The Hats of an Intern

Having worked in public health before working at Help of Ojai, I am aware that one person wears many different hats.  Some of these projects are assigned and very strict, while others fall into your lap for reasons that nobody can tell you.  As my 3 months have gone on I have realized that I am wearing many hats that I didn't think I would.

This blog post came to me while simultaneously baking rolls for our work Thanksgiving Feast fundraiser and trying to make sure 25 high school students stayed busy for their service day.  The first hat I didn't expect to wear was a baking hat.  Twice now I have had the opportunity to bake with our executive director, Terri, for work fundraisers.  Both times have been fun and I was able to learn some tricks about baking, including how to make perfectly round rolls and how to efficiently bake mass quantities.  During this time I was also able to enjoy talking to Terri and other kitchen staff that I don't see regularly.

Service coordinator is another hat I did not see myself wearing at Help of Ojai.  The above mentioned service day and a few side projects have fallen into my lap and needed to be organized.  This hat is not my favorite because I always get nervous about which type of high school students you will get.  It's fun when everyone is enjoying themselves, having fun and helping, but can become uncomfortable if I have to become the "adult" and make them work or break up the groups of friends. 

Bill payer is another hat that I did not expect to wear while working at Help of Ojai. Luckily they are not my bills and it's not my money, but our clients come in and ask for help with writing checks.  Some of them feel their handwriting isn't legible enough, while others can't remember so we write a check and have them sign it.  Being a check writer can help us keep a tab on their budget and can alert us to any fishy schemes that might be going on.

This last one isn't a hat, but I would really like to wear the cape of defender against all evil.  This cape often comes with a sticky situation and usually ends up with me getting an answer I don't like.  For example, if you call Adult Protective Services (APS) about an elderly person whose "friend" wipes out their bank account every month, if that elderly person doesn't want to move forward the investigation is dropped.  As a person I can't do anything, but maybe I could change the person's mind for dropping the investigation or having APS realize the dire consequences of no action if I was the defender against all evil.

On a clothing related note, over Thanksgiving the San Diego and Ventura communities learned all about the different pants I wear.  They learned most about my sassy pants and bossy pants over the five-ish days we spent together.  Don't worry, a whole post about Thanksgiving is up next!