2 weeks ago a kid (I know I'm old because 18 year olds are "kids") showed up on my doorstep out of the blue. I had just come back from a run and was sweaty, my hair was going every direction and I wasn't wearing cute exercise clothes, rather an unfortunate combination of paint stained sweats and a dirty tee shirt. I was covered in dog hair, the dogs were going crazy and I'm surprised he didn't run away from the craziness of the whole scene. I didn't look professional or even presentable, so when he asked if I was the owner, in my head I was thinking, "don't represent camp looking like this!!" Pushing my embarrassment aside, I told him I was the director and asked what he needed.
He asked if I needed someone to cut the grass or do maintenance work. I told him I could take him name and phone number and give him a call if I had anything for him. At first I didn't think I would need him, but even though my dad is feeling much better and back to work, he's not working full time and has been struggling to keep up. With 6 hours worth of grass cutting every week has been difficult to stay ahead of and the mosquitoes have been out in SWARMS.
So I offered him 25 hours a week, cutting grass, raking, clearing brush and keeping the grounds cleared. Maintaining the grounds takes so much more time than most people can fully appreciate, so it will be nice to have some extra help.
Maintenance Assistant(MA) lives right up the road from camp, so the added benefit is that we build neighborhood relations and add one more set of eyes to watch over camp. The more I have thought about him, the more benefits to employing him I have come up with.
A few weeks ago, we'd heard a rumor from another neighbor about a teenage boy who moved in with his grandparents nearby and was a bit of a troublemaker- breaking into barns and causing trouble. MA lives with his grandparents and is a bit rough around the edges (his two questions in our interview were- can he chew while moving the lawn and does he need to cover up his tattoos). I'm not sure if he is the hoodlum we've been hearing about, but perhaps this is a situation of, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer"- ie, let's give him a job and make him our friend so he doesn't break in to our buildings.
Rumors aside, I think MA is going to be a good addition to the camp team. You have to give him credit for taking the initiative to walk over and ask for a job. I like his ambition and so far, he's been working really hard.
During his interview he told me he'd grown up in a suburb near where I grew up. A few days after he began working, I was wearing one of my old YMCA shirts and he said, "you were a staff at the Y camp". Apparently he'd been a camper at my old camp and he recognized me. When he said that, all of a sudden, 10 year old MA popped into my mind and I remembered him. When I told my best friend X and my good friend M this story, (both of whom worked at camp) they recognized his name right away. I love when "what a small world" moments happen. Him being a former camper makes me pull for his success even more.
So camp has a new maintenance assistant. We'll see how it goes.
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