I knew Monday that this was going to be a bad week. It was. Keep in mind this is in the context of a transitional house for the homeless, and that I live here with them as the day/night manager and cannot escape. Bed bugs returned to one of my clients rooms. Last week we had them "taken care of" and then we found 3 more. When you find just one of them, it's all over. Launder everything in high heat water and dryer. Let furniture bake in the sun. Wrap box springs and mattresses in plastic, or get rid of them altogether. Since we had found them a second time, it was time to rip out the carpet and have it replaced. My CEO does not like spending any money. So she had her meth head son do it. This is the result: Yes, that's 3 inches of uncovered glue. A built in bug trap, I guess. We don't have the money to get it fixed or replace the base board (apparently), so along with that and a perpetually sticky floor from gaps between the seams elsewhere... job well done! Then a bunch of alcohol issues. Was about to take a client to put in an application for an apartment (the fifth one I've found for him) before his Section 8 voucher expires, come to find out... he went and bought a small bottle of vodka an hour prior and was drinking. Some other issues. Now there's a massive water leak coming through the ceiling of one of the bathrooms, which started last night at 9pm. It should be fixed in about 6 hours, but no hot water until then, which means a lot of people bitching to me about how much this place sucks. I don't disagree. The CEO of my current non-profit told my friend and I that "[she's] going to shit all over our idea", our idea being the non-profit we're forming ourselves. She's done very petty things like send porn stars to our dentists office this week telling them that we're doing free dental care, and is trying to cockblock us with the American Legion and with the VA. Luckily she's burned a lot of bridges, and it's not working well. To that end, we have several fundraisers scheduled now and I'm building our website. And that was my week, in a nut shell. Feels good to get it out. /blog
I'll definitely update on our progress when I have stuff to update on. We've made some big strides these past 2 weeks in partnering with the American Legion and starting talks of having the nearest VA Hospital outsource us for dental care. We're trying to provide free dental care for veterans. It's strange that the CEO of my day-job non-profit is so combative about it because it's entirely unrelated to what she does, which is housing, employment, and benefit services. We're barely into formation and already dealing with politics; we're assuming that it's because the idea is good. I have unbelievable stories about my CEO, like how she recently had a district attorney prosecute an innocent guy (who happens to be her nieces husband) for embezzlement to cover up her financial mismanagement which led to 3 federal agencies auditing us. But even posting this is dangerous because I'm not entirely anonymous here.
There's always going to be something in your way like that, remember she's just an obstacle not an unmovable limitation you have to live with; please don't let it discourage you. I've been fighting the administration at my school with a thousand and one projects-- anywhere from starting a JROTC program to fixing the school's water foutnains-- where I'd show up with full plans and all steps taken care of, 400 signatures and even the funding and they'd shit on me because it's too inconvenient for them to sign some documents. I took that shit cause after some time I felt that I had no choice; you're moving forward with a really good thing despite a thousand times that same resistance, so you better keep us posted until your non-profit becomes the biggest in the U.S. (edit - didn't mean that as a pep talk more of a desperate plea in search of good people actually being successful)
Agree 100%. If anything it motivates us even more; nothing like adversity to make convictions stronger. It's a shame that your school shits on your ideas, but I hope they have reasons beyond the inconvenience of signing stuff. JROTC does require financial maintenance, though; if you want to keep pushing it hit up your local American Legion post and explain the situation to them. They'd be more than happy to approach your school about it and could probably find support, volunteers, and funding beyond your reach. The fountain though... no excuse for them. Awesome that you're proactive about that kind of stuff, though. Hopefully!she's just an obstacle not an unmovable limitation you have to live with
until your non-profit becomes the biggest in the U.S.
Of course there's a lot more outside of my control, I'm just being pissy. Best of luck to the both of us then :D