What People Talk When They Talk About Vancouver

I. Introduction

I arrived in Vancouver on a bright sunny day in August summer last year. After throwing all my baggage into the locker in the dorm room, I hopped on a bus to Kitsilano Beach. On my way there, I saw cherry blossoms all over the street, and people walking around with their sunglasses. While blasting The Marias on my airpods, I suddenly felt some weird sensations, like a mixed bag of shivering and melancholy. I mean I made it through a 16-hour flight all by myself, school wouldn’t started in another 2 weeks, and I had planned to explore the city, but what now? Then, the bus suddenly stopped, and there were sand and white clouds ahead of me. I ended up spending the rest of that afternoon on the beach, just observing people, and watching the skyline and the mountains afar.

I came here with a lot of uncertainties, I didn’t know what I want to study, and worse, what I want to become. I sugar-coated my parents, they were quite hot-headed, by telling them what they wanted to hear, but honestly, I guess I didn’t like myself back at home. I thought I would like me better if I went somewhere far away. But well, as Bob Dylan once said, you can’t escape from yourself no matter where you go. And at that time, I was so sick of wallowing in despair and feeling shitty for myself. I needed to change. So for the first few months, I used most of my free time try to understand Vancouver. I went to hole-on-the-wall restaurants, I hung around speakeasies, I wandered every possible corner I could find, and I dwelled in all the beautiful parks. I absorbed the city atmosphere like a big, yellow sponge, and I kept my mind wide open. All of it just to find out that the city is not a right fit for me. Not that Vancouver is terrible or something, it's just I want different things. I gotta admit that I’m not patient by nature, and as soon as I find out thing doesn’t go on my way, I can be whiny and act like a little bitch. But this time, there’s something about this city that still makes me wonder.

I spend a lot of time people-watching whenever I go. They come in different shapes and colors, and every time we mingle, on the skytrain, or on the street, there’s this sense of proximity with these strangers, and I feel like they all have a story to tell. I start realizing it’s not the city, it’s the people that I want to understand. I believe that everything is about the people. History is about the people, literature is about the people, and art is about the people, so, in my attempt to capture that wonder, I start this project to go out and interview the people who are living and working in Vancouver.

I call it an interview, but in reality, it’s just a casual conversation between two people trying to know each other, in daylight, at a coffee shop, with my notebook to scribbling and my phone as a recording device. Different people challenge me in different ways. Some need a solid extent of comfort before sharing, and some, in the middle of their talking, would stop, looked me in the eyes 'So how about you, tell me about yourself, I want to know!'

I think big cities and metropolitans have their own sense of fragility, compare to rural places. The skytrain conductor, the bus driver, the nurse, and the street cleaner are the important ones that glue the city as a whole. If they fall apart, the city gonna go down with them. But they have so little chance to tell their story. And if someone deserves all the gratefulness and acknowledgment, it’s gotta be these anonymous workers. They can say whatever they want about the city. That’s the story I wanna hear, and I want to write their stories from their point of view.

I will try my best to seek out and interview as many people as possible, with a wide range of jobs, from barista to engineer, to portray Vancouver from their perspective, and to capture what is Vancouver to them. I always ask people what they want to be referred to in the interview, some of them give me their full name and email address, while some want to keep their anonymity. People can teach me something through their stories, either how to find a diner with the best Pizza, a way to live an uncompromising life, or a way to be happy. And maybe you will find something for yourself, too

I started this project with people I already know, and from then, I intend to reach out to more strangers. I’m not a sociable person at all, I mumble a lot and I keep to myself most of the time, so this project is gonna be a huge step out of my comfort zone. I may make mistakes along the way, but knowing some of you guys out there enjoy reading what I write, I truly appreciated and it keeps me moving forward. This gonna be an ongoing project, I will add more interviews, perhaps 2 to 3 every other week, so please stay with me and keep coming back for more.

Your buddy,

tam

II. Interviews

1. P. - Staff at a thrift shop

I love my job. It only pays minimum wage, but everyday thing is different. I mainly deal with donations and classify them into categories. We have clothing, shoes, electronics, furniture, housewares, and other random crafting and decorations. Clothing makes up a huge part of our donations, so we have a whole separate room just for it. Many piles of clothes, like t-shirts, winter jackets, blue jeans, worn-out suits, you name it, are stacked upon each other, and it takes about 6 of us to further classify, price, and hang them on the aisles. And on opening hours, we mostly go around and put the clothes in the right place again, since customers come and try them on a lot. We appreciate all the donations, but there are things that we gotta recycle, or worse, throw away. Broken and damaged stuff, clothes with permanent dirt and stain, or something that is just way too gross. One time, I found a pair of sneakers that has a whole spider nest inside. The spiders are about my palm-sized, just for you know. Another time, I found some drugs and cocaine inside a donation batch. I reported to my manager, and we gotta call the cops. I wish that’s the only time cops were involved. In fact, it’s our little tradition to call the cops once every two weeks, cause there’s always something going on.

I find the work so fun. You may think, what’s fun dealing with all the junk that got thrown out? But it’s not always about the things, it’s about the people we gotta deal with. Our store is near Chinatown, at E. Hastings Street, where a lot of junkies, crackwhores, and homeless hang around. It’s Canada, so no firearms are allowed, but you know, people do bat shit crazy things when they’re high. Once a guy tried to throw a dumbbell at my co-worker. The weight can literally break your skull. It didn’t hit, fortunately. One time, somebody hid inside the racks, he went under the clothes rack, with his bags and all, and slept there for 3 hours. I bet our heating machine works way too well. When we found out, we tried to talk to him, but he screamed at us to leave him alone. Another time, a drug addict hanged himself on the aisle, bent over with his ass facing the entrance, and just sleeping. Not a beautiful first impression to other customers walking in, to be honest. Our store actually got broken into 2 months ago. They broke the lock and tried to open the register. They didn’t steal much, tho. This is my first job, so at first I was a bit clumsy, dealing with the currency exchanges and all, but things are good now.

A great thing about working at a secondhand store is getting discounts on so many cool stuff. I usually get some clothes and shoes for a few bucks, and recently I bought a Canon DSLR. Photography is something I always wanted to try and now is a good time, as summer is coming. And boy, we have so many books. Last week I got ‘The Luminaries’ by Eleanor Catton from the store. My favorite book recently is ‘The Sword of Kaigen’. It’s a science-fiction book about war and family honoring. I grew up reading Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, and I have had a thing for science fiction till now. You’re never too old to dwell in some fantasy worlds, you know.

I came here from a very peaceful city in India, so I feel a bit unsafe and dangerous. But probably cause I work in this notorious street, my neighborhood where I live is very nice and safe. And Vancouver is hella expensive. I live with my sister in a two-bedroom apartment, and I got support from my parents from home, so I get it a lot easier compared to other students, but still, things are unaffordable sometimes. I really like the variety and the diverse culture of the city. Just walk to Chinatown and see. But for Indian cuisine, I would say I don’t really like it. I would prefer cooking at home. One time, my friend and I accidentally discovered a very cool coffee shop at Commercial Drive while walking to the skytrain station. It was around 10 at night, and we got some gelato. I got the salted caramel flavor, the salt was all over my mouth, and my friend got the Ferrero Rocher. The store was hiring a barista, and my friend, who was charmed by the scrumptious and buttery croissants the moment we came in, took a deep breath, walked over, and asked for the job. Unfortunately, the position required previous experience. But well, a bit of courage wasn’t hurting anyways.

I don’t know others, but for me, living in a big city needs some courage, one way or another. Yesterday, when I and my sister were having some pizzas and watching Netflix in the living room, suddenly my sister got a concussion. Like I don’t know, she suddenly just fell out of the couch. Her eyes were closed. I immediately called 911, and they got her to the ER in an ambulance. I was scared as hell. You see people get into an emergency in the movies, but when it happened to you in real life, you really just wanna cry and panic. When my sister was fine again, we came back home and I started finishing my math assignment, cause it’s college life, baby! It took some kind of courage for me to handle this situation, and I did good, am I? I like calling my parents. I miss them. And whenever I call them, they would say things like ‘You don’t gotta do this, just come home if things get too hard, will you?’. I’m so grateful to know that even if I fail, my family always has my back. But you know, I’ve come this far, too late to stop now.

2. Benja Dimaano - An international student

When I first arrived in Vancouver last December, I spent a few days couch-surfing at my friend’s place. He picked me up at the airport around midnight, and together, we dragged my 30-ish kilograms of baggage along the sidewalks under the cold-bone coldness weather. He lived alone in a dark and rusty basement, with a barely-working heat machine. The basement didn’t have a living room, only a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen. So basically, I slept on his bedroom floor, with my sweater and socks in, and my jacket as a blanket. The basement is $700 a month, so it is a steal. But you get what you pay. The condition isn’t great at all. It feels like the whole place is growling and crumbling down whenever you open the bedroom door.

Vancouver welcomed me with one of the biggest snowstorms ever, and the weather was so horrendous. The next few days, when the snowstorm was over, he showed me around the city and taught me how to ride public transport with Google Maps. I grew up and spent most of my life in a small town in Philippines, so I have no idea how to use this thing. And no visitors coming to my hometown need one, that’s if they ever come. I stayed there for 3 days since the room I rented wasn’t available yet. My landlord, a greedy, lousy, and cheap woman, rented it to another guy for 1 week, even though I gave her the deposit, and announced the day I was arriving.

The place I rented was just a room inside a cramped house, sharing a bathroom and kitchen with the landlord’s family. I found it through a Philippines Facebook group. The landlord lied to me about the number of people I gotta shared the facilities with, and I totally got screwed. The landlord didn’t have a job or anything, so she stayed at home every hour, and always cleaned and cooked in the goddam kitchen. I felt like I was walking on the eggshell every time I used the kitchen. And every night, she and her friends would chat and laugh like crazy till very late. And when I tried to go in and cook something, they started talking and giving me life advice. The wall was paper-thin, so I gotta heard all the stupid gossip. I was a quiet person, so it got on my nerves after just 3 days of living in that place. And I was charged goddam $750 for all that shit. That’s how bad Vancouver's housing crisis is.

I moved out after living there for only 1 month. That family lived paycheck to paycheck, with the landlord’s husband working as a mechanic, fixing and reselling brokedown cars. But the woman spent money every day, from grocery haul to Hermes Bag, perfume, and expensive shoes. You know, the consumption culture here is crazy. Just go to the shopping mall and see. There are a lot of things around. Food, clothes, and material stuff. It was so overwhelming. And people love to spend and hustle. It’s like an endless loop, a race. People consume like crazy here. They’re always in a rush. In my hometown, thing isn’t like that at all

My experience of renting is pretty bad. Vancouver is a ridiculously expensive-housing place. Not because it’s the capital of culture and job opportunities like Toronto and NYC, but because it has the mildest weather in Canada. Not cold-boneless like other places. But instead, boy, it rains as hell. We have like 1 sunny day for the whole week. I sort of think to myself, without the weather, what does Vancouver have left, then? Probably not much. The thing is, when you live in a place with a housing crisis, you get fucked up badly, especially when you are an international student. My university has no housing guarantee for freshmen. First come first serve on a rolling basis only. So if we couldn’t get a spot in a dorm, we gotta find off-campus housing online before moving in here, without knowing shit about the city. So that’s why I ended up in that place with an hour and a half commuting to my school.

When I moved out, I found a new place that’s in Burnaby, near my school. I’m currently living here. I share the house with a guy, the owner of the place. He’s quite old, to be honest. Our room is next to each other. At first, it was fine. But I soon figure out this man is so noisy. He always snorts and coughs all the time. And the sound is like a gunshot. And oh boy, he does it every 12 to 15 seconds. I swear, I count it once when I couldn’t sleep at night because he keeps snorting and coughing right next to my room. You may think I’m an asshole. Like he’s sick and it’s not something he can control, and I’m making fun of it. But I swear you gotta be here to understand.

I really wanna move out at this point, but the contract isn’t expired yet. I got a lease for 6 months. This man got a hell of a lifestyle. He has a girlfriend, an old grandma, and she comes over quite frequently. My housemate, on his day off, would sleep till noon. Then waking up, cooking and cleaning, and watching some stupid and corny TV shows for the rest of the day. I never see a goddam book in this house ever since I move in. This man has no hobbies. He’s just there, and being. I know people live their life the way they want. But it’s so different from the life I’ve been growing up in. I haven’t figured out what I’m gonna do with my life, but definitely not like this man’s living. I don’t mean to be a snob, but my family is quite intellectual. My parents are the same age as this couple, but they are completely different. My parents like reading, and they spend a lot of time taking care of our garden in the front yard.

For these people, living paycheck to paycheck with a minimum wage job, eating, sleeping, fucking, is all they ever know. And since they are way older than me, they think they are very wise or something, so they are in the right position to give me advice on how to live a goddam life. The old grandma once told me I should get a job as a cashier or go and flip burgers at Mcdonald's. They never go to college. They can’t even speak or write English properly. They came here a long time ago through illegal immigration. They are very ignorant. I swear I don’t look down on workers or something. I just kinda get mad when these old people talk to me like they know everything. That’s the problem with those ignorant and uneducated people.

Vancouver is a lonely place. People keep to themselves, and they have a grounded life already. They are in no rush to make more friends. The rainy and gloomy weather most of the time isn’t helping either. It's kinda depressed. But I keep myself busy most of the time. I try to be positive and find the best in the city, and enjoy it. And Vancouver is safe and peaceful, too. Nothing impressive in terms of culture and nightlife about this city. Nature is beautiful, with a lot of green space to wander and get lost in when your head is a mess. The food scene is mediocre. Vancouver has a talent for turning cheap food around the world into expensive and fancy dishes that only white people eat. I find a goddam good Napoletana Pizza place in Victoria Drive. If you want some good European food, then go to Commercial Drive. If you want good Asian dishes, go to East Van. Those smoky and dirty restaurants are good. But still isn’t cheap, and don’t let me start on the tipping culture.

I will tell you about my little sanctuary. Go to Bob Prittie Burnaby Library and read, then go to Crystal Mall's 2nd floor for some soup dumplings, and walk to Central Park. Soup dumplings, the first time I ate, I felt like I tasted my mom’s food again. Of course, it’s not exactly the same, but it evokes something in me. It tastes like home, even tho just a lil bit. Let me tell you, that’s the first time I felt that way. I never felt that ever since I came here. I don’t even decorate my room, cause I always feel like I’m just a lodger, and that place is not somewhere I wanna settle in. But yeah, here we are, some $9 soup dumplings can make me feel something. Anyways, the dumplings got me diarrhea tho. And if you ever come to Central Park, don’t just walk the main roads. You gotta dive deep and hike up to the hill. That’s where the magic is.

One of the hardest things as an international student is dealing with your old life. When you call or text your friend from home, you’re surprised at how different you two are. Nothing in common anymore. Perhaps they change, perhaps you change, perhaps everything changes. Life just keeps moving on and you have no clue how fast time is passing by. You are no longer that 8-year-old kid in a picture you keep in the drawer. Two different people, who just happen to be the same one. All this nostalgia hit you when you are eating alone at the kitchen table. When mom calls, you try to swallow the heavy feelings and tell her how great everything is. You’re scared to admit that you are lonely. You are all you got in this big city.

My parents are a big part of my life now. We weren’t that close when I was in Philippines. In fact, we argued quite a lot. But now they are all I have. I have some old relationships and friendships that get lost recently. That’s funny, cause at some points, those people were everything to me. And I think this could last forever, and I would never forget the spectacular moments we were sharing. But guess what, some of them vanish just like they never exist, and some of them turned into strangers, some turned into enemies. Sometimes I listen to the music band they told me about, so you know, I won’t forget.

I really don’t know what to do without my parents. I’m sorry that I used to take them for granted so much. They hope I would get a permanent residence card here in Canada. People in poor countries always think of Western countries as Dream Land. Everything is way more beautiful, and better here. But it’s not always true. My country is flawed, but it’s beautiful and comfortable in its own way. I’m young, and it’s a crazy world out there. I feel like I’m invincible, and I have all the time, and I will never die. Actually, people think they will never die, so they waste so many days. Boy, I don’t wanna be forgotten. But the truth is, in this big city, things are indifferent. You will be forgotten.

Probably I gotta learn to suck it up, all the sadness and emptiness and whatever, and move on. That’s the only right answer. Just enjoy the moment, that’s what they said. I try to save up to backpack around the world. The guy who lets me couch-surfing once asked me why the hell I wanna do so many things. He just wanna rot in bed all day. The actual reason, is I know deep down I’m a mess. And if I don’t force myself busy and love my life, I will be in a downward spiral. Just one wrong move and everything will fall apart. It takes so long to feel miserable and self-hatred, and it takes even longer to realize that life doesn’t have to be that way. And that’s why I gotta keep going, you know.

3. Stacey Ashton, Executive Director of BC Crisis Center

When I was starting out, back in the 90s, I was doing undergrad and taking psychology course, and I liked it, so I thought maybe I would go into counseling as a profession. I figured I should get some practice of that, before taking a whole bunch of psychology courses. Then I learned about the crisis center, I knew the crisis line had volunteers that would take the calls, and they had very good training, so I signed up as a crisis volunteer, it was called Vancouver Crisis Center back then. I got in, going through very intensive training. We had 4 weekends of all-day Saturday, and Wednesday evenings. There were like 2-3 weeks of in-class training, learning the theory of crisis and crisis intervention models, how to do active listening, how to transition into collaborative problem solving, how to wrap up a call, and how to work with people talking about suicide. And then we would listen to other call takers, and we got to take our first call. Someone else would also listen on our call while we were during them, and give us notes and prompts if we seemed to get lost. 

For the most part, as long as you were sticking with where the caller was, and reflect what they were feeling, you would be fine.

They taught you everything, so you don’t need to have external education. Because we know everyone has gone through a crisis, so just like a normal people who help their friends, we learned more structures of how to talk to people. Lots of us are already good at listening.

The basic idea for intervention is the thing that happened feel different to different  people, so a crisis can be really about anything, and it can be triggered by the smallest stuff. We would have someone call in and say “I burnt the pizza, I don’t know why I burnt the pizza.” And it turns out this is the first time they cook for their partner, and they want it to go well, they make it from scratch and put it on the oven too long, and the day is ruined, so they are super disappointed in themselves. 

You think it is just a pizza, what’s the big deal, but it’s not. The thing that happened always has a bigger meaning, and when you listen to someone, you listen to what this event meant to them, and then when you listen to those feelings, it helps the person to put the event into perspective. It feels like burning the pizza is the end of the world, and your partner doesn’t love you anymore, but then when you think it through, it is not true, and your partner will still love you, it’s the thing you can laugh about it years ago later, but it doesn’t feel like that at the moment. So that’s what you do in the crisis line, to help people get past that moment where it feels like the end of the world. You can have people call when it seemed like a small thing, or people call about bigger things, like they lost a loved one or lost a job, or they are having psychotic episodes, hearing voices in their head. 

It’s the whole range. So that’s the first thing we learned. You take the crisis that is presented to you, it’s not up to you to judge whether it is a crisis or not. You would want to get that person to talk through all their complicated feelings, it took around 6 minutes, and then they tend to want to know what to do next. So you make a transition into what to do next, what are the options? But you are not there to give advice, and you are not there to tell people it’s gonna be alright, it’s called cheerleading, and it doesn’t work like that. You are there to listen, and they will figure it out, and they might not need to solve it right there, it can be like “Okay today is a tough night, I’m going to sleep, and I’m going to solve it the next day.” Great, awesome, perfect way to end the call!

Important thing needs repeated twice. We are not there to give counseling advice, and people aren’t calling for counseling, either. The difference between a crisis call and counseling is you schedule a counseling appointment, and you go to counseling because you have something in your life you wanna change, and that’s what the counselor and you will work together. But for a crisis call, it’s not something you schedule, it happens, and you’re overwhelmed with emotions in the moment and you don’t know what to do. It doesn’t necessarily mean you need to change anything in your life, it’s just you want to feel calmer. So we can’t give you any counseling advice, how can I? I don’t know you, I just talked to you for 30 seconds. They don’t know what to do right now, doesn’t mean they can’t figure it out in the future. It’s more like you just trust them to get back to their normal, and when they get into the problem-solving part, they are like “I don’t like this part, I wanna change it”, and you’re like “Okay, maybe that something you can talk to the counselor about.”

The conversation can go like this:

Taker

“ So what have you thought about it?”

Caller

“I may talk to my mom about it, but it’s kinda scary.”

Taker

“Okay, so you think talking about your mom is scary?”

Caller

“Yeah, I think she’s gonna judge me.” 

Taker

“It sounds like what she thinks of you is very important to you, what do you think about it?” 

Caller

“Well, you know, I think I just need to talk to her anyway.” 

But nowhere in this conversation I suggest to the person what to do with their life. Cause I don’t know them. It’s giving the person a chance to think about what to do. They just need a space to figure it out. And sometimes when you talk to a friend, they think they know your life very well, and they give you advice, but it might not be a good one. Advice is kinda of dangerous, cause what if someone takes it, and it turns south, is it your fault? 

I would not say we have an emotional attachment to the callers. It’s more like, we care about you because you are a human being. And I find the best way to describe it, is I’m hopeful and I believe in this person. I have no reason not to. I know they reach out for help, it’s a positive sign, and it can be hard, for me, cause I’m just being in this person’s life for 20 minutes, which is a very small part of their entire life, and if I can help then it’s great. 

But for some others, they would want to know what happens next. And at some point, things will end, whatever happens will come to an end, right? It was nice that sometimes callers would call back to tell us that it was very helpful, and it better their life. It was sweet. There would be different takers every time, but the caller can be like “I talked to *Taker’s Name* in the line yesterday and it was very helpful”, and we would send the message to the callers. Those kind of thank yous, we share them as a group. It goes up to the whiteboard so we can read them together. 

There’s a transition, between let's say a person called about their burned pizza, and 5 minutes later, a new person called because they are depressed and want to kill themselves. Each of the takers has some sort of grounding technique that they use between the calls. You close off a call, if the call has been intense, you may talk to your sup about it. When you sit down, you know you may talk to someone about something completely different, and you won’t know what it is about. So you take a breath, answer the phone, and you are in a completely blank space again. For me, it’s pretty easy to do. It’s something that gets easy to used to, especially when you take the time to debrief after an intense call and feel ready to come back to the line. I always find the tension when you first start the call, cause you don’t know what it’s gonna be, but you know what to do, so a call starts like “I’m depressed and I don’t wanna live anymore”, you can click right in with that. It has your full attention, you are listening to the person, finding out what’s going on for them, helping them reconnect with their reason to live. The fact that they call instead of dying is huge. They will usually start talking about why they don’t want to die, and that is very helpful. You don’t wanna die if you aren’t 100% sure, so the reasons will keep you safe. 

We, people who work at crisis call centers, screened for mental illness. In the interview process, we check in with people about what kind of call will be the hardest to take, or other thing that triggers them. Have they recently attempted or have lost someone to suicide in 6 months? We don’t recommend you get into the line right away after a trauma like that. But mostly, it’s the conversations with people, and you can figure out with them if they are ready. And we also, through the training and supervision, we have a lot of chance to talk to other people. There’s no shame in it if you feel overwhelmed. It’s not for everyone, and it’s not something you can do all the time. Maybe something like “My kids are 14 now, and I’m scared to take calls from young people, cause it terrifies me.” So you may decide to not take a call for a while. It’s all fine. You do this within your limits.

I can’t give any identity away, but one of the most memorable ones is when I talked to someone, and they have a knife and are deciding whether to cut themselves or not, to die. So I talk to them about how they want to keep themselves safe. One of the techniques is you try to separate the person from the mean. I asked if they could throw the knife across the room. So they threw it, and I could hear the sound of it crashing on the floor. And I talked to them, and we called 911, and I told them “911 is coming, they will come through the door, and they will take you to the hospital.” So we talk about that till the cops arrive and take them to the hospital. I could hear the police coming. It was about 30 minutes in total. I don’t think they told me right away about their intention, often people would give you a hint that they are in danger, and then you ask them if they are planning to suicide, then they will tell you. 

My adrenaline was high, and my heart beating fast. With that call, I called one of the supervisors for help. After the call, I sat down with the supervisor, and we just talked it through. The main focus is did I handled it well, or if is there anything I can do next time, what did I learn from this call? 

I think in the last 5 years, we had a lot more empathy and understanding of trauma and how to help people get past that. But in the 90s, it was a random guessing game, on how to help people. And it was not enough counselors out there to help people. Mental health still has a lot of stigma, and not as much as a real support system. It’s more like short-term and brief counseling, with the idea that average counseling is 3 sections. That’s not how it works cause people are different, right? 

My journey to becoming an executive director is I got into a graduate program in counseling, and I went to suicide intervention counseling for about 3 years. I did a lot of work with people and I enjoyed working with people, but I got frustrated with the system. Very bureaucracy. In the 90s, we just got into tons of cuts. So at one point, we got a waitlist for our in-person suicide intervention program. And I’m like “That’s not … You can’t put suicidal people on a waitlist!” That’s stupid. So I quit. Then I did other work for a year. I typed for TV, that’s cool, caption and stuff. And I got into management. I went for non-profit management. I wanna change the way contracts work and the delivery system. I started as the executive director of the volunteer center, then I went to coordinator in the Alzheimer organization, and then I became the executive of the BC crisis line center. 

My job is to go out and seek funding, and have plans that get where we are right now to where we wanna be next year. I have a director and manager who runs day-to-day operations, so this year I have brought another million and a half to our organization, and I hopefully will get another million next year. That’s my job, to make things like that happen. Our crisis line has been underfunded by the government since I started 5 years ago. Donations have ranged from fundraising to individuals to corporations. 

It can be tiring, interacting with different people, and going to places, cause I’m an introvert. But I take a rest, I nap. Most of what I do is thinking, which is still a very introverted activity. I feel like when I talk to people in my role, it doesn’t matter if I’m introverted or not. I’m in my role and it’s my responsibility. It’s part of doing a good job, so I’m not shy away from it.