#hate being in charge of deciding peoples' fates re: hiring. hate being in charge of disciplinary stuff (im so bad at it)

[orcelito]

I always do question why I keep putting up with all the bullshit of my job. I got soooooo close to quitting back in February, & ultimately only really stayed bc my tax return was delayed & I didn't have the financial security without it to quit

I enjoy some aspects of the job. But tbh yeah I kinda fucking hate it. There's so much I have to do Constantly, there are Always problems, and I've got more and more responsibilities and expectations placed on me. More and more money too, but ngl it still doesn't feel like enough for what all of this is.

But I'm taking so long in my schooling. I've fumbled it so many times. I don't have any internships and I'm petrified at the idea of applying to them. What I DO have is a rock solid track record with this job. I'm well respected by management, I'm relatively accomplished, & I've proved that I can do a damn good job. The longer I stay here, the more that potentially means down the road. I have a business owner who's openly stated he'll vouch for me no matter where I go & a work history that's looking better and better. Having thorough experience with management looks Great no matter where I go.

And... it helps me feel better about myself, too. Helps me feel like I'm not wasting so much time. I'm not just fumbling my schooling, I'm doing part time school as I also participate in managing a store. Sounds better when I put it like that. Makes me feel like less of a failure when compared to others who are more accomplished.

So here I am. Constantly under pressure, constantly wishing to escape, yet Here I Am.

I just really need to finish with school already. It seems like it's going to be my only real escape from it all.

#speculation nation #being in management has driven home to me how little i want to be in management #im fine being a team leader aka what im hoping all this will act as proof of ability for or whatever #but upper level management? no fuckin thanks lmao. i hate almost everything about it #hate being in charge of deciding peoples' fates re: hiring. hate being in charge of disciplinary stuff (im so bad at it) #hate the expectations and responsibilities and all this constant fucking bullshit #... though i do like feeling valued. the owner consistently voices his appreciation for what i do & it feels very nice #but that's also why this bullshit with the supervisor stings so bad bc she's clearly discounting everything i do for this fucking place #i ALREADY stayed late to help but it wasnt enough bc i didnt give Everything for her. #which i hate that im still angry about it but i really am. it fucking sucks. #she has no idea how hard this fucking job is. how much im already doing. it's infuriating. #i bet she thinks im making like much more than i am lmao. im ultimately only a few dollars more than her. #'management' at at a small store doesnt mean ppl sitting on plush pillows making arbitrary decisions for thousands #no im out there doing shit all the time. im still basically an employee. i just also have some say in how things should be run. #it's complicated. my reasons for staying are complicated. so im unlikely to leave until the time is right. #but oh God i want so badly to leave. i want it so so badly. #someday i will have my bachelors. and then hopefully i can get some random computer job where i can just be a gremlin #without all the pressures of management resting on my shoulders. #maybe someday...

[maren-as-an-adult]

I Severely Underestimated the Lack of Time and Energy This Job Would Allow Me

So my plan of posting a weekly-ish update about this job severely backfired on me, because HOLY SHIT DO THEY KEEP US BUSY! This is legitimately a full-time job, we should all get a raise, but because the Man hates the Arts we probably won’t ever at all and counselors are people who do the most but get the least, goddammit. SO! The week started off where I was a scared beanpole of a girl super intimidated by all of the nearly 300 children that would be staying with us for the next 3 weeks. I had no idea how I would run my classes, I had no idea what I’d be doing for my show, I had no idea if I would make friends, and I had no idea if I’d be able to handle the six girls I’d be in charge of on my floor. 

Three weeks later, I was so emotionally compromised when they left and I realized I wouldn’t see them for another year... unless I don’t come back next year in which case I’ll probably never see them again. WHICH IS NOT WHAT I WANT TO HAVE HAPPEN!

Basically, here’s the breakdown:

CLASSES

I taught three dance classes: beginner jazz, intermediate ballet, and advanced modern. I only had four in my modern class, and I grew to love each of them so much. They were so receptive and willing to perform their best, and they all said they really admired me. Modern also was set to perform in the class showcase, and they were able to beautifully perform the choreography I gave them.... although I didn’t actually get to see their performance, the class showcase was on my day off, and on that day I went into the city for a date with The Boyfriend. That was a fun day, but back to camp for now. 

THE SHOW

The show I worked on was Stephen Sondheim’s Follies. And WOW was our director intense. We were flying through the show which was to be expected because we only had two and a half weeks to have it blocked, cued, choreographed, and memorized and even though I’m good at picking up and learning choreography, I was struggling myself to keep up. 

This was especially nerve wracking for me, as the cast would frequently come up to me and ask me for clarification on what we just learned. Because it’s not considered professional to say, “Sorry, dude, I know about as much as you do right now, so I guess you’re fucked,” I struggled to help them as best I could. 

I’d feel so useless, incompetent, and foolish when I couldn’t help them, and there were days I was definitely overwhelmed. I was also super lost on several of the group dances, because I’d been gone for a weekend up in Albany for my grandfather’s funeral which was a fucking blast there was a rainbow and everything. 

There was this one girl in my cast who was, in a bit of a word, super high-strung about everything. She wanted to be perfect in the show for all the wrong reasons (I won’t get into it much, but basically she felt she needed to be perfect to prove to other people outside of this particular production that she deserved better treatment from them) and was constantly oscillating between doubting herself (because even though she’s clearly talented, that knowledge isn’t enough when another cast member gets applause after her numbers in rehearsal and she doesn’t) and taking it upon herself to correct others and give them notes. She wasn’t a nightmare to work with, but I’m glad she’s not in the production I’m working on for Session 2 (she was one of the few stay-over kids we had who stay for two sessions instead of just one)

There were some great and memorable times during rehearsals, though. One of our leading men during dress rehearsal got a costume ring stuck on his finger and had to be taken to urgent care to get it cut off. Before that, though, I took him over to our nurses to see if we could get it off there. When lotion, an old ring cutter, an ice pack, and dental floss did not work, that’s when we put his fate into the hands of the professionals. 

There was also the time a rumor may have started that the director and I were sleeping together, which is hilarious because he and I both have boyfriends. 

THE GIRLS

So last session I was assigned a room of six girls to look after: wake them up, make sure they’re on the floor by curfew, make sure they’re in their rooms at 10:30, take away their phones for the night, and make sure their lights are out by 11pm. If they’re having problems or want to talk to someone, they should come to me. They were all between the ages of 14 and 16, which in my experience can make for some fairly catty attitudes. 

I did not realize how sad I would be when most of them left (one of my girls is a stay-over, yay!)

They all gave me huge hugs before they left, and asked if I would come back again next summer. I told them that unless Stagedoor decided not to re-hire me, there was no way I wasn’t coming back. 

They would open up to me, confide in me, and told me how much they loved me. 

I’m 99.99% certain it was all genuine and not just flattery so I’d be lenient with them. 

But I do miss them, and I hope I get to see them again. 

PRODUCTION WEEKEND

During this week, my birthday happened and I turned 24. My roommates decorated our door, I got a cake at lunch, was sung to twice, and received over a hundred “Happy Birthday” messages in various electronic form: Facebook, text, voicemail, Snapchat, etc. But the top three moments of the day were:

- A voicemail from The Boyfriend, officially being the first person to wish me a Happy Birthday

- A card from one of the director-choreographers, and head of the dance department (who has worked at Stagedoor for 25 years and everyone loves)

- A card from my family with a very generous gift cart to purchase show tickets (which I now have thanks to The Boyfriend!!!!)

But apart from that there was nothing particularly special about the day. My girls kept wishing me a Happy Birthday each time they saw me, though, so that was nice. 

One good thing about production week is you get real good at pin curling and iron curling hair. I had so many flashbacks to my high school theatre days when the crowds formed around a handful of curling irons all plugged into one communal power strip and a box of approximately 8,000 hairpins was constantly floating around. But at my high school, it was just one show with about 40 kids getting ready. Imagine almost 200 girls needing their hair pin-curled for wigs by counselors (because apparently none of them knew how to do it?) on a super strict schedule that didn’t give them much time, coupled with the fact that everyone needed to get makeup done and costumes on an hour before the shows opened. 

And on top of all this, there was some weird plague going around. Campers and counselors alike were dropping like flies and succumbing to this illness, and if it wasn’t that illness it was strep throat. The hectic and stressful environment coupled with the fact that parents were coming to visit had staff near the breaking point, and the only thing we wanted was 24 hours of quiet solitude. 

That was a little more than a pipe dream, though. 

I myself almost caught this mysterious flu-like death virus going around. Our music director for Follies caught it, and was struggling to stay alert and conscious during our dress rehearsal, our stage manager caught it and was promptly sent to bed to try and sleep it off. That night I remember a rather large headache and a weird pre-nausea feeling in my stomach, along with a general full-body ache, and I just remember thinking, “Please God don’t let me have this.” I made sure to go right to bed that night after our end-of-the-day meeting, and woke up feeling fine. I’d already gone through some pretty shitty allergy sickness at the start of the session, and I didn’t want to start and end session 1 sick. 

Thankfully, though, our music director and stage manager were back in action the next day for opening show, and the shows were flawless. I’ve never been so proud of a group before, because they did one of the most challenging things I could have imagined. 

But the day had to come where they packed up their stuff and drove home with their families. It was sad to see them go, especially after bonding so strongly with some of them. And there was no time to feel sad, really. As soon as a room was empty, counselors and cleaning staff would immediately start cleaning the rooms and prepping them for the next batch of kids to come in. 

And now they’re here. I have two rooms this session, and on night one of session two my first room (which has my stay-over girl in it) managed to break a bulb on a string of lights and get glass over the floor. My group leader had forewarned me that they could be rowdy and quite a handful, but I was hoping they’d give it a few days before breaking something. So I knew I had to do something to prevent excessive rowdiness ASAP. 

That night, after cleaning up the shards of glass/plastic, I gave them a quick speech about how busy it was for counselors: not only did we look after a room full of girls (and in my and other counselors’ cases, sometimes multiple rooms), but we also had classes to prep for and teach, and shows to either manage or choreograph. I asked them to help make the counselors’ jobs a little bit easier by being smart, conscientious, and mature. That seemed to get through to them, because thus far I haven’t had any trouble from them. 

And it’s now been a few days into session 2. I’m teaching intermediate tap, intermediate modern, and musical theatre. The class structures could not be more different for me this time. Musical theatre thus far doesn’t have a set class structure, what I’ve kind of cobbled together as a lesson plan has been: work on one piece for the showcase, and throw potential audition combinations at them to train them to pick up choreography quickly. Tap is basically a warm-up of basic moves, and then the rest of the class is spend working on moves they want to learn. Modern still holds some semblance of structure, though, but it’s my largest class and the students take up all the floor space, so it’s harder to really see everyone and make sure they’re getting the combinations I give them. 

I was super excited when I heard about the shows for this session, but the two that I really wanted to work on were choreographer shows, and didn’t require an assistant choreographer (A.C.’s only work on shows with director-choreographers). They were Evil Dead - The High School Version and Guys and Dolls. But I’m still excited about the show I’m working on: Me and My Girl. It’s kind of like My Fair Lady and Half A Sixpence. My director-choreographer is this really great lady who is super organized with everything, so with the way she has things planned and mapped out, we should have the show ready for full runs in less than two weeks. 

Today was my first day off for this session, and it was pretty amazing. I slept in, treated myself to some nice makeup, went out for pizza with my friend Anna, and got some counselor work done. Next week I get to see two of my favorite people in the world and a Broadway show (I’m seeing Kinky Boots starring Brendon Urie with The Boyfriend). I still need to figure how I’m getting to the bus station but that’s a problem for tomorrow or the next day. 

So, weekly updates won’t be a thing, but I can try to do session recaps. That’s what I’m aiming for at this point. 

And now, on to session 2!