About that image thing...

So  -- I was sitting at one of the additional cold weather shelters on Monday night waiting for the guests to arrive. One of the coordinators from the shelter where I usually work was waiting with me and our conversation went something like this:

Coordinator: I thought of you the other night. I was at the shelter and sort of lost my patience with one of the guests, and ...

Me (interrupting): Wait! You lost your patience and that made you think of me?

Coordinator (backtracking and laughing): No. You said that you don't have the patience you used to have and I'm just saying I can relate to that.

Hmmm...
Truthfully, I have expressed that to the shelter coordinators and it is one of the reasons I chose not to be on staff this year. I hope that my lower threshold of patience hasn't been too apparent to our guests. Conflicts that require de-escalation are pretty infrequent. Dealing with people is ongoing. 
Sometimes you have people that need help, but treat the people trying to help them poorly. I used to readily give them a pass and just do my thing. It has become more difficult to show that level of grace. I'm not sure why, but it has. Now I have to find the balance between helping and dealing with the stress, and guarding my own well being by staying away.
I shouldn't let a few people keep me from helping the many that are so very grateful and appreciative of the staff and volunteers. 

When I started this five years ago, it was the homeless community that pretty much policed themselves. If someone treated a shelter property poorly or gave the volunteers a hard time, it was the community that made the offender straighten up or they would keep them from coming back. Protecting the shelter property and the people that worked there was to the benefit of everyone and so they guarded it accordingly. 
As the nationwide homeless demographic has changed, that level of responsibility has also changed. There is a larger number of younger people and the chronically homeless are aging. Homelessness is a much greater problem in the US than it is in other countries. Part of it is a lack of social safety nets. Part of it is a culture that just doesn't care about our fellow citizens -- and oftentimes those fellow citizens are actually family members.

Sheesh! Now I'm the impatient, cigar smoking, bourbon drinking, introverted, retired guy!
I should be getting my journeyman curmudgeon card any day now.
Oh yeah -- And get off my lawn!

John