked as a tutor but it’s inappropriate as a social worker to only perform this and perform it not very well). But the problem was that many of her clients were failing and none of them had all of their work done at the end of the year, even though the teachers accepted any work up to the last week of school. (Every client under my assistance completed their work and had higher grades but no one recognized that beyond the resource room.)

The person that I replaced was a very nice woman but being a nice person doesn’t mean that she did her job well. I personally liked her but professionally, she kissed a lot of ass, billed for things that I later found to be “unbillable” or overestimated the amount of time she spent doing billable hours and then, she would go home (for the 2 months that I shadowed her) and do her fee slips…basically working a half day. She had a Masters in, no kidding, art psychology…she told me she enjoys looking at art and thinking about how the artist felt while doing the work and really wanted to get a job writing about this…how that places you into a salary category in the world of social work, I’ll never know…and there’s a Masters for that? I chuckled when I heard about the ACORN incidents-no surprise here.

I believe they kept her around, not only because she was very nice and easygoing, but also due to her knowledge of how the paperwork/hospital ran since she was in the first group of case managers to be hired. I imagine they pumped more time and money into training these people and when I came in, the agency had grown rather large (even in only its second year) and their training suffered so they kept a number of people that shouldn’t have been. That’s my take. A take I didn’t really have until my time there was almost over, when pieces of the puzzle were falling into place.

Some people were hired simply, to me, because they had a Masters degree in something, anything, and were paid salary while I was stuck on hourly (the lowest hourly pay) while holding a Bachelor’s degree catered to children/adolescent growth (and human resources/business)-one of the more relative degrees for the job. I found that I was the least paid team player while out one day at lunch with my coworkers. Good times. Most case managers on the school-based side were licensed teachers that couldn’t find a position, waiting to hear that one was open so they could fight for it and leave hell behind.

I’ll stop here for today-sorry if you don’t care but you can always skip to the recipe…I know I am guilty of that sometimes. I will continue the story tomorrow, I think.

Last week I was hungry for rice and today is Fat Tuesday (I connect this recipe with Mardi Gras but I can’t put my finger on why). My hunger for rice happens a few times a month -I love rice. You can put almost anything on it and have a meal. Steam yourself a large amount over the weekend or on Monday, add a topping (pesto, chutney, cheese or what I’m about to share, some tuna or salmon) and no worries about meals. This toasted coconut cilantro rice recipe comes from weheartfood.com. I changed just a few amounts of ingredients and a method or two. I think pineapple, maybe some mango, would be great on the side. I served it with a roasted salmon fillet for the two of us but black beans with some cumin would be great as well- we were sitting happy. So sit happy after an easy, short amount of time in the kitchen with this one.

Toasted Coconut Cilantro Rice
Serves 3
 Print Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup white basmati rice or another long-grain type
¼ cup sweetened shredded coconut
1 tsp finely chopped ginger or ginger paste
1 tsp finely chopped jalapeno with some seeds
3 tsp vegetable or canola oil
1 to 11/3 cups water
salt/pepper
½ cup cilantro, chopped
¼ cup scallions, chopped

Soak rice in cold water for 30 minutes, and then drain well in a sieve. In a large skillet, toast coconut over low/medium heat until golden brown. It will burn rather quickly so keep an eye on it. Remove from the skillet and set aside. In the same skillet, add 1 tsp of the oil over medium heat. Cook ginger and jalapeno for a few minutes, then add the rice, stirring for a few minutes. Stir in 1 cup of water (just so the rice is covered-might take more) and salt. Bring to a boil, covered. Reduce the heat to low and cook covered for 10 minutes, then take the cover off and cook until the water is absorbed. Remove from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork after this.

While allowing the rice to stand, pulse coconut, cilantro, scallions, salt/pepper and the remaining 2 tsp of oil in a food processor until combined. Fluff this mixture into the rice. I think pineapple, maybe some mango, would be great on the side. I served it with a roasted salmon fillet but black beans with some cumin (or Salsa Lizano) would be great too.