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121 Two short months into his tenure as an employee in the day program at Urban, Emmanuel Short had already dealt with a number of incidents that even a veteran worker would find notable. He had broken up a fight between two clients, actually grabbing a chair out of the hands of a client who was the size of an NFL lineman—­ two to three times Emmanuel’s own slender size. He had also confronted a client he witnessed selling drugs in the bathroom and was, as a result, threatened by that same client when he left work later that day. Add to these a number of smaller volatile incidents, and Emmanuel had established himself as someone who could handle the tough parts of the job, even though he said he hated to deal with conflict. Despite this, Emmanuel interacted with clients a bit differently than some other workers did. He was able to develop close relationships with clients , which other workers noticed right away. For instance, he quickly developed a bond with Pharrel, a highly symptomatic client who was a constant source of crisis and disruption for the organization. Emmanuel said he talked with Pharrel in depth one day, helping him to “identify with what is it that’s disturbing him and why is it disturbing him and how, if he’d change his perception and accept some things that’s happening, and just go through it, his life would change.” Emmanuel said one of Pharrel’s case managers told him he immediately noticed the effect that talk had on Pharrel: “I don’t know what you said to him, but his whole attitude’s changed.” The case manager told Emmanuel that Pharrel apologized to him for how he had been acting. Another client, Carlton, had likewise formed a special bond with Emmanuel, The Right Person for the Job Fragmentation in Staffing and Worker-­ Client Interaction Chapter 6 122 Managing Madness in the Community often seeking him out before others to discuss his mental health and substance abuse issues. One explanation for Emmanuel’s ability to form relationships with some clients can be found in his own background. Not only was Emmanuel Black, like most clients at Urban were—­ including Pharrel and Carlton—­ but he also was hired as a “prosumer,” having dealt with drug abuse issues and severe mental illness himself. His problems, which had begun early in his college years, had eventually led him to spend time in prison and to experience a brief bout with homelessness. He was court-­ ordered into a twelve-­ step-­ based drug treatment center and into mental health treatment. He obtained employment in the mental health system through that mental health provider, eventually landing a position at Urban. When I met him at Urban, he was still receiving mental health treatment and attended twelve-­ step meetings daily, having been clean and sober for nearly a decade. Emmanuel framed his work at Urban as sharing his own hard-­ earned life wisdom with people who were going through what he had gone through in the past. “I believe God gave me a purpose, and my purpose today is to help people who are just like me,” he said. “These are people who are just like me. I was once just where they are.” So in some ways Emmanuel saw his job as an extension of his role as a longtime Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous member: “sharing experience, strength, and hope,” as the saying goes. And the boundary between his life outside the organization and inside the organization was much more fluid than it was for many other workers. For example, Emmanuel’s mentorship relationship with Carlton extended outside the organization—­ he was Carlton’s sponsor in a twelve-­ step program. He also recommended that other clients with free time after Urban’s day program closed attend the local twelve-­ step meeting he started. This closeness to clients’ issues was a means of bonding with clients, but there was a flip side to it. Emmanuel wondered how his coworkers saw him. He said there was a female staff member who used to talk to him frequently and then one day suddenly stopped. He thought maybe she “found something out about” him, perhaps saw him on the department of corrections website. I asked if he was more open with the clients about his life than he was with staff members. He said he was. He said most staff members only see participants’ lives from a...

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