Yesterday was a frustrating day and I repeatedly wanted to scream, "where are all the adults?!?" which is a phrase I have heard come out of more than one parent's mouth. It bothers me when they say that (I am always tempted to say, in my most snotty, teenage voice, "um, hello, you are looking at one"), but yesterday, I was right there with them.
Yesterday afternoon, four of us went to the grocery store to buy some food to have a 4th of July barbecue. Between long lines and road construction, it took forever and I was leading an in service from 5-8pm. We got back around 4:45 and I dropped two of the staff off at the dining hall and asked them to take the groceries in with them so that I could go back to my cabin and grab a few things before the meeting.
Around noon today, Program Director S came into my house and let me know that the guys hadn't put anything in the refrigerator the night before, so the pork chops, bratwursts, potato salad and coleslaw (pretty much everything we had bought) were all ruined. That left chips, corn and cake for us to serve. The reason we rushed to the grocery store last night was because it was closed today. I am so frustrated.
I found some hot dogs and ground beef and managed to pull together a full meal, but I just keep shaking my head. Seriously??? They were with me when I bought everything. Maybe it was my fault for not being more specific. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt by assuming that they have common sense, but apparently not. Next time I will say, "please take this to the dining hall AND put everything that needs to stay cold in the refrigerator." Ugh.
Yesterday afternoon, before the in service, I needed to make about 500 copies. I have been working all week (literally all day, every day) putting together information for next week. I had a HUGE stack of papers that I set on the copy machine and planned to copy after the campers left. When it was time to photocopy, my papers were nowhere in sight. I looked everywhere and I finally had to start the training with nothing. I asked the staff if anyone had been near the copy machine or seen my papers. One of the staff said, "oh yeah. Yikes... Um, I made a copy and when I opened the top, I heard, "whoosh" but I assumed it was just scratch paper so I left it." I hadn't thought to check behind and under the copy machine, but that's where all the papers I had worked for 5 days to put together were. Shaking my head again...
My job has many parts, but one of the biggest (at least during the summer months anyway) is working with these young staff, many of whom this is their first job. During training, I talk to them about how it is their job to make sure kids are safe by watching their behavior and preventing them from making poor choices. Their job is to guide campers through the camp experience, helping teach them activities and also to make sure that they help them through any emotions they experience. Our goal is for campers to develop life skills through the activities at camp and that counselors will be patient as the kids learn. All of these are the things that I am responsible for too, but my group is the staff.
They look like adults. They even act like it sometimes. But they are young and they need guidance and sometimes that means I have to take deep breaths and speak in a patient voice rather than lunging at their throats and screaming like a madwoman. It has been an exhausting weekend for that and I am working hard to come up with a motivational speech that reminds them to "use your common sense or I am going to start killing you off one by one."
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