"He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed." - David Frost

***

From the blog of a social work student, Cognitive Dissonance:

Homicidal thoughts: "me: i have finally acknowledged having homicidal thoughts about my clients, to myself

... the social worker professional ethics code forbids thinking that the client is bad.
i don't think the ethics code is a good guide anymore

seriously, there are people who will lie to a social worker just to get the financial support they want
(they slip up when i ask them random qns)

me: i think i would rather pursue truth than ethics. in general.
because the truth of "how much are you taking home per month" is probably the most simple truth alive. and they don't even get it right.

me: today i made a phone call to a client's son asking how much he and his siblings earn
he said straight to me, "if i tell you that we all don't earn much, you will give me more money, right?" and he laughed.

... how many liars are we subsidizing.

-----

More to the point, why do I try to learn so much about helping people merely to consistently come across people like this? I swear that giving out financial assistance is bad for the sincere social worker soul.

At some point a person really has to put his (or her) foot down hard and say, enough is enough. You are gaming the system. You are freeriding on the goodwill of others' hard work, others who have produced the resources that generate the money that you so gleefully, spinelessly, inhumanly take. Go forth and die. I will not care.

But of course, we are never supposed to say this to the client."


Being Helpful: To what extent do we subsidize people's choices?

And how do you explain to your hopeful client, sitting in front of you, you wishing to help him, that his previous actions have compounded his problems to such an extent that merely signing over some money to him will not assure his long-term stability? How do you survey with him his barriers to a successful life? A single consultation will not be enough. People take a long long time to readjust their expectations =)

... I have had fairly long conversations with clients during which it transpired that their children are earning quite a bit and yet the client does not wish to ask for financial support from them. We are social workers, not ATMs in disguise. If there is some longstanding issue with the client's family relationships, we would like to know so that we can offer help. The client's quality of life remains always important to us. It's not always financial assistance that will alleviate the issues <- this is faintly heretical to some of our clients - again the bit about managing expectations. What we would like to do most often, when time permits, is to provide education in the ways of the world so that our clients can fledge.


Blog author: a lot of [poor people] got crazy handphone bills
or nice TV
or something.


Basically, people respond to incentives.

Liberals need to move beyond just fulminating about discrimination and suffering and acquaint themselves with a larger sample. Not all privileged people are "evil", and not all disadvantaged people are "good".

And even if you splutter that "society made them this way", this doesn't change the facts you have to work with on the ground, which will remain short of nothing less than Khmer Rouge- style societal change (which causes many more problems than it solves)