I'm good at school. Like, really good. After 17 years of formal public education, you'd hope I would be. I can analyze, I can write, and I'm really good at learning. Give me a book, give me a discussion section, let me break it down to you in an essay. I got straight A's in college, high school, AND middle school.
But after spending the entire part of my memory-forming life in institutions of learning, I often feel entirely inadequate at work. It is frustrating that, at 22 years old, I was pushed into an completely different world of which I knew nothing about. Never mind my theoretical background in the connections between the government, non-profits and civil society, or my ability to reflect on how copy machines are like Gramsci, I know nothing about the real world. Networking, marketing, management. There wasn't a leadership program, internship or class I could take that would get me there. I can learn these things bit by bit, but when a whole new world gets thrown at me, it's a lot to take. When I started realizing that my colleagues had kids that were older than me, that they had been in the profession since before I was born, I got intimidated.
I want to think of myself as someone who is awesome at what she does. But what if it's not that I can do whatever I set my mind to, but that I just happened to find my calling in school work. That I'm just really good at school. Sometimes I wonder if I am too organized, too formulaic and straight for the energetic, chaotic world of the non-profit. I expect recognition for my work just like when a teacher grades my papers, yet I don't realize I need a marketing plan, relationship building, and connections. As a camp counselor I could talk to each one of my kids, but as a program manager I have over 300 students, volunteers, staff members and parents I'm supposed to be BFFs with. I connect more with my volunteers--energetic, neurotic students like myself--than I do with the black kids whose childhood resembles nothing of my own. What if this just isn't my calling?
But then I also think, if I don't do my job, who will? Who will take an intern's wage to run a program? Who will keep things organized and prepared? Who will run the mentor classes and interview the kids? Of course, if I leave my position, the job will be filled, if there is a job left to fill by the time I'm done with this program. But I've also seen what it looks like when my manager hires someone new in the middle of the year, with the kids running around and the district threatening to cut off all funding because the program is in violation of just about every health and safety code. While I can't do the job, for 30k I'm not sure they could get anyone better. And where would I go? I want to go to another non-profit. Work under someone for a change in a real office with more than two people. But who's to say I'd be any better. I can't organize a community meeting to drum up support for community supported agriculture.
Or maybe life is about failures. Long gone are the days when I got an A for effort and showing up at office hours. There are plenty examples of this, but as I scroll through a gossip site to console my dejection, I think about Anna Wintour at Vogue, dismissing a designer's entire season of work with one turn of her nose. I think this rings particularly true as I consider my other passion, sewing, and the constant temptation to leave this serious business altogether to go make clothes. Even in the world of sequins and bias tape, and perhaps even more so for artists trying to make a living off their craft, does failure loom again and again. And as someone who has always gotten that A, I'm sensitive to this. I worked my ass off, but I was always rewarded with success. Always.
But after spending the entire part of my memory-forming life in institutions of learning, I often feel entirely inadequate at work. It is frustrating that, at 22 years old, I was pushed into an completely different world of which I knew nothing about. Never mind my theoretical background in the connections between the government, non-profits and civil society, or my ability to reflect on how copy machines are like Gramsci, I know nothing about the real world. Networking, marketing, management. There wasn't a leadership program, internship or class I could take that would get me there. I can learn these things bit by bit, but when a whole new world gets thrown at me, it's a lot to take. When I started realizing that my colleagues had kids that were older than me, that they had been in the profession since before I was born, I got intimidated.
I want to think of myself as someone who is awesome at what she does. But what if it's not that I can do whatever I set my mind to, but that I just happened to find my calling in school work. That I'm just really good at school. Sometimes I wonder if I am too organized, too formulaic and straight for the energetic, chaotic world of the non-profit. I expect recognition for my work just like when a teacher grades my papers, yet I don't realize I need a marketing plan, relationship building, and connections. As a camp counselor I could talk to each one of my kids, but as a program manager I have over 300 students, volunteers, staff members and parents I'm supposed to be BFFs with. I connect more with my volunteers--energetic, neurotic students like myself--than I do with the black kids whose childhood resembles nothing of my own. What if this just isn't my calling?
But then I also think, if I don't do my job, who will? Who will take an intern's wage to run a program? Who will keep things organized and prepared? Who will run the mentor classes and interview the kids? Of course, if I leave my position, the job will be filled, if there is a job left to fill by the time I'm done with this program. But I've also seen what it looks like when my manager hires someone new in the middle of the year, with the kids running around and the district threatening to cut off all funding because the program is in violation of just about every health and safety code. While I can't do the job, for 30k I'm not sure they could get anyone better. And where would I go? I want to go to another non-profit. Work under someone for a change in a real office with more than two people. But who's to say I'd be any better. I can't organize a community meeting to drum up support for community supported agriculture.
Or maybe life is about failures. Long gone are the days when I got an A for effort and showing up at office hours. There are plenty examples of this, but as I scroll through a gossip site to console my dejection, I think about Anna Wintour at Vogue, dismissing a designer's entire season of work with one turn of her nose. I think this rings particularly true as I consider my other passion, sewing, and the constant temptation to leave this serious business altogether to go make clothes. Even in the world of sequins and bias tape, and perhaps even more so for artists trying to make a living off their craft, does failure loom again and again. And as someone who has always gotten that A, I'm sensitive to this. I worked my ass off, but I was always rewarded with success. Always.
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