Westover Job Corps.
So here's the deal: I've been enrolled at Westover Job Corps. center in Chicopee, MA since October 25, 2012. What led to me enrolling there is a combination of things. I didn't have my priorities straight when I tried going to college those two times and then my drug addiction and lack of prioritizing led to me squandering all the money I could have used for college. So now I'm Job Corps. It's a very sketchy place. Given that there are 620 ( at least that's what they told us ) trainees from the ages of 16-24 swarming all over the place and that Job Corps. is often a last resort for people and sometimes the only choice if you don't want to go to jail ( from what I hear ), a lot of the trainees are immature assholes. They run around campus and up and down the halls screaming, which is unnecessary, and it's always about nothing. Everyone is SO concerned about people saying bad things about them behind their backs. I've never understood that. So and so said something bad about you to someone. Why do you even care? How does that in any way impact what you're trying to do or how you plan to live your life? There is no reason to get into a fight about it and cause a huge scene that everyone is going to watch because it's just like watching TV in person. Everyone feeds off of each others pointless drama because apparently no one has a satisfying or interesting enough life to just shut the fuck up and get on with things. Almost everyone there has a severe attitude problem. Do they think they can behave like that if they even manage to make it through Job Corps. without getting terminated and get a professional job? And culture has made everyone talk like uneducated morons. I often wonder if people are still going to be saying things that don't make sense and sounding completely stupid when they are 40 and 50 years old. If some of the staff members are anything to go by, then unfortunately, yes, all of these idiots will still be outwardly projecting that they are idiots when they have all the influential life experience the staff ( or at least the center director ) likes to rub in our faces that they have. At the CPP luncheon, the center director said that she saw us as adults and would treat us like them. She then immediately contradicted herself by saying, " How many of y'all think you know more than adults do? " I'm sorry, but did you just tell us you saw as as adults and then imply that we aren't because we don't know as much as you? I SO wanted to raise my hand, but I knew it would just lead to more lecturing and bullshit, so I didn't. She was telling us, " I've been 16-24, I got a baby daddy, I know... " blah, blah, blah, telling us she and all the other staff have been through everything that we have, we are, and we will be going through. I very badly wanted to ask if she or any of the other staff have woken up on a dead body, but you know, contradiction and skepticism about what the staff thinks is very much frowned upon. Besides looking down on us, some of the staff members are straight up assholes. I went to their after-training-day art class on Veteran's Day and this male staff member, who is apparently the overlord of the Dungeons and Dragons club/class, came into the art room because some trainees were having a pizza party in the room they usually have D and D in. He was going to ask us to leave if we didn't have some kind of clearance to be in the art room ( where the hell else would art class take place? ), so I asked him if he wanted to see the booklet where it listed art class and he said, " Yeah, let me see it. " Mind you, the ONLY thing the booklet is is the schedule of the evening classes. So I pulled it out and started saying, " See, it says here that art class starts at... " And he cut me off and said, in a very rude and condescending way, " I'm quite aware of the schedule, thank you. " Then why the fuck do you want to see it!?! And why do you have to be a dick when I try and show you!?! He is an asshole. Don't get me wrong; there are some really cool staff members, too, but most of them don't understand us at all, despite what they say, and some are straight up condescending dickheads. I have been there for a whole month and I have essentially accomplished nothing. The staff likes to tell us not to complain because everything is free and if things were so bad there, we wouldn't still be there, but like I said, it's a last resort, and since when was anything free of particularly good quality? It sucks. Never, EVER run yourself into the ground so low that Job Corps. is your only option. And raise your children to think that way, too.

Burned Out