Tweakers at Dollar General

 One of my friends used to say she believed they must hold job fairs for Dollar General managers at meth recovery centers, because to her, they all look like they’ve done meth. She said it was a joke, and I do know that not all dollar general managers are current/former meth users.  Just to get the “not all” out of the way!  But the one I saw today when I attempted the cigarette merchandising job fit the description. She was supposed to have the signage at the store, and as soon as I read that I kind of knew they weren’t going to have it. I hate it when they say DG will have supplies at the store. More often than not, they don’t. This lady looked everywhere and said she didn’t have it. She then said she had posterboard and markers if I wanted to make signage, but the instructions reiterated like three times not to do that. The job would be rejected if I did that. I explained it to her, and she immediately got irate and said, “Well I was just trying to give you an alternative!”  Oh!  “That’s fine,” I said in a calm voice in an attempt to calm her down. “But I’m just not allowed to do that.” I told her I was stepping outside to message the person in charge. That person never responded, so I just documented what happened and submitted the job and left. Another person from merchandiser messaged me and asked what time I would be completing the DG cigarette jobs. I messaged him the whole story and said I had another experience last week where the customer service desk employee didn’t accept the LOA from the vendor. (This is true, they didn’t, and this was at an HEB). I said I no longer felt comfortable doing assignments from that vendor. 

Now, it’s a huge deal for me to say that. I was raised that if you do anything like that , you’ll get fired immediately and they’ll get extremely mad at you and you’ll never work again, because no one will hire you, because they’ll badmouth you all over the place. I should know by now that it’s not like this, but that freak out crept in. The merchandiser dude just messaged me back, and said “No problem.  (That vendor jobs) are removed from your list. Thank you.”  

I finished the day out by doing the rest of what was on my list- two more Costco jobs that I did five of last Wednesday, and one with electrolyte straws at Target. They were easy, and the staff was knowing!  

Tomorrow, I plan to do another one that just posted today where, like the Costco ones, you don’t have to talk to management unless there’s an issue. I plan to do them all the way to my mom’s house, take a bath and take her trash out, and do them on another route back. 

Then gift card boss texted everyone saying there was a call out for the client I worked with yesterday morning. She needed someone with her from 6-8 pm tonight, and aside from getting paid (two hour shifts also have a differential for being short), she was offering a $75 gift card!  Oh?  Are gift card incentives back?  I entered the client’s address into my navigation, and it would have taken an hour and a half with traffic. Then she texted that someone took it. Eh. At least gift cards are back. 

The Anti-ABA Rabbit Hole 🕳️

Recently, this Wall Street Journal article was posted to social media trying to expose Medicaid fraud by ABA facilities. It doesn’t surprise me. The centers seem to have a ton of money, and there are a ton of them too. Every time I log into indeed to just browse, another ABA center “behavioral technician” job pops up on my suggestions. I always click the thumbs down for “this is a bad match.”  Indeed doesn’t get the hint. 

Here is a list of books I’m in the middle of reading about this issue: 

The Autism Industrial Complex by Dr. Alicia Broderick. Dr. Broderick also talks about this issue on a couple podcast episodes here, and here

A book I have but haven’t looked at yet is The Gold Standard Fallacy of ABA by Julie Roberts. She’s hard to find any more info on without coming upon tons of links to Julia Roberts. 

TikTok content creators I like: 

Songbird Speech (an adult with autism and a speech language pathologist)

Jean (autistic adult, educator with a doctorate in education)

They both do a lot of talking about how communication isn’t behavioral. This is one of the things “wrong” that I couldn’t put my finger on when I attempted to train to be an RBT.  Communication is innate, and it’s not true communication when it’s treated as a behavior. Maybe once I learn more, I’ll get into it more. 

YouTube links:

Paige Layale’s video on her own childhood ABA experience. Some people on Reddit say that about half of what she says is spot on and half is her projecting, but to me, if she’s been in therapy her whole life, then she should know when she’s projecting and not do it in a YouTube video. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Because of that, I give her the benefit of the doubt. 

How to advocate against ABA without losing your mind.  They do a very good job explaining a lot of things, as well as understanding many aspects of “the other side of it.”  

I think that’s all for now.  More later.   I re-watched and re-listened to all of that and most of the TikTok’s before linking. You can also fall down the rabbit hole on Reddit by searching for ABA SLP. One might ask, well what would the alternative be?  The alternative would be speech and occupational therapy, along with pouring some of the billions from that Medicaid fraud into special education and parent education. 🫶🏼

Finally a Few Days Off

 Well, Kathy, you were right, she kept asking haha!  BUT to be fair, I was already scheduled with the lady who canceled for today and then figured I couldn’t say no when she had another client during the same hours roughly. I could not tell her I already “made plans” in the hour between the cancellation and the call out, especially since I was with the couple and not supposed to be on my phone anyway. (I could still hear the texts ding across the room though, and glanced at it just enough to see what she was saying but not enough for her to get a read receipt . 

Well this lady adored me, and she was on the phone with her daughter saying, “Danielle is very knowledgeable and a very good girl!” Lol. 

I texted gift card boss some specific questions I had about the lady this morning. She then said “thanks for being such an awesome caregiver” with her responses.  I don’t think I’m that “wonderful” of a caregiver, but maybe compared to some of the others I am. There is another caregiver that clients rave about who’s really great, and he’s a male. 

So gift card boss asked me,”I know you mentioned only working Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but would you like to work with (this same lady) every Monday from 9am till noon?”  Haha, I thought of Kathy’s comment on my last post immediately. I said, sure. I mean. It’s only 3 hours.  This lady is very sweet, and it’s in Conroe.  I can’t complain, and I feel more confident after winning over the couple. 

Tomorrow, I told the merchandising app that I would go to two dollar generals here in my area and set up a cigarette display. They actually called me from Boston to ask persistently if I’d do it, with a very nice bonus. Dollar general managers never know what’s going on with merchandising and audits and tend to get defensive. They are supposed to have price stickers for me, but something tells me they’re going to be like “Wuuuutttt price stickers”. Luckily, I can still get paid if it’s a flop due to the manager not knowing. 

Long Weekend Done

 I worked all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday with the couple with the $4.50 shift differential. I mentioned earlier that they must have had bad experiences with other caregivers. Well, they finally opened up to me about the main lady they had a problem with, and Jesus Christ. She sounds like a real prize package. I wished they hadn’t assumed I’d be the same way, but I eventually won them over. 

Gift card boss texted me saying the four hour shift I told her I would do before I changed my availability was now canceled. I started getting really happy and then she texted me an hour later saying someone called out for tomorrow 9-noon and could I do it 🙄. I guess I couldn’t say no, because I was going to work anyway with the cancellation and told her I would that one time despite the change in availability. Usually the really short shifts are just people who want you to help them shower, get dressed, make a simple meal, make the bed and leave. So I said ok and she told me this.  This just makes me think there must be some crappy caregivers here. And the musical schedules mess with my head so much.  I’m glad I set my days at only Friday Saturday and Sunday.  Can’t deal with it 24/7

“It’s a new client. Very sweet. Bed bound.

I will tell you that almost all the caregivers have been late to this client and she’s about to pull services if things don’t change. Are you good to be there at 9am sharp?”

Stuff I’m working on

 I’m working on a comprehensive blog post containing links, books recommendations, podcast episodes, studies, and content creator suggestions that I’ve encountered while going down anti ABA rabbit holes. If only I had gone down these rabbit holes before I started working at an ABA facility, only lasting less than two weeks. 

The couple that I’m working with this weekend on Friday, Saturday and Sunday that I haven’t seen in about 12 or 13 days- I showed up yesterday, and it appears that they’ve had several different caregivers, including some pretty crappy ones. I broke my wire rimmed glasses and had to go to work yesterday wearing my back up pair which has thick black frames. Because of this, and because of it being nearly two weeks since they’ve seen me, they didn’t recognize me. They thought I was another new person and started being very mean and defensive right away. Then an occupational therapist showed up to work with the wife. The OT asked me if it was my first time with them. I said no, I was here a couple weeks ago. The wife then said, “So are you Danielle?”  I said “Yes.”  She said, “I thought you talked a lot like her, but I thought you were someone else.”  I chuckled and explained my glasses situation. She said I look like I lost weight too. I’m not sure if I have, but I’m on another no sugar kick. I was also wearing dark solid scrubs whereas two weeks ago I wore scrubs with characters all over them. Scrub tops with characters make everyone look fat. 

She told her husband, “Danielle is the one who’s writing a book!”  Oh! I thought, wow she remembered my book! It only came up when she asked my work history. I said I had worked with abused children and was writing a book about it. I also said that a standard novel is 50,000-100,000 words and I’m at about 33,000 words. 

She vented to me some complaints about other caregivers but didn’t know specific names to go with each complaint. I texted my boss immediately about it, because if she calls the office and doesn’t know anyone’s name, gift card boss might be suspicious of me. I thought that they had one person Monday through Friday, but they said there have been so many different people. That’s a little annoying, and even though gift card boss is great, she does play musical schedules a lot. 

Musical schedules have gotten the best of my anxiety this past week. Because of my anxiety levels with constantly changing schedules, I made the decision to ask gift card boss what she thought of me switching to only Friday, Saturday and Sunday availability. This is because I’ve been accepting more higher paying merchandising and audit jobs on the apps and really would be a lot happier doing that. But I need to pursue it. I don’t have “that much” experience at the aspects of that job that matter. In online spaces for people that do merchandising jobs, they seem to make really good money after a little while. (Working for actual companies instead of just on the 1099 app). Anything having to do with caregiving and helping people will never pay well. 

Pursuing merchandising jobs Monday through Thursday is a personal choice I’m making, because I was happier and paid better whenever I did things that sent me to stores as opposed to caring for children or the elderly. Some may not agree with it, but if for whatever reason this “doesn’t work” then all I have to do is tell gift card boss I’m available more. Or always. Who knows. She’s still a pretty new start up. She enthusiastically said absolutely to my availability request. 

I also want to pursue writing more. If I could just take a class to refresh, I would, but I can’t find the right one. We’ll see. 2026 has not been NEARLY as smooth sailing as 2025 was. But we aren’t even 25% through it yet, maybe my year will get better! 

Offers

 Today I worked in a town in Porter, TX. It’s an hour and a half away from me, so I did some side jobs on the way back. I then got another nice offer with bonuses from the merchandiser app and said that I can’t do it until Tuesday. They still assigned it to me with a deadline of Wednesday at 11:45 pm. One of the things on there involves a planogram, which is what I want more practice with. 

Tomorrow and all weekend, I’m working with the couple with the $4.50 shift differential. I haven’t seen them in about 12 or 13 days, and honestly I am looking forward to seeing how much improvement the wife has. She had a pretty severe injury and had just gotten home from rehab when I first met them. She’s had a lot of home physical therapy, and I know after 12 days she’s probably improved a lot. Two weeks ago, she could maybe do 3-5 steps with me holding the gait belt during transfers. We’ll see!!  

Five Costcos

I did side jobs today at five Costco locations. On the Merchandiser app, I did one job that paid $15 each with a $15 bonus for completing all 5. Then I opened the field agent app and did a handful more at a couple of them and made another $27. I also bought a few things I needed at each one.  So I earned $117 and spent $276. I ate a $1.99 slice of pizza for lunch. It was a good day! Lots of walking. I need to be physically active.