"I exist to serve..."

How many times in my youth did I say that, repeating it over and over again. How many times did I mean it? Hip deep in a service weekend, volunteering to assist others in need. How many early mornings and cold showers did we endure to make sure that the little old ladies or the poorer families in the community were taken care? In college I continued the same path, Habitat for Humanity, Lucas County AIDS Taskforce, David’s House, continuing to assist with the Dept of Catholic Youth and School Services. I did toy drives for foster kids with one of my ex’s. Even up until last fall I was working for a non-profit, certainly not for the pay, but for helping my patients. I am about to start training this fall to volunteer at the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center for hotline work and then face to face advocacy. It will eat my time outside of work, but it should fulfill the need I have to give back something/somewhere to the other. That is to say other than myself.

On the flipside of that coin, I also find myself in positions at work, all of my workplaces, where I become “Girl Friday”. I fill every gap, and need. I am a massage therapist who treats patients that no one else in the office will touch, whether it is moving the esophagus out of the way and treating Longus Colli or using Muscle Energy Techniques to correct innonimate rotations. I also answer 99% of the “tech” questions and problems that arise in the offices I work in. I simply have an excellent understanding of what we are asking the computers to do and what we need to do or information we need to give it to get the answers we want. IT IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. It is shocking every time I have to explain to someone how to use Outlook. Center managers making 3x what I make hourly + an extra week and a half vacation every year, I have to explain how to understand the reports they are supposed to fill out and how to save things to their computer. My duties are supposed to consist of aiding with the treatment of patients, and even that is limited to 1 patient per hour. Well, that is what I am being compensated for. I am not compensated extra every time I see more patients than that. I am not compensated for running extra reports, for teaching and training people how to use new and old pieces of software, for juggling 7 patients at a time. I am not compensated for everytime I juggle my own patients while providing manual treatments to someone else’s patients, because they don’t feel “up to it” or “like doing it” today.

I don’t know how to do less than I am capable of. I don’t know how to find the right job/schooling to take full advantage of my abilities and potential. I don’t know where I need to be right now in life and in work. I fall into the extra work because “I exist to serve”. This haunts my subconscious mind to this day. I do things because they need doing, it is very hard for me to actually hold out because I am not being compensated for the work that I do and the responsibilities that need to be shouldered.