The daily grind.

I remember a day about three years ago shortly after whatever the latest depressing economic news happened to be had been announced.  My boss, Ted, and I were walking toward the back of the store to go pick up some supplies for the bakery.  As we walked he said, "I pity your generation Kate, you won't have the opportunities my generation did.  It'll be hard to find a job and hard to support yourself.  I'm not trying to depress you, I just feel bad for you."  He wasn't the first to make those statements, and he wasn't the last. In fact, people still repeat those words to me today! But being a true teenager/young adult, in a moment of true rebellion/naivete, I politely smiled and nodded and made up my mind to get a job and not listen to him in regards to this anymore. Ah, to be young!

In any case, God blessed me with a job that supports me and amuses me.   I normally don't like to even think about work on the weekends, much less write about it.  I am definitely one of those people who likes to forget they have a job on the weekends!  However, for some reason I decided I wanted to write about my job for today's blog.

For those of you who don't know, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infant, Children (WIC) is a federally-funded venture meant to provide nutritious foods and nutrition education to those demographics that traditionally are more at risk to fall through the cracks, specifically women and their children.

At 8:30 a.m. I walk through the doors of the health department and head to my office.  Our first clients walk in the door at the same time, so while they're filling out all sorts of paper work and proving things like identity, income, and residency to our admin team, I set up for the day.  Each morning I put my purse away, change my Hoops and Yoyo calendar, start up my computer, print off my client roster, grab the roster, fill up my water bottle, and then talk with whoever is in the hallway, in that order.  If things are going smoothly, I will see my first client around 9:15.

Each of the client's fills out a questionnaire when they come in.  The form has about 20 questions meant to give me an idea of how to guide my nutrition assessment.  This, in addition to the lab results of height, weight, and Hemoglobin, dictate what we talk about.  We cover everything from encouraging people to make sure they eat a variety of foods from all the food groups to eating iron rich foods to help prevent anemia, from making sure they're not mixing formula incorrectly to helping trouble shoot breastfeeding problems.  For kids it seems like we spend a lot of time encouraging the parents to be parents and not let their kids be dictators.  I think I talk to every mom about limiting juice so their kid doesn't get cavities...or weigh 50lbs when they're three.  Once we're all done talking, I print up their food package.  Clients get a pretty decent package these days- things like eggs, whole grain bread, cereal, fruit and vegetables, in addition to milk and cheese.  On a typical day I see between 15-20 clients, with each session taking anywhere from 20-30 minutes.

That's the magic that happens four times per week.  On Wednesdays I teach class.  This is about eight 20 minute sessions spread out over the course of the day that are directed at prenatal women, children 1-5, and infants of different age ranges.  It's quite fun, I get to sit in a room and discuss nutrition topics with 10-20 moms.  Sometimes it's quiet and I just basically talk to myself.  Other times it gets rowdy, especially when people start throwing misinformation around and you have to tactfully tell people the correct information.  It sounds easy, but if you saw all the background work and dealt with all the nonsense that goes one with hosting a class, you'd know why I am exhausted and have a headache when I leave work on Wednesday.  I go to church about an hour after I get off work, and there have been a few Wednesday night prayer sessions at church where my first prayer is "Dear God, please help me stay awake for the next hour and a half!"

I am very thankful for my job.  It's steady, it pays well for entry-level, and it's a way to use my degree.  I enjoy getting to talk with a lot of my clients and provide them with just a little support to help them through the month.  It's also a source of frustration. (Ask my mom, she bears the brunt of my frustration!)  For every person who is on the program because they just need a little help for the month there are people who are the third generation of their family to be on WIC merely because they feel it's their right to get free food from the government (That is truly what people have told me).  It's a source of sadness too. For every family who is just in for a supplement to help them through the month, there is a girl who has little or no family support and no support from her child's father- she is the one who checks yes to box number 7: Do you skip meals or have limited food because of a lack of funds?

 People who work in WIC are typically cocky about "knowing" that their jobs will be around forever.  Since we serve such a limited demographic we don't come close to running out of funding money.  A lot of clients are unlikely to see a change in their income or nutrition status for a variety of reasons, so we'll always have a client base, and funding follows the clients.  Honestly, I wish we could see people in the community give just enough to help these families get by for the month or take these young single mothers "under their wing" and mentor them to their own success and see the WIC program shrink! (Shhh...don't tell my boss!!)  But that's a dream for further on down the road when I have more resources and more knowledge about how to start something like this...I think!

So minus the last two paragraphs, that's my job in a nutshell.  There are more intricacies to the job, but they are very boring and only worth explaining if you need to know them!  This is what I do five days a week, 7.5 hours per day (if I'm lucky!)  Like I said, it's a great job and I'm getting to learn a lot even as I am sharing information with clients.   I hope to get a few more good years out of it before I move on...not that I am planning on getting fired, I just have a feeling that this is only a temporary stop in this part of my life.

I hope I haven't bored anyone with my post today.  I know it's a departure from how and what I usually write, but like I said, it's what I felt I should write today.  And now, as always, it's late enough on Sunday night that I need to be thinking about getting ready for work tomorrow! It should be a peaceful night..the rain and mild temperatures will provide a peaceful background for sleeping! Have a great night everyone and have a fantastic week!