Shelter Motto: 'Conform Or Get Out!'

Some people are more difficult than others. Some are better organized. On the topics of manners, appropriate language, and personal hygiene, no two are alike.
No two of us have the same life experiences – losses, failures, frustrations, injustices – that uniquely wound us. Charlie Chan once said: “School of experience good, but sometime fees high.”
Add to these experiences the wildcards of health, addiction, disability, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and (add your own here), you begin to see how unique each one of us is in the way we hurt and in our way of being.
Each homeless person has become so for reasons that are unique to them. Each requires a unique restoration.
It seems understandable that the very things that can contribute to someone’s homelessness would also create in them a hardship when it comes to succeeding in social situations, such as a homeless shelter.
Unfortunately, the Sheridan Community Homeless Shelter demands that everyone who comes into the shelter must instantly become organized, mannerful, pleasant, and easy to work with.
“Conform or Get Out!” is a suitable motto.
When employed there, I was told by the shelter dictator that I was “getting too close” to the residents.
My reply: “You’re not close enough!”
Boy, I learned my lesson. Never tell a megalomaniac they could use some improvement.