It was the week of career day, and somehow, for the past 2 years, I've been "co-chair" for this event. Last year, my partner and I got 10 people to attend career day, and things went pretty smoothly. We were efficient and everything went pretty well.
This year, however, it was not so. We added a third helper. Another councilor we'll call Charlie. Charlie is a great councilor. He has the kids trust, they'll talk to him about everything, and he can fix tons of their issues. BUT, as an organized man, he is NOT! Charlie has a ton of contacts for events like career day. After all, he's a retention specialist (works towards keeping kids in school and helping them find career/college contacts). So, let me tell you why I could never work in the corporate business world...
I was in charge of scheduling the kids to see different careers and match them with ones that they would enjoy. I spent HOURS working on these schedules. My school has about 150 students and each had to have 5 different courses. The day of Career Day I was awake at 3am to finish the schedules. We had 16 different possible careers. I had personally arranged 4 of them... and was stalking those 4 to make sure they were there on time, prepared, and still able to make it. The rest were arranged by Charlie. I was constantly confirming with Charlie to verify what he heard from those people.
So there I'm sitting on the morning of Career Day. Cup #4 of coffee halfway done. I was finishing up the last of the schedules while my other parter was creating the classroom attendance sheets. Charlie was popped his head in and told us he was going to post signs saying which job is in which room. About 5 minutes later, he pokes his head in and asks, "Who did we get for the parole officer?" My response... stare baffling at Charlie and then say, "Are you joking?" "No"... laughing. Then it dawned on me... Charlie didn't confirm the parole officer. Either that or I screwed up big time. So I check my records of our meetings... because, yes, I took notes while we were meeting. It definitely had a name next to the P. O. So, now I start to panic. I had a feeling our tattoo artist/business owner was going to cancel (they tend to be VERY flaky), and now we had no P. O. Crap. My heart starts to race a little more and I begin to worry. How much more work do I have to do? How am I going to reschedule these kids?
Little did I know, this was ONLY the beginning. The Lawyer/Judge had to go to trial and didn't show up. The cosmetologist didn't show up. The fireman didn't show. And the tattoo artist didn't show up, as I predicted. That's 5 people who failed us (none of which were the people I set up, by the way). My partner and I spent the day rearranging students, and thanks to one of our fellow co-workers, we got an FBI guy in to fill a space. Thankfully Career Day only lasted from 9 - 12, because I couldn't have survived any longer than that.
Here's the thing... in the corporate world people have to micromanage and plan and organize, and I cannot function properly if one of my team members drops the ball. It took about 7 cups of coffee to make it to noon, and even more to make it until 4 (the end of the school day).
There's still one more part I haven't addressed. How is this Mum's fault? My mum worries like it's going out of style. Everything causes her to worry. Growing up, I thought it was crazy how worried she would get about everything! Little did I know I would turn out just like her. I can't function without worrying about everything. And therefore, no corporate business career for me... I suppose that's okay, because I really do love teaching. BUT, there are reasons why I am not a micromanaging teaching. I'm a go-with-the-flow, roll-with-the-punches, list-making-planner, outside-the-box teacher. And anytime people attempt to put me in a box, I have a breakdown and panic... and then I revolt.
Quote for the day:
“...perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.”
-Rainer Maria Rilke
(My new favorite poet...)
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