Using Laughter
Do You Remember Your First Day?
By Tim Gard
Dec 19, 2006 - 10:08:31 AM

I remember my first day as a new eligibility technician as if it occurred yesterday. Hired off the street, I knew nothing about welfare and I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. It was a permanent, full-time, indoor job and I was thrilled. Happy, scared and fascinated, I sat in my cubicle and, for the first time, encountered a work environment that challenged me fully.

As I sat at my desk, I was pleased to discover that it was already stocked with all the office supplies I would need. However, upon closer inspection, I realized that many of these supplies were either defective or outright broken. The stapler stuck every other time, my two-hole punch only made one hole, my chair tilted at an odd angle and the chair rollers stuck. Later I learned that whenever someone quit, the office tradition was that immediately after, the remaining employees would wander by that person's desk and "trade up" their existing damaged office supplies with the better ones. I had so much to learn.

The county director and my new supervisor stopped by my cube and set a black, hardback 3-ring binder on my desk. As my supervisor lovingly touched the binder cover, the director said, "This is your new policy manual—I'll give you some time to read it." From the way they both acted, this "manual" was a special thing and would contain all the magic necessary for me to do this work. I couldn't wait to read it.

Like an explorer with a prized ancient artifact, I slowly opened the binder cover expecting to be greeted with a masterpiece opening line, much like the beginning of Tale of Two Cities that says, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" (I still think every policy manual should start with this quotation). Instead, I began to read about Food Stamps, AFDC (Aid For Families with Dependent Children) and Medicaid. The manual was full of terminology and acronyms I had never encountered and those words I knew were used in ways I had never considered. For example, cars were called resources. How odd. I couldn't imagine my neighbors showing me their new car and my response being: "Nice resource!"

I then read about resident aliens and was shocked to discover that, unlike the official government position, the welfare system apparently openly admitted aliens had not only arrived on earth, but under certain conditions were eligible for some welfare programs! I would have to apologize to anyone I had ever teased about seeing a flying saucer and I wondered how long it would be until I saw my first little green man. What a challenging job!

I read about retrospective budgeting and although I read that section over and over, I just couldn't figure out what they were trying to say. Then I saw "separate household status for food stamps" that detailed how if people who lived together declared they purchased, prepared and stored their food separately, then they got more food stamps. I wondered... what idiot wouldn't be separate? Someone would ask, "Are you a separate household for food stamps?" They would answer, "What does that mean?" And the worker would say, "It means you get more food stamps!" Who wouldn't say with conviction, "Why, then yes, I am a separate household for food stamp purposes!" This "manual" was amazing. It revealed so much, yet was so cryptic.

Later, the director and my supervisor returned and sat with me in my cubicle. The director touched the manual and asked, "What did you think of this manual?" I paused. I knew my future hinged on my answer. I said, "I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me!" And I got to stay!

That was a number of years ago and I since became an eligibility investigator (I got to investigate the same people I had established eligibility for!) and later a "fed" with USDA Food and Nutrition Service at the regional office in Denver, Colorado. Although I have worked at several levels in the human services "food chain", I believe at least two things are true no matter where you are in that chain.

The first is: People will eat anything placed next to the coffee pot. I mean anything. You could put play-dough cookies with twigs in them next to the coffee pot and people would take them back to their desks and eat them. I heard about a lady in Wisconsin who felt hurt when her office didn't celebrate her birthday, so to play a practical joke on her coworkers, she took a phone book and frosted it with chocolate cake icing. When it looked like a real cake, she put candles in it, took it to work and placed it next to the coffee pot...