It’s true.

Funkstain wrote:

FINISH THE WINE???? What kind of meal is this

A French one. Duh.

My girlfriend finds herself in a super stressful and shitty situation with no end in sight. I honestly don't know what to advise her anymore so thought I'd type it up here to see what other people think.

My girlfriend aspires to work as a psychologist and finished her masters last year. She began the next part of her training last week at a cost 40,000 euro. She doesn't have this sort of money, so she is also working a full time job as a social worker and effectively paying for each seminar one at a time. She has been working this job since August. In theory it should be 40 hours of work per week, but in reality it's more like 50 with all the unpaid overtime and the fact my gilrfriend isn't actually very good at her job (not for lack of trying. she just finds it hard so every task takes her longer to complete). In combination with her studies this leaves her super stressed and with very little time. She will typically be working 12 days straight before getting a day off. 

She was also working as a social worker last year, but with a different employer on a part time basis for the first half of the year. During this time she was given a client, a refugee from west Africa. This woman also has a child with her (although several more are stranded in her homeland). She was allocated a certain amount of hours to help her acclimatise to life in Berlin and begin procedures to get her reunited with the rest of her children. This is the limit of help the state will give her, and when those hours run out she's on her own. Unfortunately, due to some mismanagement, those hours all got used up very quickly before any of her problems got fixed. Since then- almost 5 months ago- my girlfriend has been helping this woman for a few hours each week in her own time. My girlfriend does not get paid to do this. 

Sadly, this woman's problems don't seem to be getting any better, and she doesn't seem able to do anything on her own. 5 months on my girlfriend still has to do all of her paperwork for her each week, in person at her apartment, and there's a lot of it. To make matters worse this woman got roped into some shitty network marketing scam and quickly got herself into a huge amount of debt. She gets letters from bailiffs all the time. She's way behind on rent. The landlord wants to evict her and the bureaucracy keep finding ways to stop her benefits. 

I have a huge amount of respect for my girlfriend taking this on in her own time, but the fact remains that this was already all too much for her months ago. Like myself, my girlfriend is not blessed with good organisational skills, and her stress threshold is quite low. Back in Autumn she was already frustrated that she couldn't see any way to get this woman standing on her own feet. But now that my girlfriend is working 50 hours per week, has lectures and seminars, plus her own unfolding mental crisis it's all getting a bit too much. Trying (and failing) to find a resolution to this has become a frequent topic of conversation. 

What should she do? What would you do? I have a lot of sympathy for what this refugee woman is going through. I really do. But my girlfriend cannot carry this weight on her shoulders indefinitely. She's been pushed over her capacity for a while now and it's damaging her health. But equally she can't face cutting this woman loose- understandably- knowing that she has nobody else to turn to and could quickly find herself on the streets.

if I sound like I'm erring on the side of phasing out the help for this woman I'm merely echoing my girlfriend's mood and tone, as I have done from the start. I give her a lot of positive encouragement as I'm really so proud of her for doing this. But then I also see how fragile she has been recently, and knowing/loving her as I do I can't possibly push her to give more when she's is showing so many signs of stress and anxiety.

There surely must be an actual organisation for this kind of stuff and not just using the kindness of strangers to shore up the state?  Dunno, perhaps I’m wrong.  Could some of the time your girlfriend gives to this lady be used to try and help find a charity or organisation that has more experience in helping out people in these situations?  The hours your girlfriend has committed to - away from this lady - are barely tenable so to then find a further half a day a week is not sustainable surely?  I guess I’d be looking at ways to reduce my commitment were i in her shoes but I’d also be wanting to at least try lead this lady towards more structured help.  Are there West African community groups or some such where there are people who have had to adapt to a new life the way this lady has?  That may be a starting point?

This honestly seems like something well past your girlfriend's paygrade, but it doesn't surprise me that there isn't anything in place for this woman to get the help she actually requires.

I dont know if any of these would be helpful, but hopefully there is an organisation shes overlooked due to the stress:

https://www.refugeelegalaidinformation.org/berlin-pro-bono-directory

Hey Noxy

Try dropping [email protected]

Explain the situation of the refugee.

This is a migrant antifa network who will be able to recommend organisations and/or sign posting for help.

On Weisestrasse 53, on Wednesdays between 1830 and 1930 you'll find an organisation your gf could visit in person called Rote Hilfe.

They may be able to advise on the legalities or provide cover for any the woman may face through financial hardship.

Sorry can't link to anything, but I imagine rote hilfe do have some online presence

Edit: rote hilfe have some more drop in centres ... I think they rent spaces on different days of the week

Just stumbled across this article on Twitter:

https://news.stv.tv/highlands-islands/woman-stuck-in-bog-on-uninhabited-island-for-hours

I’d heard about What3Words - a geolocation app that divides the world into 3m x 3m squares and assigns them all a three word code name - a while ago, but I’ve only just found out that it’s now being used by U.K. emergency services.

https://what3words.com/

It’s free to download the app and it’s probably worth having on your phone just in case.

Founded by a school/uni friend of mine! Ridunc clever bloke tbf, can't top of our year in Cambridge maths by a clean 10%! And at age 13 was writing VR code with the bloke who founded MM. Just as I was becoming an accountant ...

I guess it could be useful to know the three words for my kitchen and bedroom, just in case I get lost.

acemuzzy wrote:

Founded by a school/uni friend of mine! Ridunc clever bloke tbf, can't top of our year in Cambridge maths by a clean 10%! And at age 13 was writing VR code with the bloke who founded MM. Just as I was becoming an accountant ...

I met the chap, he came and gave a keynote at the place I was working. Clearly clever and lovely elegant premise but didn’t make a strong enough case for the thing, I thought. The basic premise, in emergency cases, is “it’s quicker and easier and needs less signal” than, you know, sharing location via GPS, or calling someone, right?

MK says great for festivals, but you know send them a group text like “near the pizza van” or just share GPS location down to the metre or so which can’t take much data?

What am I missing?

The thing I’ve wondered since I first read about this is, if my phone is getting a strong enough signal out in the wilderness for me to get the app to work correctly, then isn’t it also strong enough to provide map data/long and lat/be pinged or triangulated by my heroic rescuers?

I literally have no idea how modern communications work so forgive my obvious gnorance.

So the app works without a 3/4/5G signal then?  That’s what I didn’t understand behind the whole system.  I presumed you’d need some form of data connection to get it to know where you are and if you haven’t then your just as fucked whether you know you’re in Fork, Hexagon, Beans, or not.

Are you saying that if you have GPS, no data, but just enough cellular connection to connect a call, it would work (app loads and gives you 3 words via GPS, you make call and share 'em?)

if so that seems like the only real use case for it, in emergencies with conditions like that.

Are there any other uses for it, outside of emergencies with specific cellular coverage conditions?

Pretty much. It's just another coordinate system, but one that is more suitable for human understanding. That's it really. Its clever but has limited uses.