First Day of Work (Again)

Although I've been prepping for it since last Thursday, today was officially my first day at my new assignment. I am not at an elementary school in a more upscale district, but I am still servicing my SDC Autism class (320) in my previous district. Boss lady has given me 5 hours of overtime a week, but when I got home last night, H2B said, "Man, you burned through the next 3 weeks' worth of OT in 2 days." For reals, dude. The week has been a busy blur. I've never been so functionally scatterbrained. It's kind of a trip.

Yesterday was my unofficial first day at my new assignment. I attended an IEP and then went back and forth between meetings with my administrator and the schools' administrators. Afterward, I went back to my comfort zone (my 320's classroom in my "old" district) to continue prepping. I called 17 parents up to informally introduce myself for the Friday kiddos and explain that there's been some "restructuring" (i.e., the SLP that was here for 6 weeks who managed to make things almost FUBAR has left). Talk about getting over my phone-anxiety. I almost had a meltdown when I was only on #3 of 17 and the mother said, "yes, I would like to call you back at another time because an interesting comment was made." I was like, WTH? Did I say something wrong or did somebody else say something "interesting"? Talk about intense. I should have said, "Okay, call me back because I'd like to talk about an interesting comment that was made, too." Weirdo.

On the other hand, my first day went relatively well in retrospect. The morning was pretty intense, too, but thankfully, the VTW that works with me and my new work roomie are really awesome ladies. I did some damage control which resulted in a hug from a teacher and appreciation from an extremely high-profile parent. Turns out this parent refused to sign the IEP until they heard that a "new" SLP was replacing that 6-weeker one. By the end of the day, the word around the block (from my work roomie who stops be every teacher's classroom everyday) is that we're sending out a really good positive vibe. Thank God.

I do feel really gnarly about having all this responsibility. Boss lady has made me the lead SLP for the Non-SDC speech kids, meaning I have to supervise a SLPA, VTW, and another SLP as we service 50 kiddos. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it is when these kiddos require so many sessions in one week and parents are ridonkulously demanding. For now, I only provide direct therapy service to the extremely high-profile cases...meaning those that are potentially litigious and have difficult parents.

The good news is that as of yesterday at 3 P.M., my co-workers who have seen me have said that I appear to be handling all of this well.

Translation: I'm no longer visibly freaking out.