– You have an endless supply of ones, fives, etc. People always come to you to break twenties and if you’re young enough, the bank assumes you’re a stripper.
– Friends have a love/hate relationship with eating out in your company. Love because you can split the check and calculate the tip in the blink of an eye. Hate because you tend to say things like, ‘Oh.. I wouldn’t have done that” or, “No, see, she’s just ringing in their food and then she’s going to run get outs, don’t worry!”
– Other servers/bartenders love you. If you’re not an asshole, you tip well, stack the plates, and generally try to act the way you wish your customers did.
– You pretty consistently smell like onions and french fries. You attract very strange people of the opposite sex for that reason.
– Endless supply of pens. If you can’t find one, you have another and you’ll probably find the original later that night behind your ear or in your ponytail.
– If you’ve done it long enough, you develop a vice to deal with the total lack of faith you now have in humanity. Smoking, drinking, arts and crafts, what have you.
Random thoughts of the night, luckily I actually jotted them down tonight.
Reprinted with permission from On Station Two.
I Endured Years of Racism, Hostility, Harassment and Retaliations. Then I Was Wrongfully Terminated
By Wayne Morrison
I started working for Coca-Cola in early 2008. I was originally hired for the merchandiser position. My responsibilities consisted of packing Coca-Cola products in retail stores and setting up displays, while also rotating the stock. I covered an area that spanned from the Bronx, N.Y to Ridgefield, Connecticut.
At first, it seemed like a good job. I was working for a big, prestigious company with endless amounts of opportunities, or so I thought.
About a year later, I heard that Coca-Cola was making some changes in my department; they changed the supervisors. I heard that the reason was because the original supervisors were very worker-friendly and that they were too nice and tolerant. I didn’t believe that at first because those supervisors provided us with a conducive and harassment-free work zone that enabled us to be more productive.
Shortly after, I saw that the supervisory staff was indeed replaced with new aggressive supervisors that professed that they were there to “clean house” and that they were going to “cut the overtime because workers were making too much money.” I would often hear these supervisors say things such as “you’re not going to be able to pay for your cars” and “I’ll be damned if my subordinate will make more money than me.” I tried to ignore it, but I knew that this was going to be a problem.
This System Doesn’t Work For Us
By Maria
I currently work for a high-end department store, filling online orders. I don’t have a car, so I have about a two hour commute on two buses. I get to work at 7:00 a.m., three hours before the store opens. My job is to find the items ordered online, and to ship them out.
After two years of working there I have finally qualified for a retirement and dental plan, yet I might have to reject the retirement plan because I do not earn enough, and too much money would be taken out of my paycheck.
Even though they offer a health insurance plan, it is too expensive and the company is not willing to offer a plan that is affordable to its employees.
After taking more responsibilities I asked my supervisor for a raise, telling him I was only earning $10 per hour. As I told him this he acted as though he did not believe that I earn that little.
He “promised” to ask the people on top to give me a raise.
I Have Taught for 23 Years. It’s Been a Wonderful Ride
Barry Mernin, Hong Kong International School
“Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives.”
-Andy Rooney
“I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”
-John Steinbeck
I have been teaching for 23 years in Maryland, Singapore and Japan and now teach 4th grade students in Hong Kong. It has been a wonderful ride.
In 1985, I enrolled as an elementary education major at Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Initially I merely wanted to help struggling kids find success in the classroom. As a high school senior, I was an intern in a classroom of learning-disabled elementary-aged children. Within the first week of my internship, I knew I had found my calling, and I have lived a life of learning and teaching ever since.
Teaching is Not Rocket Science. It’s Much More Difficult
By Ryan Steuer, Decautur Middle School, Indianapolis
Ryan Steuer working with his students.
I teach because the news is depressing. When you turn on the news or read the paper, you see crime, murder, and poverty running unchecked. For every triple homicide, suicide or theft in the news, some young person you don’t hear about is directly affected by it.
The young man who was gunned down on the east side? That was Jimmy’s cousin.
That veteran with PTSD who went a little nuts last week? He’s Alice’s older brother.
Oh, and that crazy woman who went to jail for stabbing her husband? Well, that means that Tricia now lives with her grandmother, the one who drinks heavily.
But the world doesn’t really care about what is going on, and so we expect Jimmy, Alice and Tricia, all of them just 14, to pay attention to their teachers, do well on standardized tests, graduate, get jobs and raise families. Not likely, not unless we offer help.
I Came to the Classroom to Make a Difference
By Alysia D’Urso, Central High School, Providence, RI
As I was winding up my third year in the classroom, I sometimes caught myself wondering why I continue to teach. My reason for becoming a teacher seemed to get lost, or at least overwhelmed, by the daily grind of trivia that is a big part of the world of teaching. I certainly did not become a teacher so that I could drown in piles of papers, or pound my fists in frustration at copier machines that won’t make copies, or tell–again and again–some 14-year-old boys to stop making animal noises in the halls. And I didn’t become a teacher so I could work in my classroom until 7:00 PM but get paid until 3:05 PM.
I came to the classroom to make a difference, but how do I know if I am? When I lose sight of the big picture, I visit a wonderful colleague, Stan. Stan has been teaching for over 15 years and–ironically after over a decade of this stress–he looks 10 years younger than most people would guess. When I am in a crabby mood, Stan hands me a Halls cough drop and suggests that I read the wrapper because, just like fortune cookies, each cough drop shares a few words of motivation with its consumer. Unwrapping the medicated candy, he reads, “Be unstoppable,” “Don’t wait a precious minute” or “Conquer today.”
The Gift Giver
By Joseph Murphy, Vanderbilt University
To unsettle and alloy that bewilderment with joy
To allow flight and provide an unseen scaffolding
of support
To hold tightly while letting go
To correct with precision and warmth
To reveal mysteries and provide ladders for
climbing to understanding
To challenge, to exhort, to demand
To push, to pull, to carry
To build, to empower
To respect and acknowledge, to ennoble
To place one’s own heart on the altar and one’s
own hands in the fire
To remember the forgotten
To feel, to share
To dance in celebration
To pass into the shadows
To teach
Reprinted with permission from Education Week.
I Guess I’m Not a Teacher Anymore
By Melissa Bowers
School is going on right now. MY classes are in session, right this very instant, and I am not there.
I am not a teacher anymore.
Maybe if I say it another eighty-seven times, it will finally sink in. Because right now, I definitely still feel like I have stacks of essays on a desk somewhere, and last night while I was grocery shopping I kept thinking about what I’d need to pack my lunch. But I’m not a teacher anymore. My last day was Friday.
The weird thing is, I leave teaching once a year, every June. We spend days tying up loose ends, we post grades and clean our rooms, and we go home for two months of summer and come back to a brand new batch of kids. Summer feels free and delicious, at least for the first few weeks (or until we start our summer jobs, or attend conferences and classes, or start planning for the following school year). You feel a little lighter when you close your classroom door and leave in June. I expected it might feel something like that — maybe times a thousand. But it doesn’t.
Dear Students: Thank You for Keeping It Real for Me
By Grete DeAngelo
I don’t do it for the money. So many students tell me, “I don’t know what I want to do, but I want to make a lot of money.” Well, the money won’t mean much if there’s no meaning in what you do.
I don’t do it for the recognition. A lot of days, I only get recognized for being a taskmaster. My students have straight-out asked me, “If you have a master’s degree from a great school, what are you doing teaching?”
A Noble Calling
By Rowlanda Cawthon, Northwest University
Simon Sinek, a well-known TEDx speaker, coined the phrase, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” For the past year, I’ve thought considerably about “why” I teach and the impact that teaching has had on my life and on the lives of those I serve. What I’ve learned is that there is much more to teaching than simply developing curriculum, lecturing, and grading assignments.
Undoubtedly, my “why” is inspired by experiences I had with an exceptional educator. It was the caring words and actions of a teacher that played a role in the personal and professional transformation I experienced during a pivotal period in my life. Because of his encouragement, after an eleven-year career with the Department of Corrections, I faithfully transitioned to higher education to teach full-time. It’s worth noting that this teacher also inspired me to pursue a doctoral degree, a goal that for some reason I believed was unattainable. His belief in me and his willingness to serve as my mentor throughout my doctoral journey helped me accomplish this goal. Given my experiences, I know that the implications of teaching extend far beyond the classroom.
WorkersWrite 