Multi-Tasking
After I graduated with a Masters degree from West Chester University I was, of course, looking for a job. However, while I was looking I had four part time jobs; people are incredulous when I say this but those four months were some of the happiest times I had in the workplace.
We had a Penn State campus near Media, PA and a friend from my street introduced me to the supervisor of the Learning Center. Most colleges have these now. They are there to help students work on their reading and writing skills. I was astounded at the number of incoming freshmen who could not read or write above an elementary school education. Also, it scared me. But the job paid well and soon I liked it a lot. I worked hard with these young people and I kept my feelings about their poor literacy skills to myself. I didn’t want to take away their dignity. My supervisor liked me and bragged about how many students I had helped. It was wonderful.
This was one of my four jobs. Another job I had was “theme reader.” Every Tuesday I would spend the day at a middle school on Philadelphia’s “Main Line,” meeting with each sixth grade child separately to discuss their writing. Again, I was shocked by the bad spelling and grammar but I told myself that in order to be successful there I had to keep negative feelings to myself. It was a fun job, and like Penn State it paid well.
Job number three was working one-on-one with a troubled young kid who lived in a motel room with his parents and one other brother. There was little to be accomplished there; the situation was ridiculous and hopeless. But I doggedly met with him once a week in this little room with the television blasting and people coming in and out. The agency that employed me expressed surprise that I hung on as long as I did. I don’t have the answer to that except to say that I was driven to be successful at each of these four jobs.
Finally, I had a neighbor who was a social worker. She facilitated a group of grandparents who were raising their grandchildren; the parents were in prison due to drug trafficking. These grandparents were often too poor to get a baby-sitter so I was asked to come and lead a grandchildren’s group.
Somebody at the Penn State job said to me: “How many jobs do you have?!” I was proud of myself because I was earning well and feeling uplifted and energized. I have one amusing story about a young man–from Japan– I tutored at Penn State. He had been told to write an essay, only one page long, on any subject he chose. His choice of subject was “Time.” First of all, his English wasn’t very good. Secondly, I gently informed him that Steven Hawking, one of our world’s super-geniuses, had written one book and maybe two on the nature of time. I was polite but he was also. He worked hard on his essay. I wish now that I had some way of making copies of the essays these kids wrote. It would have been against the rules, definitely.
When I got my full time job at the Devereux Foundation I was close to tears when I left the theme reader job and the tutoring one. I loved everyone there.
lgmwriting 