Tattle Tale

I had an experience at work today that has left me pondering. My job is to be an advocate to & for the elderly. My time is spent helping them get a tax abatement on their property tax. It is based on age & income. In order to work at Community Action I have had another background check. Less than a year ago I had one in order to volunteer for the Center for Women & Children in Crisis. I passed that one, not much has changed since then. One of my new duties is to go to a senior citizen center once a week where I am available to those that have questions or need help on their tax abatement forms. There are a bunch of people over 65 that qualify, but they don't know about the program. So today instead of sitting in my room at the center waiting for people to come to me, I spent time in the halls asking people if they knew about the program so I could help them get signed up if they were interested. I had a lady tell me she wouldn't qualify because her rent is subsidized, so I went on my merry way. A little while later one of the office workers came & asked if I had a badge I could wear so people would immediatley recognize I was with community action. As it turns out a tattle tale had gone to the office & said there was someone (me) walking around in the halls gathering information they shouldn't be gathering. Since I am not a scam artist (backgroung check) & community action has permission to set up shop at the center to help the elderly, the office worker informed the tattle tale who I was. As it turns out, this tattle tale could get a rebate! Too bad for her she already knows it all. Which brings me to the lesson learned today. I don't want to be in such a hurry to be right that I  hurt not only myself, but others. What if miss tattle tale had gone to the office & asked for verification that I was legitimate rather than accusing me of wrong doing. She would have found out I was helping her friends. Please dear friends & family. remind me to get the facts, keep an open mind, & learn from others before jumping the gun & possibly ruining a good thing for myself & others. So many of my clients are grateful for the help I give them. They are kind & enjoy talking about their colorful lives. The aging proccess can be difficult, but there are many who are successfully manuveuring through their days. They are the ones I look to for an example. I just ran into one bad apple today & I'm not going to let her spoil the barrel.