Cov Love

I finally made it into Covenant House, and 2 days in a row at that! Finally! I was seriously beginning to wonder if I'd ever make it in. I was a little nervous heading into Atlantic City on Monday for my first day. I don't know why, I knew the nerves would dissolve as soon as I walked in the door, and they did. 

I met my supervisor and got started right away on my project: the filing room. I sorted through piles and piles of inactive files to box and send to storage. I could've just listed the names in each box and left it at that, but I'm a boarder line perfectionist when it comes to organization and put each box in alphabetical order.  I couldn't help it. 

Yesterday, my job was a bit more tedious. I had to organize 8 filing drawers in alphabetical order, and then add in 5 piles of loose files. I never realized how deep those filing drawers go, or how many files can actually squeeze into each drawer. One highlight was being able to pull the files of client's over 22 to move to the inactive drawers. It's the little joys like freeing up precious and valuable space in a filing drawer that make it worthwhile.. haha. 

I left with 3 cuticle cuts, 2 Band Aids, and burning shoulders, but all in all, I accomplished a lot in hardly no time at all. I go back today, maybe I should wear gloves?

Another thing worth mentioning, parking is not in Cov's favor. 

There are 2 options. 

1) Side street parking along a residential street with a 3 hour parking limit. 

2) Meter parking on Atlantic Avenue, directly in front of or across the street from the building. 

In my mind, this is the gamble:

Option 1 is free, but not always safe, especially when walking to your car at the end of the night shift, midnight. Plus, it would require moving your car 3 times in the course of one 8 hour shift. 

While option 2 is the safer or the two, it costs $1 per hour, and an 8 hour shift would require many quarters. So you do what any underpaid (or not paid, in my case) social worker would do. Skip feeding the meters. In Ocean City, I'd say that is a bad idea and would most certainly result in a few parking tickets and possibly a boot and tow. In Atlantic City, however, I've been assured that the risk of getting a parking ticket is reduced to once or twice a year. So at $25 a pop, it's worth the risk. 

So I did what I was told, and parked on Atlantic Avenue on Monday. Unfortunately, all the staff park along the block that Covenant House resides on, so after several trips around a few One Way streets, I parked diagonally across the street. I was right on the corner it was well lit, so I figured I'd be as safe there as anywhere. It occurred to me while I was walking back to my car in the dark that night, that it might be a good idea to reconsider my parking location of choice for the future, as I parked in front of a liquor store and had several loiterers gathered around my car. :-)

And on a random note, the term "Cov Love" is used to describe the relationships that blossom between the kids at Covenant House. 

PS. I think I will post some pictures soon. Words get boring.