This guy meets children...
Before I begin this next post, i want you guys to know that everything in this story is true.
Northeastern is famous for its co-op program. The school sets students up with employers to work in their field of study. Employers get cheap labor and students get experience. I'm a psychology student. When I became one, I didn’t have a game plan for what I wanted to do for work. I just thought the stuff was interesting. So when co-op time rolled around I just wanted any job. I was pretty sure I would be bad at it regardless of what it was. I never had a job I liked. My job history includes picking strawberries in a field along side illegal immigrants and working at Jo-Anne Fabrics. Oh! And I sprained my ankle playing basketball during the same summer that I was working as a strawberry picker. So I had to sell strawberries on the side of the road instead of picking them. In doing so, I got robbed by a woman in her 80's.
This sort of job history made me dread getting a job, but I went through the resume process anyway. I sent out my resume to any company that seemed remotely interesting. I sent out 40 resumes and received no responses. Then I realized I misspelled the word "experience" on my resume. Hilarious irony aside, I totally fucked myself. I sent out 15 more resumes with the correct spelling of "experience" and I got two interviews. (Even now is I write this blog, I'm like, "Is it an 'i' or an 'e' after the 'p'?") One interview was at Boston Medical Center, working in the psych ward. The job was suicide watch. I was to make sure people in danger of hurting themselves didn't. The other job was working at a grade school as a teacher's assistant.
Between you and me, I would have rather watch people flip out and try to kill themselves than work with children. But I only got hired at the grade school. How? No fucking idea. I had never worked with kids before and don’t have any younger siblings. I told the vice-principal who was administering my interview that I did stand-up comedy as an example of how I'm an outgoing person. I didn't mention that I quit due to stage fright.
So I showed up the first day and I looked like I was 16 when I was 20. Plus I was 1 of 4 men who are on staff. No one thought I worked there. Everyone keeps asking me if I was visiting an old teacher of mine. It turned out that the vice-principal who hired me, quit over the summer and no one knew what to do with me. My first day, I ended up doing paper work all day until lunch. Then I had lunch and recess duty with the 5th and 6'th graders. My first interaction with a student went like this. I went up to a boy sitting by himself at lunch and said, "Hey, I'm Alex. So. What can you tell me about the school?
"Well its K though 8."
"Well I know that...Anything else?"
He sighed. Then said, “Well... I'd say about 70 percent of the kids at this school are gay."
I said, “thats above average." Then I walked away.
At recess I saw a boy trip a girl playing soccer, she went down crying and I yelled, "Are you okay? What a douche!" No other teachers heard but all the kids did. Some laughed. Others asked what a douche was. Oh shit! I called a kid a douche!
When recess was over, I followed the "douche" back to his class room and cut him off to apologize. I had to get him not to tell on me. As I tried to do this, he started drawing a mustache on a girl's picture hanging on the wall. Another teacher stopped him, yelled at him, and sent him away. For the next week I waited to get fired. But kid told on me. Saying "douche" gave me some street cred.
At recess on my second day, a 6th grade girl came over to me while I was sitting at a picnic table. I was watching some kids play soccer. Her friends were standing in a quasi-Flying V formation behind her as she walked over. She got up right in my face. She said, "Can I sit on your lap?" In a slutty voice might I add!
"Ffff NO!"
"Why?"
"Because I think it's illegal!"
"No its not."
To be continued....
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