From One Chapter to Another

A reflection of the last years I spent at Planned Parenthood and in art and comedy.

I started working at Planned Parenthood a little over a year into my comedy career. I got the job through a fellow comedian, Miriam Moreno (Straight up crusher!). As I have previously written in earlier blogs, I was in my mid twenties and was told I should wait to apply to grad school because I wasn’t ready for it per one of my mentors (a mentor that I looked up to the most) which was fair looking back at my old portfolio. On top of that, I was let go from the science museum and was offered such little pay at the art museum I was interning at that I turned down the job offer they gave me. Like really? You’re going to have me do work for a year unpaid and offer me $9 an hour!? No joke! I then went to restaurants and dog walking and was getting pretty tired of that. Especially when the restaurant I worked at put me on call because I picked up the dog walking job to help make ends meet. I was just so broke. I had some help from my parents but they helped me with school so they were like, um? Can you make your own money? Yes, yes I am trying to figure that out. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am privileged for sure and so lucky to have been given the gift of education but on the other side I know so many artists now that never went to college and are doing just fine so it is hard to not wonder how your life would be if you had more time between k-12 and college to see what you actually would want to do. I look back at myself as an 18 year old and now and I am like wow, I had no idea what I wanted. I did somehow find my passion along the way which was comedy and then by taking a break from art to do comedy, I was able to go back to art when I didn’t feel irritated about how fucked up it is to just be an artist in a capitalist society and I was actually enjoying life somewhat again. 

So I was taking a break from taking my art seriously, doing open mic comedy and only walking dogs for my income. I was applying to all sorts of jobs but couldn’t find one. About a year into comedy I had befriended Miriam like I said and she noticed I was struggling and was like, “I can help you get a job at the call center for Planned Parenthood, it doesn’t pay super well but it is a job.” It was still more than I was making! A whole whopping $11.20hr! I took that shit and was forever grateful for a break from the food and dog walking industry. So there I was, an official employee of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains!

I didn’t plan to be at PPRM for six and half years but I was so naive it happened. I truly had thoughts that I would move to New York or Los Angeles for comedy within a few years and *make it* at the time. Obviously that was not the case as many open mic comics come to realize. Getting seen in comedy is so much hard work, I am still working on it too. It is super rare to be on recognizable shows or to have a special less than four years into comedy. I do think however it is easier these days than when I started and before. Not to mention all the people that are born into the entertainment industry or who have rich parents that can fund all their trips and to not be employed while perfecting their craft. That right there is what I wonder if I had found it sooner instead of college, like would I have gotten there sooner? Lol, I wish I had a say but that was the vibe if you have that you go to college so oh well. Not worth wondering about it but I am also happy to have stayed in Denver because Denver does pay for comedy and that is also something that is rare to find in some places until you reach a certain level in your career.

So there it was. I was hired to work full time in the Planned Parenthood call center, I also happened to get hired around the Colorado Springs shootings and it was a crazy time to go through orientation, everyone was a little defeated and triggered but still passionate about the work. I remember all the security and stigma training we got and feeling a little scared but the de-stigmatizing education on abortion and reproductive health was exciting too. I also felt just a tad safer being in the call center to start. 

It was in the call center where I would take all the calls in the world in regards to people’s reproductive needs. Sometimes it was absolutely volatile in how people would treat me on the phone. People would actually say shit like, “if I get pregnant it is your fault!” Or call me names for not having sooner availability. There are only so many PP clinics in a state, people don’t understand we just do not have the funding to have more accessibility and we are trying but boy is the government also trying their best to take us down. I also would get calls from the occasional pro-lifer calling in to pretend to be scheduling something and then they would yell, “you’re a baby killer and you’re all going to hell (hang up).” 

I scheduled hundreds of reproductive appointments. I also had fun with my cubicle friends making the cubes into what we called our womb. We pinned tapestries on the ceiling to fix the fluorescent lighting beating down on us and sometimes you could even cut a dick out of a piece of paper and throw it inside the tapestry to have fun dick shapes above you as you answered calls. It was one of the first jobs where I did feel comforted by the staff around me at a large capacity. We all had to work the day after Trump took office and there was a bunch of food and hugs ready when we got there. Once we all had a moment, we just continued to keep up the work. I will never forget the broad spectrum of feels one would be sharing with me while scheduling an abortion. Some people had no problem and for some it was the scariest thing they had ever done for themselves, this speaks so much to how abortion is such a personal decision for each individual person.

The call center was not sustainable nonetheless. It didn’t pay a lot and there would sometimes be sixty people in the queue waiting to be answered. I even developed a cyst around my ear that had to be injected to heal from wearing my headset too long lol! No joke, there were days management would ask us to skip our lunch for pizza to take calls. It was kind of becoming a hell and I was over it so I almost made it a year and then after eleven months of insanity with a hint of awesome feminist culture I decided I should just transfer to the health center, I would make a couple more bucks anyway. 

I transferred to the Arvada Planned Parenthood clinic in the late of 2016. Upon working there I was super pumped but also terrified. Don’t get me wrong I was always here for the cause but learning phlebotomy and injections? When I had a BFA in art? Lol stop. But I did it. I still can’t explain how we are legally allowed to administer certain things like that under another provider’s license but PP was all about cutting corners so they figured that out and I assume that is so they didn’t have to pay us more. In other places one would need specific licensing to work but hey, it was cool and felt punk rock so I wasn’t complaining. If you ever get a chance to read A Story Called Jane, women were definitely learning abortion care through the grapevine back in the day and if they could get as far as they did, call me a phlebotomist.

I had no problem learning injections, but blood draws were another story. I hated them! I dreaded them, and I just could not get over the idea of causing someone else pain. Also people treat phlebotomists like shit, they’re all, “I hope you’re better than the last person.” COOL, so now I feel like I am going to not miss your vein at all! I would mess up so many blood draws I would cry. It wasn’t until I also happened to have a suicidal episode from the stress of this job, comedy and other things I was dealing with that led me to got put on zoloft that I finally felt capable of addressing that maybe my training was really bad and I just needed another training session with one of the clinicians. Our phlebotomy training was in a big group and if you didn’t want to be poked you didn’t have to and I don’t care about being poked but my training partners did lol so I didn’t get the best experience. After retraining and a lil anti anxiety/depression medication fix I was like the best in the clinic. No joke, everyone would ask me to do their draws if they failed. It became a game I can’t explain. If a patient had tough veins I was ready for it. 

Explaining sexual education and birth control to patients was one of my favorite things to do. Another game for me even, “Let’s try to win this person over and get them to leave empowered not scared.” I wanted to de-stigmatize reproductive health as much as I could. I will even share some common knowledge right here right now. Most people will have at least one STD before they die. Herpes is super common and non-life threatening, there is also a drug that suppresses outbreaks by 97%. The reason HIV, chlamydia and gonnorhea are considered routine is cause anyone sexually active is at risk for them and they can go a while without symptoms. Most STDs are manageable if not curable these days. You go to get tested to gain control, not lose it. See, so good. 

Abortion care was the same feel for me. I wanted to make every patient feel as in control as possible. No judgment, no reasons just that we trust your decision and we are here for you. Abortion work is so meaningful in so many ways. So many different people needed abortions out there for different reasons and all of them are good reasons and all of them don’t need to explain themselves to anyone. It was painful to see how hard some would beat themselves up over it. It would kill me to see how some partners and family would take it and judge them though there were tons of supportive ones out there too. It all boils down to a lack of education for instance some patients partners even thought that plan B was an abortion when it actually is a pill that causes a blockage so sperm cannot get in and fertilize. Because of this I just reminded myself that we were there to get them back to where they needed to be and make them feel as comfortable and supported as ever as well as give them the best education possible. 

It really upsets me that Roe vs. Wade is on the table again. I never understood why anyone cares about what someone else does with their body. Even if abortion isn’t for you then that is your choice. Abortion is also safer than child birth, let that sink in. It is just crazy to me we value the unborn over the living. The amount of times I have had people tell me their views on it and not just say “it’s a person’s own choice.” You are either pro-choice or you aren’t. Anything else is judgment. People with uteruses can get pregnant on any birth control method, they can do everything right and still get pregnant and not want to be. Of course there will always be people who get pregnant more than once and don’t want it. I don’t need to go into all the political words we are all seeing everywhere cause I am sure everyone has heard the same argument but at the end of the day it is nobody’s choice but the one carrying the pregnancy. It is insane how racist and corrupt it is to oppress that choice. Did you know that back in the day when Janes were still performing illegal abortions and a patient had something go wrong they would have to send them to the ER and in the ER simple procedures to stop hemorrhaging or perforation would end with the provider performing a full hysterectomy on the patients, yup so cruel. This primarily was the case for people of color and it has been proven that most failed abortions are fixable to a point where someone can keep their uterus but these providers were the ones playing God in my opinion. How dare you take someone’s uterus to try and teach them some corrupt lesson. Rich white people will always have access and I truly don’t know what these dumb politicians think they are doing by taking away abortion, birth control and human rights but then also not paying people enough to live or take care of these pregnancies. This country is just trash. What is even crazier is that these anti’s come in to be seen with us all the time! Yup! Anti’s come into PP clinics all the time and scold us for existing yet they get their depo shot from us. I just can’t.

Aside from all the stigma we battle we still kept a tight clinic. Arvada had the least turnover rate in the agency and I truly believe it is because of my Boss, Denise and the two amazing assistant managers I had, Skylar and Gilly. These gems did so much work to make work as comfortable as possible. I had no idea until Covid hit how good our clinic had it. When Covid hit I had to float at other clinics and see how some of the management treated their staff. Planned Parenthood is amazing in many ways but as are most things in life, it is also very flawed but the Arvada management team really put their all into us. Denise would never decline a vacation day, she would always figure it out. She wanted to make the environment of the clinic familial and fun. She had a calendar for everyone’s birthdays, she would jump in flow and actually take charts. If we were having a hard day Denise would make a run to the grocery store and buy us snacks to help ease the stress. She always urged us to take breaks and took that time to make sure we had a community. Denise and the rest of the staff at Arvada were why I stayed there for so long. 

If I were to ever get another day job which I still don’t know, I think it is going to be so weird working in a place where we aren’t all talking about penises, vaginas and anal all day. For knowing and practicing sexual harrassment trainings you would think we all were crossing a line sometimes but it was pure love. TMI was an unknown acronym in the world of PP and that was the most fun. I always thought it was hilarious when patients would even say, TMI! Cause it is like, DUDE. Look where you are (the most open place ever). Patients would tell clinicians they feel bad they have to be inside their vagina and it’s like, Girl! You are one out of a thousand vaginas don’t worry! I have heard so many wild stories and I still giggle about some cause I have nothing but compassion for what people are going through in this country. This country makes sexual health taboo and hates people with uteruses especially. People come in so freaked out they sometimes don’t even remember what we talked about in previous visits. It just says a lot. It makes me sad that people are scared to even come in for an infection because nobody is out here trying to get an STD, we are all just doing our best. We need compassion not judgment. 

Going back to how I was saying PP isn’t perfect. I do have a lot to say. This is also why I am leaving. Over the years I have seen PP let go staff that didn’t deserve it due to their own negligence on licensing, I have heard of some employees that were apparently health center managers using people’s pronouns wrong on purpose, even using dead names at times. I am sure they were let go but how did they get in is the question. I have seen microaggressions against my POC peers. I know a handful of friends that left PP because of racist microaggressions and remarks, assumptions and poor management. Also, PP was so quick to endorse Hilary Clinton but they took forever to endorse Black Lives Matter? 

 I know a lot of people that have left who also would have been amazing managers of clinics but PP decided to hire outside people instead of inside employees working hard to climb the ladder and that is 100% their loss. PP like most non-profits overworks everyone. The schedules are constructed to make PP as much money as possible and not give time for actual patient experience. They expect clinics to see six patients an hour and they refuse to give us a liveable wage when the CEO of PPRM is making a 300,000 income. Not to mention the ask for more and more from employees for expectations with absolutely no raise. I remember they set up training for my clinic and made it sound so cool, they told us we “get” to give positive HIV results but you guessed it. Not one penny of a raise or a resource to accommodate the second hand trauma we endure for results like that or any of the other traumas we experienced. It would feel like constant new training with expectations and no raises. 

The second hand trauma you endure at PP is no joke. It is definitely eye opening too. I always believed the statistic that the victim is statistically always right.. Well after working at PP I am mostly always going to believe it. I have seen and heard so many traumas from people it is truly heartbreaking. Most of the abuse reports you hear tend to be current or past minor abuse. The worst part is hearing how often the court system would do shit for these people. A lot of the time when the victims get police involved they will come visit them at their home and ask a bunch of questions in front of the abuser and then they LEAVE the victim with the abuser. You want to help but you just can’t at a certain level and that is frustrating. It really wore me down and hardened me as a person and then I couldn’t even help myself for most of it cause I was making such little money. Like I said I started at PP making $11.20hr and I am leaving under $20hr and I have been working there for six and half years.  

My life for the last six and half years has consisted of working around forty hours a week at my day job. And probably another thirty-ish making art and doing comedy. When I was in my 20s I was like, “I CAN DO THIS FOREVER, I WILL LIVE FOREVER!” But I am almost 32 now and boy am I tired. I am so fatigued from this work I have just been a ball of anxiety. I have been spiraling for so long I can’t remember but I think it all took a big turn for the worse shortly after I ended a very traumatic living situation, PP health center staff organized a union and several months later and then Covid-19 broke out and that was when we really saw how PPRM Admin felt about its health center staff and our retention. 

In the beginning of the pandemic I thought I should quit but then what? My partner, Brad also lost his job, we both lost comedy and obviously nobody was going to be buying my art when most of the country is unemployed too. I was just starting to really sell art and headline shows more but BOOM, everything was canceled. I told myself to get through the pandemic and then I can quit. Well it was wild when everything started shutting down, we were told we can’t wear masks and if we have them to give them to hospitals, we had to either lay off, or be put into a pool of the only employees working still and then our schedules were completely mixed up due to a shortage across the agency and we were being told to go all over Colorado to help with staffing issues. We never got any financial assistance or updated sick time to help with the conditions we were working in until a year or so into the pandemic. It was awful and scary. 

Then when things were getting better they made us all bid on our schedules so we didn’t have any say in them and they no longer started hiring part-time. Only full-time ten hour shifts which is so hard for some people. I for one have two whole other jobs! Hello!? It was almost like the union and then the pandemic made admin more selfish. I will give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn’t work face-to-face so much like most of this country at that time. So, it is easy to shout orders from your couch when you aren’t in the clinic actually facing the obstacles we were enduring. We were putting ourselves at risk every day, we also had so many patients and had to do appointments over the phone from the car. It was a mess. 

I know we need a silver lining here so here it is. The stress we endured was so tough I think it actually brought everyone working in the clinics closer together in many ways. Since we didn’t have a home center during those times really the whole PPRM healthcare staff were getting to meet and greet while providing as best of patient care as possible and for that I feel very lucky. It was getting to meet so many different people in the staff and even the patients I was able to learn much more about myself as a person as well. 

I have been joking lately that working at Planned Parenthood and being a comedian for so long will absolutely turn you gay but it is true for me and here is why. I have learned so much about so many people’s sexuality and relationships and how they fuck and they love and it has helped me open my mind to so much more. I don’t know where I would be without the trainings about gender affirming care, sexuality, racism, sexual harrasment and also learning the lives and traumas patients have gone through. 

Comedy is crazy and I honestly feel like a lot of the straight men in comedy will let you down even the good ones at times. They all say they are going to do better and book a show with all the women and then they book the same five women over and over. This isn’t great cause it also makes women feel like they are working against each other and comedy is already so competitive. Meanwhile they book every man that has a new tight ten minutes. There is also a lot of grooming behavior with new women in the scene. I was once groomed in ways, I have had many male friends in comedy that I thought were friends fade away from me and I can only assume that maybe they were friendly because they wanted something from me or they liked me. There are also a ton of dudes that will never book me despite the credits I have, it's crazy producing shows cause you really never know who likes you and as a producer myself I try to book everyone that has good comedy and that isn’t always the same for other shows. A lot of men also still follow the old booking rules like only one woman per show and women can’t go back to back in a line up etc. It is very discouraging and not to mention all the sexual harrassment and condescending bullshit that happens. There are many men in comedy that have done awful things and their careers are never affected by it, if anything it makes their careers stronger. Literally look at any famous male comic that has allegations against them, they are all still touring. A lot of men have also even said shit like “it is easier for women now to get booked on festivals than men.” That just isn’t even true, there are just less spots to be filled because festivals are getting called out to have more women, queer, and POC comics. Those spots should have been there in the first place and now competition is just getting more equal across the board. I get insecure when some of these guys don’t book me but then I remind myself that I am hearing the laughs and getting booked with people that see me and like me and that is more meaningful than crazy gatekeeper shows. I will never be the type to beg for someone to book me, you either like me or don’t. So yes, interactions with straight men haven’t always been great in my comedy career.

Over the years of working in a reproductive health clinic I see the worst in straight people, and sorry but us whites are not looking great guys. I don’t know what it is but I remember reading in a Bell Hooks novel that assigned males and assigned females lie in different ways. AFABs will lie to protect themselves and AMABS will lie to have control. I feel that this is true in many ways, obviously there is always an outlier but I cannot tell you how many straight men, mostly white straight men, were cheating on their partners and just keeping it a secret. It is disheartening! Yes, there were straight women cheating but still just way less than the amount of men coming in for it and whenever a woman was cheating they were terrified. Some women were even assaulted and didn’t want to tell their partner because they didn’t think they would believe them. Women would always cry and be scared whereas the men would tell us they cheated on their wife and wanted antibiotics so they would be “good” for their family vacation. A lot of cismen would answer how many partners they have had in twelve months they would still say one after disclosing they were cheating. Sorry dudes but any penetration counts. The amount of dudes trying to hide it from their partners vs. women is insanely high and disappointing. 

I was single when I first started working there and at the time I was trying to date women but I also was scared and felt very blind to dating women. Not one woman would respond to me on dating apps and then I was freaking out worrying about getting chlamydia from just working and seeing how high it is. I was almost completely done with dating but especially dating men and then I just met Brad. Brad was different from any man I have ever met but even he had never been tested. I told him if he didn’t get tested then we were going to break up and he went and got a full panel the next day and apologized fully. So then I was wondering if maybe I was just straight? But maybe I was also just giving up completely cause it was hard. But then over the years I just kept meeting more and more queer people and listening to their stories of how they live was inspiring. I went to my friend Leah’s birthday a year in to Brad and I dating and this really hot woman asked if I wanted to make out and I said that I hadn’t talked about if that is cool with my boyfriend. I then just was too afraid to bring it up and was just confused about my feelings.

 It took meeting a coworker years later and having a crush on them to realize that I needed to talk with Brad. Turns out it opened up our relationship in ways I had never seen us heading and we came to a comfort that we have been dating for years, maybe it is okay if he some day hooked up with a chuckle fucker (lol) or just a person and he was very understanding and cool about me exploring my sexuality as well. I wouldn’t have been able to get this far in my own developments if I didn’t have the experience of working at PP and having an amazing network of queer friends that helped me understands my own sexuality and gender better. 

I have learned so much since when I had started, I noticed that I rarely had queer couples coming in because another one cheated and if they did they were so open and vulnerable about it. There was no stigma in their relationship as there was in the straight ones. So many times I have had straight women come into the clinic crying and telling me it was because they had a positive HPV test and their husband called them a Goddamn whore. I am sorry but you called your wife a whore for HPV? You’re a fucking loser (I Swear). There was such a lack of education among straights which of course lead to aggressive and scary instances among couples. But queer people have a community that shares and cares. It is one of the purest loves I have ever seen and I am so happy to be a part of it, sometimes I feel like a little virgin again when I flirt with AFABs. It is insane and intimidating but I am here for it and I like to think I wouldn’t have gotten this far with my self growth if I didn’t work at Planned Parenthood and was not a comedian. 

I have learned so much at PP it is crazy to think of life without it. I got comfortable with the trauma I was constantly exposing myself to as well. I started to become hardened and numbed eventually from fatigue and I started to dream about quitting. I envied all my friends that made more money for doing so much less-exhausting work. Not saying it isn’t hard work but we just work so damn hard and I see job offers for similar jobs like mine going for way more money than us. I started to feel myself getting jaded and under appreciated. PPRM admin loved to send the clinic food but a liveable wage was never an option and because of this I think PPRM will continue to suffer. I would have stayed if the conditions were better but they just got worse. The original training program for new health center staff had a six month learning curve and now it is like three weeks. They are forcing new staff to take charts so quickly and it feels sketch AF. But that is also all about the cutting of corners. 

This country is a huge part of this, sure but a lot of things could change within the health centers. I can’t imagine being one of the providers that works for PP. They are truly angels for the work they do because they could make so much more money elsewhere but they stay. They stay because they are passionate about the cause. This work is their life. Some of the clinicians I have worked with have been affiliated with PP for over decades and yet they are given the harshest schedules with unrealistic goals and so much more. This absolutely affects the patient care and staff’s energy. Any time a clinician would snap at me I would have to remind myself that they are also being given such a thankless task every day. They are fatigued as well and this is their passion. Can you imagine having a bunch of new health center assistants also working under your license? It reminded me that I am an artist and a comedian but not a clinician. I truly have no desire for a healthcare job aside from all the awesome experience I have. I will forever be grateful for the experiences and education. I will continue to speak on reproductive health care needs and fight the good fight but I am not made for this work forever. 

 There are so many barriers between a patient and their provider. They have the pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and money all going against them. Certain governments within the US are against actual health in general right now. I can’t even believe this has lead to us having so many people that are anti-vax,anti gender-affirming care and anti-abortion when there is science literally proving it is all great stuff and we should learn even more and see where it will take us. We have come so far with healthcare in the world and it feels like it is all getting ripped away from the government and the providers are the only connection we have to this. I am terrified for everyone. So many of these people got in this line of work to help and yet they are given none of the tools to do the work they want as health professionals. Not to mention all the misinformation going around on social media now. These people deserve daily massages and first class seating for the rest of their lives! And that is why I also can’t stay at PP. I just can’t handle the second hand trauma of it all any more. 

Aside from the fatigue and second hand trauma there are many funny crazy things that would happen. Some favorite memories I have are calling the tow trucks on protestors trespassing. How poorly people were at leaving urine samples, one time a person left the clean catch towelette inside their urine cup and just peed on top of it. I once was so bored that I tried to draw my own blood and I was successful. Learning how to do CPR to the song, Sexyback. Getting so overworked we can’t form words and just laughing at how tired we were. Going through the elections, protests and pandemic together so blindly. When a man called in saying, “hi! My son is in there and my girlfriend is about to kill him,” referring to their partner getting an abortion and I was able to say, “sorry, if you are not scheduling yourself an appointment for screening or other services, I have to end the call.” Getting to perform stand up comedy for the entire agency. And lastly, the time I accidentally farted loudly at the front desk.

The knowledge and confidence that I have gained working at PP bleeds into my art and comedy with a fiery passion and that will always be with me but like I said I am just exhausted. I can’t be trying to kill myself for a day job. So, in the last couple of months I started to make the most from art and comedy than I ever have. It feels like at least I will be able to continue to grow my small business and I will have actual time for me. I put in six and a half years at Planned Parenthood and I am finally pulling out to follow my dreams (see what I did there?) It has been real, to all the people I have worked with and bonded with over the last years, I love you all. If you are reading this and still working at PP or going to work for PP keep fighting the good fight. Don’t let admin abuse your rights, the work within the health centers is amazing work and we are the ones that carry this business. Never let them forget that. 

As I sign off from writing this blog I am on my last day at Planned Parenthood. I had my monthly show last night at Call to Arms Brewing Company and a bunch of my coworkers came out and I was just so taken by all the support. Tomorrow, I fly to Seattle to do some shows, one of which I am headlining and I have more and more shows lined up that I get to close out this summer. I am selling more art and building my business. I was scared and sad when I put in my two weeks but now I am feeling like I am about to grow as an artist in ways I have never been able to. I am excited to be able to go support more shows and get out on the road. I am going to hit all the mics and bury the open micers. Yes, I still hit mics, I want to be the best I can be. If you got this far, thank you for reading and please keep up with my journey on social media and support The Curly Bush and my podcast! Until the next time I write another blog, take care. 

Bowman 💕