Being my own boss

I’m continuously amazed by the amount of responsibility I’m allowed at my internship. That’s why I was shocked to hear that I would be “taking over” as interim social worker at the center while Ruben was gone for two days. Now that knew how to do everything that the social worker does, Ruben explained, he could trust me to do it on my own and do it well. Thrilled to be given the opportunity, my first day alone in the office was satisfying and productive. I spent all of Tuesday full of confidence as I filtered through paperwork, updated files, spoke with a few newly-moved in residents, and prepared registration forms for Wednesday.

Today I strutted into the office, mentally prepared to effectively take my boss’ place for the day and beaming with pride that he had the confidence in me to think that I would be capable. I was excited for the interview I had with the new refugee, a man from Sri Lanka named Raymond who spoke enough English to not need a translator. This was the only task of the social worker I had never done on my own. Up until today, I had always observed Ruben conducting the interviews. I would sit contently in the chair to his right, taking notes on this essential process from the sideline, fascinated by the background stories I heard. Now it was my turn to sit in the boss’ chair, record the vital details of one man’s flight from violence, and turn it into a logical report to be sent off to lawyers and ministry officials.

When Raymond entered my/Ruben’s office with his bundle of papers tucked under his arms, my confidence began to drain. I began by posing the most basic questions (name, birthday, family members, etc.) which should be the part of the interview meant to relax the interviewee. Despite only having to write down simple facts and being able to look over at my guideline of questions to following, I became nervous—nervous that I was not being authoritative enough, nervous that I did not look like I knew what I was doing, and above all else, nervous that the man across from me was looking at me with the same doubts running through his head. I felt inexperienced and extremely under-qualified. I was far too professionally immature and young to be handling a job of this magnitude, where the well-being of one person is solely in your hands. One crucial piece of information missing from the report could make or break this man’s chances of asylum in the country. Suddenly my boss’ twelve years experience was dauntingly apparent. Everything I felt lacking in this interview I recalled from all the ones I had seen him breeze through time and time again: the fluidity of his inquiries, the questions he poses that lead to just the right answers, the way he eased the new refugees into divulging painful moments about the flight from their countries… Well, I had to at least appear like I was in charge, I told myself. I asked Raymond how old he was. “Twenty-one,” he replied. I glanced down at his asylum document to confirm his birthday: January 7th, 1987. My birthday.

Realizing we were the exact same age, I felt instantly younger than him. This “man” sitting across from me had run through the bullets of the Tamil Tigers terrorist group to escape from his village; this man had been persecuted by the Sri Lankan army and kidnapped; this man was forced to grow up and face a reality that no one should face. Really I’m just a student pretending to sit in a big person’s and do a big person’s job and try to wrap my head around real world issues and life and death situations. One day I’ll get there and make a difference and do adult things—and today probably helped me take me one step closer. To say that my experience at the Center for Refugees is humbling does no justice to my internship. To say that I’ve grown from this experience barely scratches the surface. To say that I’ve grown up, that I’m an adult and ready for an adult-like job is far from reality. But it’s one-hundred percent true to say that I’m blessed to be where I am in life.