Dear (((Bettie)))! I hope that you are doing well despite all the goings on at work. I received two good pieces of advice when I was working. The first was choose your battles. I used to try and stand up for every injustice I saw with clients I dealt with. As hard as this is to believe the government department had to rewrite part of its policy on one benefit program they had, as I kept a spouse on benefits after her husband died even though according to my supervisor, she wasn’t entitled to. But the legislation missed out a key factor of how long the couple had to have lived together or been married. The couple had only been married three weeks I seem to recall. The long and short of it was that my lady got to have the benefit. I took that to heart of choosing my battles. The second thing a different supervisor told me was that if I had time to watch other people not doing their job, I wasn’t doing mine. I didn’t like the comment at the time as this one girl did nothing but visit with clients and staff pretty much the whole day, and the other staff would be left over and over, doing part of her caseload. She had a gift for small talk and visiting. Her behavior would irritate me and she had these long nails that she would gesture with, overpowering perfume, and wore inappropriate clothing to work like low cut tops, and she would be chatting and laughing most of her work day. She was a minority and this was the federal government, and any time she would be taken to task by upper management, she would scream racism. I guess what I’m trying to say Bettie is just do your job and don’t get caught up in the drama of your workplace. Do what you can in the number of hours you work and go home and forget about the injustices you perceive in your workplace, unless it directly affects you. Like the title of that book "Don’t sweat the small things." I didn’t invite you for a visit at this time as I don’t have the room to sleep you in my small suite, and I know at this time that you can’t afford the trip. I would like to get together with you again sometime. Carole
