Favourite Job Experiences - part 1

A few months ago I had the opportunity to host "take our kids to work day" at my place of employment. By opportunity I mean no one else wanted to. I enjoy a captive audience, and I hoped to give them wisdom that I never had at their age. "Take our kids to work day" is when first year high school students go to their parents place of employment to feel awkward, embarrassed and out of place somewhere other than school and the mall.

The first thing I did was give them a tour of my cubicle, which I affectionately referred to as my "cloth-walled room". That excitement drained the dwarfed enthusiasm of the teenagers to microscopic levels, especially when I gave them a play-by-play of what I do with my day and started introducing them to my "family" of office supplies and their personal problems(here's daddy stapler, and mommy tape, who are fighting right now because mommy tape thinks daddy stapler should spend less time with his friends, but daddy stapler thinks she's jealous).

After that the kids were taken away from me and given to a responsible adult until later when I had them for an hour to teach them "something about computers". Normally one could show off their handiwork, what they have done with their job and are proud of. I work for a very tightly controlled organization though, so I was given a password cracker, and MS word to create web-pages with. For an hour. With 12 teens.

I guess this would have been easier if I didn't care. THAT is a running theme in my life. I took the opportunity (there's THAT word again) to tell them about why higher education is important, saying things like "If you get one more year of schooling, you can be my boss in 5 years", and then feeling not so happy about my job. At the end of the day everyone said I did a great job, which is code for "thanks for not breaking".

I honestly loved it, but not enough to be a teacher. It takes a special person to try to communicate, educate and impassion teens without being allowed to make them do push-ups as a group for someone falling asleep in class, or scream at them as if their failure to do my bidding is causing my intestines to invert.