Completely Unprofessional

Have you ever dealt with someone who drove you absolutely crazy because of how unprofessional they were? I think we all have at some point but this one tops the cake...




A little back story first:
My family and I have dealt with Child and Family Services (CFS) more times than I would like to admit, and every time the case is closed quickly because they find nothing wrong.
Some of the accusations against me or my husband I completely understand opening a file and doing an investigation, like the time we were accused of being abusive, I would investigate the kids safety too if I heard they might be in danger.
Some of the accusations though are so ridiculous that I truly wonder how anyone can honestly believe that an "intervention" may be needed, like when CFS was called because I cut my daughters hair, or when my son fell asleep in class.

So now we are here, dealing with CFS again... it must be spring. (For whatever reason, spring time seems to be the time of year that CFS gets called)

The accusations this time? My kids are "depressed", my husband and myself are "strict parents", my kids are "not allowed" to go out with their friends regularly or have cell phones and I "flip my shit" regularly while trashing my daughters room... Now I could go on for days about these accusations and tell you all about how they came about, why we are strict, why the kids don't have phones and the story behind me trashing my kids room but that could take days, so I'm going to skip ahead.

Our first contact with CFS this time was via a text message from the assessor asking us to please call her, which my husband did because he had the family phone with him at work. He called, was informed of our now open case and the accusations and asked for a meeting. He then called me at home (find out how in a different post) told me what had happened and gave me the assessors name and number so that I could proceed with whatever needed to be done.

I called the assessor and spoke with her briefly about the accusations then we set up a meeting at her office for later that afternoon.
I truly wish that I could tell you that meeting went smoothly...
Unfortunately as I was about to leave my home to walk the hour and a half to her office in minus thirty degree winter weather she called me to inform me that she was being held up in court and wouldn't be able to make it to the meeting, so her coworker would take the meeting instead.

Completely understandable, court can run long, especially family court. I walked to her office for the meeting regardless, assuming that I would be meeting with a different assessor or possibly a supervisor. That was not the case.
The meeting was with a case worker, who literally could not do anything aside from ask questions and take notes to pass along to the actual assessor.
Despite this, I felt as though I was very cooperative, I answered all of the questions as best I could, I explained the family dynamic, I put to rest the accusation of me flipping my shit and trashing my daughters room, I even informed them of my daughters disabilities and diagnosis so that they could get a better understanding of how exactly her mind works, where she has delays and how to context her words so that the things she says can be fully understood and not taken out of context.
At the end of a very long interview with this case worker I was informed that the actual assessor would be in touch within the next couple days if they were going to proceed further or if they had any further questions.

Well days passed and we didn't hear anything and those days turned into weeks and now it has been a full month since we were initially contacted. At this point, we assumed that if CFS was going to proceed further they would have contacted us by now and since they hadn't we figured that they took the time to open our file, read through it, found how many times they had actually been called and what the accusations against us have been and decided that the case was not worth pursuing.
We were wrong.

I received a phone call in the early afternoon on Monday from the original assessor informing me that she needed to meet with me and my husband. I was very annoyed and I admit I was not a welcoming voice, in fact I was rather snippy with her. The reason it took her so long to get back to us was because she was busy.
Yeah, I'm busy too but I follow up with my business calls within 48 hours regardless of how busy I get.
So me being the impatient, annoyed person that I am, I tell her to give us a date, time and location for this meeting to take place, I want it done as soon as possible so we can move on. We schedule a meeting for one thirty the next afternoon at our home, and my husband takes time off of work to be present so that we can get everything done at this meeting.

Tuesday comes, my husband goes to work for the morning as usual and will be home in time for the meeting. I do my usual routine getting the kids ready for school then go about my day, working, cleaning, rearranging for a new film space, nothing out of the ordinary.
The afternoon comes, my husband gets home around one, we have a coffee, go for a smoke, discuss how we feel the meeting will go, discuss what we should do with our dog during the meeting and we wait.
And we wait...
The meeting time passes, no assessor... Ok, maybe her last meeting ran long, sometimes that happens.
And we wait...
Half an hour after our meeting was scheduled to start, no contact from the assessor.
And we wait...
An hour after the meeting was supposed to start... Maybe her meeting ran long and she got stuck in traffic...
And we wait...
And we wait...
And we wait...
Two hours after the meeting was supposed to start, we are annoyed. If she got held up or stuck in traffic she could at the very least call or text to let us know.
And we wait...
Two and a half hours after the meeting was supposed to start. The kids are home from school, we are starting to discuss dinner plans, my husband is pissed that he took time off of work for nothing.

At this point I decide to text her with "you are 2.5 hours late for our scheduled meeting at 1:30 this afternoon... This is highly unprofessional and we are requesting our case be transferred to a different case worker"

I got a call back from her almost immediately, with her apologizing profusely.
Her reason for missing the meeting that she scheduled? She got busy and forgot.

Now I am not a warm welcoming person to begin with and I'm even less so once you have me annoyed. I guarantee she could hear just how annoyed I was and I'm sure she could tell that I was biting my tongue.

I simply told her that being busy was no excuse, her forgetting was unprofessional and regardless of what she was busy doing I wanted someone else to handle our case. I then asked for her supervisors name and number, made her spell it out and told her good bye.
I honestly think that she was in tears because it sounded like she was trying to hold back some sobbing. She continued to apologize right up until I said good bye and hung up.

I was beyond mad and spent the next few minutes ranting about it to my husband. Once I calmed down a bit though I decided to call the supervisor, the work day wasn't quite over yet so I hoped that I could get through. Unfortunately the number went straight to voice mail forcing me to leave a message.
I did leave a message, informing this supervisor about who we were, who we were dealing with, what had happened to prompt my call and asking to be called back as soon as possible so that we could go about getting a new worker so that our case can either go forward or be closed.

At this point I am still very mad and now I am waiting to hear back from the supervisor.
Not going to lie, my annoyed voice in your inbox criticizing one of your subordinates and demanding that you put someone else on our case, will not be a great way to start the day.
It is what is it though, like it or not.

So that is the story so far. And now that you have the facts I'm going to rant a bit.

In my personal opinion, if you are going to be in any profession, act professional!
I know it is hard for some of you, you're in your 20's, you have no real life skills, you are fresh out of school, just got your degree and you think that because of your profession that you call the shots.
You are dead wrong! There is always someone above you. There is always someone else who can be called. There is ALWAYS a way around you. And if you behave in such a way that I need to call your supervisor, you will regret it.

I'm not the mean lady that always demands to speak to a manager, I am usually quite calm and understanding, people screw up, people make mistakes, we are all only human.

But, when you are in a profession that affects my kids in any way, you had better believe that I will be holding you to the highest of standards and I will criticize every single mistake that you make. I will meticulously document every word you say, every email, every text, every phone call will be recorded, I will keep a record of the dates and times of contact, I will document every second you are late and I will keep notes on how you behave when interacting with my family.
I am not the person you want to act unprofessionally with because my meticulous record keeping will come back to bite you in the ass and in the end, it will not be a "your word against mine" situation, it will be my word, along with copies of emails/texts/letters and recorded conversations against your word alone and trust me when I say, you cannot fight evidence with only your words.

One very important lesson I learned early in life was when a your word against mine type of situation comes along, the person who comes out on top is usually the one who is the professional, unless of course, you can prove what you say to be true, then it doesn't matter who the other person is or who they know because you cannot fight evidence, period.

Now I hate saying this but young people in their early 20's really have no business being in charge of other peoples lives. I know a lot of people are going to read that and get offended and I admit, yes some are very responsible, very professional and very mature however the majority still do not possess the necessary life skills to make critical decisions and according to science, the human brain isn't fully developed until you are at least 25 (seriously, google that shit)
When I was in my early twenties if I heard someone say what I am saying I would have been pissed, but now that I am older, wiser and have been through more than I ever thought possible I can see why my elders said the exact same thing. And if you are in your early twenties reading this, you will understand when you are older, it is a cliche line I know, but it is so true it hurts.