Sins

Okay. So I know that finding joy in the struggles of others is wrong. Really wrong. Plainly wrong. I know this to be true ... which means that I have to admit that I am a no good dirty rotten sinner, because my cheeks couldn't be rosier.

But I can't help it!

My job is hard ... incredibly hard, but I'm surrounded by lots of amazingly talented professionals, and sometimes I wonder if maybe it's just harder for me. Maybe I just intrinsically am not meant to work with teenagers. While ... I think in some ways, this job has shown me that I am not quite the teenager-whisperer that I hoped I would be, it has shown me something else as well.

I am a lot tougher than I give myself credit for.

The turnover rate is very high in my department, and so they accept applications for employment all year round, and then put 10-20 successful applicants through the very expensive two and a half week paid training course, about every three months or so. As I just hit my three month mark (and my half way point as well, unfortunately), it was time for the newest recruits to be coming in. In Tucson I was used to being the girl with all the answers, I'd worked for the Department of Emergency Medicine for four years, they called me the Mollinator because I knew my stuff, and I had outlasted three business managers as a humble student employee (functioning as a administrative assistant/secretary). But since I've graduated, I've been here, there, and everywhere, and so in many ways I've grown accustomed to eternally being the new girl ... so being more superior than someone and training other people to do what I do just absolutely blows my mind.

Now, I am not suggesting that I torture our newest little recruits or anything ... but I do ... just like a comic book villain ... take some joy in the pains that our newest recruits have had to go through.

A lot of the newest recruits have already dropped out. The work is "too hard", the children's violent/emotional outbursts too much to handle. They spent a day in my shoes, and decided that they preferred to run in the opposite direction. One poor girl was given an impromptu little hair "trim" from a particularly mischievous 15 year old boy, so she went home immediately and said that she didn't think she had any intention of ever coming back.

Now, I feel for her, in fact the very same thing happened to me my first or second week of working, but from a different 15 year old boy ... I turned around to the kid, who was still holding the scissors, wiped the freshly cut hairs from my shoulder, and said, "thanks, I needed a trim." and immediately went back to what I was doing. He's never touched my hair since.

So I admit it ... their difficulties are helping me to realize that I'm a tougher bird than I think I am. When the going has gotten tough ... I've stuck it out and stuck around.

The absolutely sinful giant pat on the back is now done. Thanks for listening. ;)