How do you explain the job of a social worker to someone who have zero idea what we do? Man, that got me...

My relative, my "Da Gu", visited my house this morning. While here, being the "concern" and "inquisitive" gugu that she is, she asked me "What are you studying ah? Next time can do what?"

Then i started to have a hard time explaining... "Em, it is ah... you know poor people... ah we help them.. Ah.. Then ah... Got many kind lah, like some will teach the young not to become bad... ..." @~@"

Later she looked at me and said... "Oh government job ah?" Ok, that settles it for older people, "YES GOVERNMENT JOB."

Sigh...

How many people really understand our job...

She then proceeded to promote to me what her children, aka my cousins, are doing. They have become Real Estate Agents! "You know, They take home about $5000-$7000 a month leh!? Next time after you finish study, you can join them, they can show you the ropes!"

Me? A Real Estate Agent? You must be kidding me! I don't have the "sales talk" quality in me lah! My cousins are smoooth-talkers, have the ability to sooth the birds down from the tree, me, i am rather contented to be able to write reasonably well. I DON'T SMOOTH TALK. So i think i better stick to my "government job", no doubt the $$$ isn't that comparable to the "private sector".



Back to the point of nobody understanding what we do. It is such a sad fact that social workers faces the same (if not more) life stresses as doctors, nurses, have a wealth of professional knowledge on socially and psychologically helping a person, yet we do not receive the same professional recognition as we deserved in our work.

More often then not, doctors and nurses are portrayed on the front-line as the angels of health, but we (social workers) are often forgoten as the back-bone drive on getting people back on track.

I wonder how much longer we (social workers) have to be contented with hiding in the back-room and preparing the glamour outfits that our fellow professions wear while performing on the world stage. When will it come to a day that we can put on our own glamour suits and walk alongside the "elites" telling the world who we are and what we do.

I'm not clamping for glam, but isn't it about time people start to understand more about us? I, for one, have had enough of my cousins asking me "Is it volunteer work?"