They gave me the job, but won't give me my space

Yaeli: You aren’t giving me the resources I need to do my job.

Mrs. Markowitz: We’re doing our best within the limitations we have and everyone else respects that.

Yaeli

Really, I was lucky.

I mean, landing a job straight out of grad school isn’t something you take for granted. And when it’s a position as a school social worker, your dream job, at a school just three blocks from your home, you definitely don’t complain.

Which is why I didn’t, at first.

“This is the room you’ll be using,” Mrs. Markowitz, the principal, told me, when she took me on a tour of the building two days before the start of the school year.

The school building was tiny. Literally. It was a miracle they managed to fit the classrooms inside. But it was a new school, starting its second year, and things took time. I could understand that.

I was impressed that they were hiring a school social worker at all. They definitely didn’t have a large budget, but as Mrs. Markowitz said at the interview, “Our students’ wellbeing is our top priority, and that’s why we’d like to bring you on board.”

I agreed 100 percent; there was little that could be more important than taking care of the children’s emotional health.

But the room… well, it had space for two chairs and a little table, but that was it. The chairs were set so close together, there was hardly space to move. I thought about the shelves of cuddly toys I’d planned to put up, the bean bag and small sofa I’d pictured buying to make my young clients comfortable. Even if I moved the desk, they would barely fit through the door.

“We use the room for private tutoring as well,” Mrs. Markowitz continued. She motioned to a large closet that took up an entire wall. “That’s where teachers keep their supplies for tutoring sessions. You’re welcome to use it as well.”

Here, I felt compelled to say something. “My files can’t go in an unlocked closet, they’re strictly confidential,” I said. “And about my equipment… I’ll be bringing in expensive toys and games for the children to use in session, I’d rather not have them accessible to anyone… I actually hadn’t realized I’d have to share a room.” I cleared my throat meaningfully.

Mrs. Markowitz gave a quick nod. “I hear that, but you see how tight for space we are right now. I’ll tell you what, there’s a supply closet in the office that’s kept locked. I’ll ask the secretary to make you a copy of the key, and you can use a shelf in there. Does that work?”

“I could make it work, I guess,” I said. That would mean schlepping files and teddy bears and who knows what else, every time I had a session. And cleaning them all up again afterward.  I’d planned to make my office so welcoming and child-friendly, with shelves of toys out on display for the kids to look through. How was I supposed to do that with this sorry excuse for a room?

Still, I figured I could put up some posters, motivational sayings, and calming images like sunsets and flowers. That would definitely help to make the room a little more cheerful.

“We just have to work with what we have,” Mrs. Markowitz said again, switching off the light as she led me back downstairs to her office. “Now, about scheduling, we have a calendar up in the teachers’ room where everyone writes down their tutoring sessions or times when they need the room, so that’s where you’ll mark your sessions. Generally, the tutoring sessions are in the afternoon, and you’ll be working mornings, so it shouldn’t be an issue. But this way you can just make sure that you’re the only one using the room that morning, or if there’s someone else who needs the room, you’d know to make sure to finish on time…”

Oh. This was worse than I thought. It wasn’t even like it was my office and others had to use it occasionally; I was just another one of the teachers, using the room when I needed it. But what if I had to change a session to the afternoon? What if I started a little late or wanted to have an extra session one day or had an emergency meeting with a parent?

How was this going to work?

Mrs. Markowitz didn’t seem to notice that the arrangement was less than satisfactory.