The (alternative) Social Worker of the Year Awards 2019

The (alternative) Social Worker of the Year Awards 2019

 

The Social Worker of The Year Awards 2019 are being held in England tonight and showcase just what a vibrant, caring and committed bunch of people make up our workforce. In homage to our wonderfully diverse profession, here’s my own take on some people who missed out on those official awards but that I think deserve recognition as well…

 

Most messages built up on voicemail

The opening award goes to Toni from Sutton Coldfield. Toni has not checked her voicemail since July 2016 and has 1,647 messages to listen to.

 

Hours of the lecturers’ time wasted

 

Alexis from Wilmington, Delaware has wasted 117 hours of her lecturers’ time over the course of 2019. Alexis enjoys consistently interrupting to ask questions that are of little relevance to anyone but herself and regularly sharing trivial live experiences with the whole class. Alexis also dedicates a significant portion of her life to emailing her lecturer for guidance on assignments, taking all the course books out the library first and arguing with her fellow students online.

 

Most calories consumed in a day of emotional eating

 

On the 30th of September 2019, Mary from Luton set this year’s record for calories consumed because of emotional eating in the workplace. Over the course of her 15-hour day at work, she consumed the following:

 

• Two double sausage and egg McMuffin meals
• A chocolate muffin
• A four-pack of Weight Watchers cereal bars
• Three large caramel macchiatos
• One Boots meal deal (with diet coke)
• Five packs of cheesy puffs
• A KFC bargain bucket
• A pack of family-sized starbursts
• Two packets of pom bears
• 17 cigarettes
• One bottle of red wine (consumed outside of working hours)
• A house special chow mein from her local Chinese takeaway

 

Longest stretch of being deemed an efficient worker

 

Laura from Adelaide lasted an unprecedented 32 days before she missed a deadline on one of her assessments. Good going Laura!

 

Largest pending mileage claim

 

Louise from Preston, Lancashire has not claimed mileage since January 2002 and her total outstanding claim now amounts to £34,490. It just so happens that January 2002 happens to be when her council introduced a complex new mileage claims system that, because Louise is so busy spending time with the adults she works for, she has no time to use.

 

Most outstanding assessments that ‘just need typing up’

 

Last week, Arrash from London told his manager that all fifteen of his outstanding assessments are completed but they ‘just need typing up’. Good work there Arrash; we hope you get your work handed in for quality assuring soon!

 

Oldest mobile phone still in use by a Social Worker

 

Although officially discontinued in 2005, the Nokia 6310 is still the allocated work phone for Bob in Edinburgh. Bob has learned that it is quicker to text his work number from his personal mobile and then forward this message to his service users, rather than attempt to send text messages directly from his mobile. On the plus side, he only needs to charge his phone every six months.

 

Most number of calls to IT

 

Sarah from Dublin has made 179 calls to her IT department throughout 2019. 178 of these calls have been to reset her passwords. This is because her organisation insists she has a different password for each of the 8 pieces of software she uses, with each of these needing to be changed once a month. The other call was because the office printer broke down.

 

Greatest number of pointless meetings held

 

Out final award of 2019 goes to an unnamed Children’s Services department in South East England. Over the course of this last year, the department held 65 mandatory meetings that could have been addressed my means of an email or conference telephone call. Because of this, over one thousand hours’ worth of time spent doing actual important work was lost.

 

*In case you haven’t worked it out, this is a parody and all names/locations are fictitious