Yet another reason why my next job won't involve working with the general public

Last week a customer came into the office wanting to know when she could meet with me. She has been assigned to work with me due to her unemployment. Another office has already scheduled her first appointment with me. I asked her why she wanted to meet. She said she wanted to turn in her work search log (a requirement of unemployment) and talk about retraining. She then went on to tell me that her son has some type of medical issues, and she can only work certain hours. I could already tell this was not likely to be someone who’d be a good candidate for intensive services, so I told her we could meet when her appointment was scheduled in two weeks.

Friday I received her paperwork from our main office. Oh my. On it she says she is on a “leave of absence due to arrest” and her only available times to work are 4-11 AM due to her son’s school and medication schedules. Yes, even less likely to be a good candidate. Then my coworker looks the person up in our state’s online case system and finds out she has a pending Class D felony- battery causing bodily harm against someone under 14. Yikes. Beyond the awfulness of the alleged act itself, a pending felony is a huge barrier to employment. My other coworker stated we probably couldn’t even allow her in the building since she has a pending felony involving the harm a child. There is a daycare in our building, and that creates additional rules we have to follow. We contacted the head of the building in which we are located for clarification of the policy. He stated anyone who has been convicted of or has a pending felony involving children cannot come here and will have to work with our main office. I talked to a team leader and she stated she would contact the customer. Whew, that meant I wouldn’t have to have that oh-so-fun conversation. I did alert my coworker about the situation on the off chance the customer came into our office for service before our main office could contact her. Well, guess who shows up less than 15 minutes later? Yep, it was the customer in question. I took her out of the office into the hallway and explained the situation. I then escorted her out of the building, explaining that if the case resolves in her not receiving a felony that she is welcome back in our office. Thankfully she was calm and said she understood. Let’s say I more than earned my pay for today in the first 1.5 hours of the day.