The Social Worker cometh

Isn't it funny how the addition of an s, changing a single to plural,  can sometimes turn something that is ridiculed into something to be be feared.....at least in the eyes of our lovely popular press.
Take a social worker. Depictions in 70's sitcoms and much of the fourth estate seem to fall into 3 main catagories.
1) The timid 'earth mother'. Usually wearing glasses and a kaftan she wafts around dropping things, espousing hippy philosophies of love and togetherness, quietly smelling of various herbal therapies...and having her bike nicked.
2) The angry lesbian. Short haired, wearing DM's and furious sense of her own place in the world. She condems men as the sole reason the earth is going to hell in a handcart and spitting angry phlegm at any male who may brush against her in tescos as a potential rapist.
3) The world weary scouser. Straight from Alan Bleasdale central casting. Hangdog and shabby. Broken from years of trying to fight the good fight and trying to keep Marx from being given the mother of all wedgies from nasty capitalism.

Wether you believe in these stereotypes or not they all depict people to be made fun of. They are safe to be laughed at, certainly not scared of. But the press CAN make you scared of them, when they want to. They add an s. Think back to any inflammatory story about child care involving local authorities. All of a sudden 'social workers' raid homes, ripping children from families. 'Social workers' come early in the morning and destroy lives. The Social Service is a bumbling, farcical institution. Social Services is a Terminator like machine, grinding peoples bones into the dust before hordes of rabid social workers swarm in to clean up the kills. The SAS has nothing on Social Services.

I don't say any of this to praise or condem social workers. I know none of the details of any situation involving social work except that which affects my children. I suspect, like any walk of life, there are good and bad ones. I only mention it because, prior to my wife contacting social services to ask to be assessed  to be an adopter, I had never met a social worker. And I read newspapers......

I like to think of myself as a fairly sane, reasonably intelligent bloke, and I am aware that , ultimately, newspapers only exist to sell newspapers, but as I sat in my flat awaiting my first contact with the woman who could quite possibly change my life forever, you cannot imagine the thoughts racing through my enfeebled mind. Would the knock on the door be too timid and quite for me too hear? Did I have the right tools to rehang the door if she just decided to kick it in? If I try to shake hands will she put me in a headlock? Have I got enough wheatgrass smoothie? Should I have displayed a well thumbed copy of The Socialist Worker artfully on the coffee table? Why was I being so mental?

And then the knock came. A normal knock. And I opened the door. And there was a woman there. And she smiled and shook my hand. And she came in and sat down. And she said she'd like just an ordinary cup of tea. PG Tips. And she talked about the traffic and parking and the weather. And it was....well...normal...
Surely this must be some kind of trap.......