My New Best Friend

Call number 15 with the crying parent from Monday. We've also been emailing pretty steadily throughout each day. I find myself taking extra photos of her child to make sure he is on the website looking happy and even emailing her every now and then just to check in. Indulgent, maybe, but she's also become a challenge that I'm thoroughly enjoying. I want to win her over, I want her to be completely converted. I want her to be blown away by her child's experience and then go out and tell everyone she knows. And I want her to love me, so I take every phone call as another opportunity to win her over. I probably have to get over that, but for now, she's my challenge.

I work at camp because I am an idealist. I am genuinely here because I want to make a difference in people's lives. I know I know, corny. My mom would roll her eyes and tell me to go get my Master's Degree and make some money stepping on little people. But I believe I can help people and I am committed to each child that walks through the door. I want each child to have an amazing experience. At dinner, you can frequently find me making peanut butter sandwichs for kids that don't like what is being served. Throughout the day, I don't hesitate to drop everything to change a child's schedule if it makes them happy. And when I ask them how things are going and they say "ok" I really care when I ask, "well, what could I do to make it better?" Often kids respond with something like, "camp should have jet-packs for every kid" or "kids should be given all the pop they want". But when they have real suggestions, I don't hesitate to make changes/additions.

I want every parent of our campers to know how much we care for their children and just how great this camp is. And so I think I have embraced this challenging parent because she is providing me with a personal opportunity to do just that. And, really, at this point, I look forward to her calls because we've become buddies, and it's a nice break in my day to have a nice chat.