Hoarders...

I used to watch the show "Hoarders" which is absolutely fascinating and horrifying at the same time. When things are out of place or my house is even a little bit messy, it throws me off completely and I am crabby, unable to focus and overwhelmed. If my space is disorganized, my mind feels chaotic. I can't imagine living in a home where stuff (and often garbage) is piled to the ceiling, filling rooms and making a house practically un-inhabitable.

The problem with watching Hoarders on Monday night is that every single Tuesday (for several weeks in a row), I would have a breakdown over a pile or a mess somewhere in the house. It might be dirty dishes in the sink or the storage space in the basement, but I would end up in a panic, yelling at my roommates that we were going to end up on that show.

Eventually my brother said, "what can I do to get you to stop watching that show?" and then he deleted it from our tivo. I haven't watched it since then and I have to admit, I've been much calmer and had far less freak outs (although I still really hate when the house isn't picked up).

When the three of us moved into my house, we didn't have very much stuff and so being organized was easy. It's amazing how much you can accumulate though, and 3 years later, this house is BURSTING. My brother and H are planning to buy a house of their own and have been looking for a few months now. In the meantime, they've been accumulating things they will need (pots and pans, furniture, etc). It's smart of them to do- I had to buy SO much stuff when I first bought the house, so if they can get it now, it will help them avoid spending tons of money all at once. So I'm supportive... in theory.

Except that there is stuff EVERYWHERE. And pretty soon, we aren't going to be able to organize it, so I fear we are verging on crossing the line to chaos.

My mom is moving in March. She is moving out of the 5 story home I grew up in, to a small condo. It has taken her over a year to go through everything, get rid of stuff and get ready for this move. It is going to be such a wonderful change. I can't imagine cleaning, paying electricity bills and caring for a house that size. My house is probably 1/4 the size and sometimes I am overwhelmed. I love that house, but I think she is going to feel so much lighter and freer when she no longer has so much stuff weighing her down.

Downsizing is coming (almost) at the right time fr my brother. She has a beautiful dining room table and chairs, a huge barbecue, and like, a million other things he will need for his house. She also has several things I really need like a new lawnmower and a nice bookshelf. There is also a bunch of our childhood stuff that we both want to keep, although we don't really have a use for (my gorgeous, but enormous doll house for example). Unfortunately, she is moving in March. He is probably not going to be ready to buy a house until the fall. Which means that my house is going to get even more packed with stuff in the next few weeks and I will have to deal with it until the fall.

I'm trying to make some organizational plans, while mentally preparing myself for the piles, boxes and corners piled with stuff. In three and a half months, I'm moving to camp for the summer. And then it will be the fall and (God willing) they will have found a house. So, really, this is temporary. I can tolerate it for 3 months, right?

Punching the Shark

At the training that I recently attended (see January 13 post "Inspired"), one of the topics was "Punch the Shark".

If you are ever in the ocean and a facing a down a shark, you must resist the urge to swim away, and instead, puff yourself up, swim straight towards the incoming shark and punch it in the nose.

The presenter learned that from watching shark week and later, saw an article about a man who had seen the same program, actually did it and saved his own life!

The topic of the presentation wasn't water safety (there aren't any sharks in lakes, although I have seen some big fish and I will attempt to punch them, given the opportunity). The topic was managing staff.

The presenter was making the point- stop avoiding unpleasant situations, instead, turn around and face them head on. Be direct, be intentional in your handling of it, and hopefully if you do those things, you will only have to deal with them once.

For some reason, the idea has really stuck with me. I like to think of myself as a person who deals with things, rather than avoiding them, but as I thought about it, there were several awkward conversations or unpleasant things that I could have been much more direct with last summer and in my daily life.

There are 4 or 5 of my staff from last summer who have already applied for this year, but who I don't think I will re-hire. This is not an organization that just sends out a form letter rejecting their application, and even if it was, after being on staff for a year or more, I think I owe them a conversation. I'm dreading those- they are going to end with tears or anger and I hate both of those things.

I had the first of those conversations last week. Prior to calling him, I actually printed out a picture of a shark to put in front of me. I was determined to be kind, but honest, direct, and not talk around topics or lose my nerve and avoid the negative stuff altogether.

It was uncomfortable and I squirmed around as I spoke, but (quicker than I'd expected) I found my confidence and the conversation went well. No tears, no anger, no confusion. I successfully punched the shark! I'm going to keep practicing and hopefully by the summer, I will be an expert!

Operation Purple

Three summers ago, we were accepted to the Operation Purple program. 100 fully paid campers was a HUGE addition to our summer and the board thought I was incredible. Last summer was our second go around except that instead of being a surprise addition to the budget, it was accounted for and thus, there was a lot more pressure to be accepted.

About 5 years ago, OPC received a grant from the Sierra Club, which fully funded the program and allowed it to double in size. It is a well run program, so when our final payment didn't come in when it was supposed to in September, I was surprised, but not worried. I was trying not to be demanding or difficult- I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize being accepted to the program again, but after months of emails and reassurances, by December, I wasn't sure how much longer I could hold my board back. Every exchange I'd had with OPC (and there had been MANY) was very pleasant, they were very reassuring and I was as wonderfully agreeable as I could be. I was a little concerned about the future of the program, but I applied for summer 2011 like normal and crossed my fingers everything would be okay, as OPC is now a HUGE chunk of my budget.

We eventually received our final payment and I anxiously awaited January 7, when we would receive acceptance letters.

January 7 I got an email asking applicants to be patient as they were pushing it back one week. Yikes! I had heard that line once or twice before.

But on Friday, I got the email I'd been waiting for and we'd once again been accepted. Except that instead of 110 campers, they were offering 50 campers.

I wasn't sure how that was going to go with the board. My board of directors has several very successful, powerful people. As we waited for our final payment, several times, they said, "I'd like to place a phone call and speak with someone at the organization" and each time, I had to talk them out of it, because the OPC staff don't know or care who they are and it wasn't going to do any good for them to use their reputations to "put in a call."

So instead of calling the board right away to let them know if we'd been accepted, I avoided their calls and sent OPC an email asking for more details. They sent me back a very nice email filled with helpful information and several compliments (being nice for several months of waiting obviously was not in vain).

Last year, 63 camps were selected. This year, 100 applied and only 31 were chosen. Camps served 10,000 campers last summer, this year, their goal is 3000. Whoa. Less than half. And we were selected. That is a great accomplishment, a huge compliment, and impressive, even if we are left with a bit of a budget crisis.

Once I had that information, it was a little easier to present to the board. They were very complimentary, although we haven't had a meeting to discuss the financials yet. I'm stressed out and pretty crabby that in recruiting this summer, I am basically starting at -50 kids, so I have a lot of ground to make up. I have some ideas and a few people to contact and possibly one or two tricks up my sleeve, so I'm not panicking yet.

I am hoping for the best and trying to remain confident and faithful that everything will work out.

Grad School...

This is my first real week of assignments for graduate school. I had my books, my laptop, my highlighter and my syllabus and I was prepared to sit down and read the assignments for the week.

Except...

They were, like, super boring.

So...

I drank half (who am I kidding, most of) a bottle of wine and googled "adorable bulldog pictures" instead.

I'm not so sure how this journey into higher learning is going to go. Perhaps tomorrow I will feel more studious...

Masters Degree

So getting my masters degree is going to be hard....

It turns out, there is a prerequisite that you must be smart enough to find your class before you can begin.

For my first semester, I am taking 6 credits to begin and see what I can handle while working full time. I am taking a 4 credit online class and a 2 credit class in person. Wednesday was supposed to be my first day going to that class.

I wasn't sure exactly where I was going because this particular class is not held on the main campus. I get lost a lot and I wasn't sure about traffic, so I left a full hour early. Google maps estimated it as a 20 minute drive, but ever since middle school, I've been the nerd who is super early for class, so I left myself plenty of time.

Traffic was a NIGHTMARE. It was an evening class and I didn't realize I would be going through a messy area of rush-hour. I couldn't believe how slow I was driving. When I finally spotted the building, it was 5 minutes until the beginning of my class. I wanted to be in class at least 10 minutes early, but I would still be on time, so I wasn't panicking.

The building was downtown, which I hate. I HATE downtown. Do you know why I hate downtown?!? Because there is no where to park. I drove around and around and around. And then I was lost, so I re-programmed my GPS, and then drove around and around some more. I couldn't even find an expensive ramp.

When I was 30 minutes late to class and still hadn't found a parking spot, I turned around and drove home. There is no possible way I could walk in to my first day of class 30 minutes late. I decided I would either switch into a different class that wasn't downtown during rush hour, or I would drop it.

I got home and found out the same class was offered online. Perfect. I dropped the class with no problem but couldn't register for the online class. The next day, I called the Registrar who told me I needed permission from the professor.

When I finally got int touch with the professor, he told me if I couldn't register online, it must be full and that I was already behind, so it would be difficult for me even if I could register.

Um...

The class technically started the day before, how behind could I be? And the Registrar told me that the online registration system was instant, and said instant system was showing three open spots. So, I didn't appreciate his attitude. I was polite, but I didn't hold back in my second email, as I outlined my frustration with his first response and request to have him get his act together and give me permission to register (that was what I was thinking but my email was worded much more professionally).

Having been away from school for a few years, I don't feel intimidated or in awe of professors the way I did as a 19 year old. In the 6 years I have been working, I have been yelled at enough to know about customer service and the proper way to respond to a crabby email (this professor did a poor job and if I was a camper parent, I would have lost it on him at this point). Working with a huge variety of people and companies, I have learned to negotiate, to problem solve, to be tough when I need to be, and I've overcome too many issues to just accept his lame answer.

Several emails later, he approved my registration.

Less than a week into the journey into higher education and I'm already hitting bumps. It might be an interesting road ahead...

Inspired

On Tuesday, the camping association group I am education chair of brought a big name speaker to lead a day-long training. In the camping community, he is a ROCK STAR.

I am a terrible driver. I get lost often (even going to places I've been a million times). My car smells like a wet bulldog. So why I was the person to pick him up and drive him an hour and a half to the training, is a mystery.

I borrowed my boyfriend's car, but that made me nervous because it is much nicer than mine. Also, I'm not super comfortable with his GPS. It snowed that morning and traffic was terrible. I spent the entire ride smiling, conversing with one of my idols, but secretly SCREAMING with anxiety inside my head. But we made it to our destination without any problems and having one on one time with him was AWESOME!

He started out as (and still is) a camp director. But now, in addition to that, he travels around the country to camping conferences and private workshops like ours.

It was super interesting to talk to him about his career. He liked leading trainings for staff (me too) and so he signed up to lead one at a camping conference (easy to do). At the end of it, he lied to the group and said, "I do this professionally and will come to your camp and lead a training. Let me know if you are interested." A lot of people were and from there, he was off and running. A few years later, he gets $2500, plus travel expenses for leading a 5 hour training. Whoa.

My ultimate career goal was to be an executive director of a camp. When I accomplished that goal at 26, I wasn't sure what my next step would be. I'm the type of person who always has a list of life goals that I am working towards and once you check, "land dream job" off the list, what's next? For the past three years, it's been, "do dream job well" and since this camp is in so much need of improvement, and I still have so much to learn, I know that I will busy working towards that goal for many years to come.

But it's an interesting prospect to think that at some point down the line, once I get the hang of my job and once I get this camp in order, there is a next step.

I learned so so many things during the training, but even more than that, I was inspired for my future. Did I mention he was a ROCK STAR?!?!

Kids These Days...

I volunteer for a YMCA program that brings 1400 teenagers (8th-12th grade) together in a downtown hotel for 4 days. When people hear me describe it, most often their reaction is to physically recoil and shudder as if you've just described the worst thing they could imagine. It's actually one of my most favorite events of the year and I look forward to it for months in advance. And while you might expect chaos from a situation such as that, it's a phenomenal program that is incredibly well run and there is very little nonsense that occurs.

There is a little nonsense though, and that's where I come in. My role at the conference is as a Hotel Director. There are 6 of us and we staff a room that is open 24 hours a day and deal with any kind of issue you can imagine, from small things like handing out band-aids or directing people where to go, to the major things like health issues or behavior problems.

One of the things that makes the program run as chaos-free as it does is a very clear code-of-conduct. It makes it clear what kids (and adults) can and can't do. One of the strict rules is that the kids (and adults too) are not allowed to go into each others' hotel rooms. From what I've heard, prior to this rule, there were issues with theft, messes, and an overall "hotel party" feel. Since then, the issues have gone down to nearly zero.

So on Saturday night, when we had to send 5 girls home because they were hanging out in each others' room, it was pretty straightforward. They knew the rule and that they would be sent home if they broke it.

I was nice about it. Their director was nice about it. There have been times in my career when an incident occurred and afterwards I knew I could have handled it differently. But this time I actually quite proud of myself for my firm, yet encouraging way I spoke with them. Working with kids is difficult because very situation is completely different and you don't always know what to say. Early on, there were times that it wasn't just that I could have said something better, it was that I probably actually made the situation worse. Now that I have more experience and actually say the right thing, it might be really lame to admit, but I feel a little impressed by the things I hear myself saying.

Which is why, when the last parent came to pick up her child, and she spent 20 minutes yelling at me, I was super annoyed. I have been yelled at by parents more than once. Sometimes I've even deserved it. That was not true this time.

She repeated over and over how embarrassing this would be and while I politely nodded, listened, empathized and said very little (did I mention that being yelled at a lot early on has made me totally awesome at dealing with crabby parents?!), in my head I was thinking, "Don't kill the messenger. If I was you, I'd be yelling this at my kid (the person who made the bad choice), not at the adult that enforced the rule."

Parents who make excuses for their kids make me want to scream. It doesn't do the kid any good- they will grow up without the ability to take responsibility for their actions. What she should have said to her daughter was, "you're not a bad person, but you made a bad choice. Let's have a discussion about what a better choice would have been and how you can make it th next time you are in this situation."

I don't have kids (and if you judge my child rearing ability on my incredibly naughty bulldogs, the outlook for my future offspring is bleak), but I kinda think I'm going to rock at it because I've had years of practice on other people's kids. Until then, I will continue to judge the parents of the kids with whom I work. It seems like a fair trade off since they will most likely be yelling at me as I judge.

First Day of School!

In my last post, I wrote that it had been my ultimate career goal to be an executive camp director, which I accidentally accomplished by the time I was 26. I say "accidentally" because I happened to be in the right place at the right time, rather than actually working my way up and being qualified for the job.

As a person who loves goals and needs to be moving towards something at all times, I decided that the next step should be to get a Masters degree and learn some of the things I probably should have known before I became and executive director. So today I begin my first class towards my masters in non-profit management. It's online, so it's a little less monumental than standing by the door, back-pack on, getting my photo taken on the first day of school, but it's the beginning.

When I was an undergrad, my goal was simply to get a degree and be a college graduate. I wanted to learn and I enjoyed my classes, but I didn't have a specific goal and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, so the learning was pretty general. This time around, I am in class because I want to gain specific skills and apply the information to my current job. It's not about walking away with a degree, it's about growing and developing my ability.

A Death in the Family

I don't answer staff phone calls at night (especially after 11pm), but when Counselor B called three times in a row, I knew that I needed to answer it and that it wasn't going to be good.

She cried as she told me Counselor N had just called her to let her know Justin had died. A counselor for 2 years, he was one of the best staff I have worked with. He was always focused on the kids, creative, supportive to other staff, and genuinely seemed to enjoy himself in everything at camp. He was killed in a one car accident on Wednesday morning.

I was totally numb as I listened to her cry, as I called the other staff, as I answered phone call after phone call from hysterical staff until 3am. I watched, unable to turn it off, as every staff changed their facebook profile picture to his photo over the course of the next few hours.

I woke up earlier than usual the next morning and felt like I was in a daze as I headed into the office. Business Manager J hugged me and asked how I was. Numb. In disbelief.

I sent out an email to the camper families and then spent the morning answering emails, the phone and calling each of my staff to check in with them. I was blown away by how much response I received. I was overwhelmed by how much emotion people were expressing and how much people came together to express their concern and sadness.

Because Justin lives in another state, far away from us, I decided we needed to have a memorial service and it probably needed to happen as soon as possible to bring my staff together.

By the end of the day, I had a priest and church booked, the service planned, and had pulled all of the photos of him from the summer together into a nice slideshow. The mass was planned for Saturday. I emailed everyone again to let them know, and being that it was less than 48 hours away and scheduled for New Years Day, I wasn't sure how many people would be there, but we were ready.

On the morning of the mass, there were a million details to work out, the weather was making the roads icy, I was unsure of how many people would be there and overall, I was a bit of a mess. But we had 50 people- most of the staff, several campers and families, and it was clear right away that they needed to be together.

Many of the staff and campers wore tie dye. We sang upbeat praise and worship songs and had all of the staff and kids go up to the alter and do the motions for the final song together.

We showed the slideshow, which made people cry, but laugh a lot too. Afterwards, everyone gathered together for snacks and catching up. Eventually it was just the staff left, and we came together for a grape kool-aid toast (Justin's favorite) and then someone suggested a song, and so we circled up and sang and danced with as much spirit as we've ever had.

There were some tears, but overall, the day was fun (if you can say that about a memorial). And at the risk of sounding cliche, I think Justin would have appreciated it, and was probably smiling down over the whole thing.

We are not a fancy camp. And even after three years of hard work and significant improvements, we are still a bit of a mess financially. I still look around sometimes and wonder if I will have a job in the months ahead. But when I give my end of the week speech every Friday before the campers leave, I tell them that they are now part of the "Camp family". The Camp family is made up of 64 years worth of people who have been to camp, and even though it's changed, the community spirit has been the same all along. State of the art facilities and financial stability would be nice, but a community of people who can come together as a family in a time of difficulty is by far the greatest example of excellence I could ever imagine and I am incredibly proud to lead this community.