Supervision and the Social Worker

Hello Dear Readers,

As promised, I am updating more regularly now!

I am experiencing something at work which I would like to discuss.  For the most part I have a great supervisor.  We hang out sometimes outside of work, and she is usually readily available to go over questions or complex situations with me.  She is close in age to me and we have some common interests.  The problem I am having is that at home she texts me about work.  This in turn gets me anxious about work because I am not there to address the issues.  Another big problem is that when something goes wrong at work she makes me feel responsible for it, even when it is out of my control.  If a client wants our agency to do something for them and it does not necessarily follow policy she makes me feel like the bad guy for questioning it.  However if something was to go wrong I know I would get in trouble.  I work very hard for my clients and am very thorough in my process however my supervisor constantly points out flaws in my methods.  I always get my work done well but it never feels good enough.  It's like I am always doing something wrong and it eats at my self esteem and confidence.  It's like I will never be good enough at my job or have enough knowledge as she has.

Hmm, what is a social worker to do?  I feel like she is selling me out and siding with my clients when it is convenient to her.  It's times like this I want to run away screaming from my social work/office environment.  And when I say office environment I mean that I know this happens at many other work places.  It is not exclusive just to social workers.  In sucks knowing that your supervisor does not have your back - and that they do not care about your feelings.  And as my mother likes to say, your boss is not your friend.  This is one of the reasons why I cannot see myself in a management position.  This is because the higher up you go the more political your position becomes.  You become terrified the clients will complain if they don't get what they want.  And that is the problem with having such a public social work job - everyone is watching for your decisions but you can't make everyone happy.

As Always,

Patti