When Change Changes You.

Change: verb

change (verb) · changes (third person present) · changed (past tense) · changed (past participle) · changing (present participle)

1. make (someone or something) different; alter or modify
2. become different; be altered or modified

We all experience change. Some change is good. Some change is bad. Some change changes you.

When I started working in the animal welfare field, I was a kennel attendant in the shelter building. The old shelter building we still worked in, while the new one was being built, was small. The animal control officers at the time worked out of a portable trailer next door. When we moved to the brand new shelter building, we then all worked together. Animal control had desks in an office area and the rest of the shelter was dedicated to animals. Everyone was able to see one another, and it was easy to have interactions with coworkers who all shared the same space and the same job and the same day.

When I became an ACO I then occupied one of these desks. I was in the office part, but still right next to the animal intake area where I heard many kittens come in that would inevitably find their way home with me. When I brought an animal in it was housed in the same building and I would often start my shift by checking on them. Giving the skinny dog extra treats, talking to the scared cat hiding in the back of the cage.

Many times I would bring a foster kitten to work with me, which would then proceed to climbing all over me and the computer keyboard while we waited for the vet to get in. My sweet girl Lira, a skinny German Shepherd I picked up behind a dumpster, was often laying at my feet by the desk until the day I officially adopted her. One morning the shelter director had her hedgehog exercising in his little ball and he happily rolled around the office. Many days I found a bird cage next to my desk with some displaced bird seeking refuge until his next chapter in life can begin. I brought in left over lettuce and carrots for the many bunnies and guinea pigs housed next to me. It made me feel connected to the job. It made me feel part of the animal care while maintaining a position that takes me out on the road. It allowed me to feel happy and relaxed at the beginning, and end, of every day because I was physically around the critters I pledged to help.

I feel like my career in this field has gone through waves. The highs and lows. On one hand people you meet admire your profession and acknowledge the challenge and sacrifice, on the other hand I always personally felt that it was never enough. Even after 15+ years I am not sure I really lived up to what people assume my job and purpose is. From the outside people hear the cool animal stories, see the cute kitten and puppy photos and shout out kudos to the occasional news story. On the inside I question everything. Every call. Every case. Is it really enough? Did I really make a difference? Am I really that different from anyone else on this earth who loves animals? Is it all worth the stress and burn out?

So many years I had my niche. I knew where my desk was, I knew that I belonged to this greater place within the community. I personally made so many matches for friends looking for a new pet to love because I was immersed in the shelter world. My desk was littered with photos of animal rescues, various business cards, trays of paper organizing my thoughts and projects. Binders and books, containing knowledge I may need to look up any given day, shoved into the top cubby. It was my identity. Jessica the animal control officer summed up in a desk full of ‘stuff’.

And then it all changed.

We were informed that our animal control department is being absorbed by the Sheriffs Department next door. This news was met with mixed emotions and excitement. On one hand we would receive better training and gear, on the other we also now had to vacate our little office at the shelter and physically move to the other department.

This was an afterthought apparently as the Sheriffs Department did not even have a proper office for us and had to create one with dividing walls just to house a desk area for the assigned Sergent. As for us officers, who previously had desks and drawers and chairs to call our own, we were now given a tiny locker space in which to store our uniform, gear and anything relevant to the job. I was downsized to just a number among hundreds of others.

This is where I realized how much we all differed from one another. Some coworkers did not give this a second thought and couldn’t wait to move next door. Others had just started their career with us and had barely even gotten comfortable in the desk chairs at the shelter, so they knew no different and quickly moved on. And then there was me. I would be lying if I didn’t admit I had a bit of an existential crisis. How could they ask me to simply pack up years and years of my life and throw the rest out? It felt like a gut punch and someone in my head yelling “none of this matters. None of it ever mattered to anyone except you”. I felt so disposable. It made me question why I had dedicated so much time and energy to a place and a profession where it seems that was never truly acknowledged or appreciated and could be dismissed in an instant. What was it all for? Why did I care so much when no one around me did? Why was I naive enough to think that the local government I am working for actually cared about the individual employee who dedicated so much time, energy, blood, sweat and tears to this job? After everything it was as simple as having me throw away a desk worth of work and memories to make space for something else. Moving from one department, where no one said a word when we left, to the other where no one knew us or what animal control even is.

I realize many people reading this think me as overly dramatic. It’s just a desk, it’s just a change of location, it’s still the same job. And while my brain realizes this, my heart was struggling. Having this designated space all those years was an extension of myself. It represented my profession that I had poured so much heart into. I was suddenly left questioning everything. Who will I be now?

Once settled into my tiny locker space, having spent hours peeling photos and mementos off the desk and throwing out case files from years past, I realized this job will never ‘feel’ the same again. I will never again come to work in the morning and sit at a desk, surrounded by animals while writing reports. I will never hear new kittens meowing in cat receiving. I have no idea what dogs are available for adoption to make connections for friends and family.

It did not help that this was also the year when we lost our Lira girl in the spring and my heart dog Rooster in July. All the feelings I was dealing with at that time were amplified thousand fold and left me unable to handle any more change.

There were some tough moments since the move. Nothing felt right anymore. I have actively thought about changing professions many times but find myself going back day after day. What else can I even do? How could I live a life without animals in it?

Not being connected to the shelter anymore does allow me to unplug easier when hard days seem to never end. Perhaps that is the one positive to come out of all this. On the other hand, the animals at the shelter allowed me to end my day of dealing with people, on a positive note. I didn’t realize how important that was to me until it was gone.

It has been almost two full years now since the move to the other department. More things have changed since then, and I am trying very hard to take it all in stride. Bringing foster kittens home still helps keep me connected. Talking to the few remaining original kennel staff at the shelter helps me feel connected.

The office space where my desk stood is now a large catch-all room where wayward dogs hang out during the day, their urine staining the once clean linoleum floor. My desk has mountains of random things piled on it. No one uses it as the desk it was intended to be. I don’t go to that office very much anymore.