Friday, December 02, 2005
Social Experiment
First off, a positve note; I saw the teaser for the upcomming (summer, 06) Shyamalan movie. I have to admit he's my favortie director of the day, I've enjoyed all his entries so far. So, that's all I want to know, is that he does indeed have another movie comming out, and now I don't want to know another darn thing about it until my seat is comfortably in the movie theater, big bag of popcorn on my lap and the reel is rolling.
Secondly, I've made some discoveries about me at work this past week. As I mentioned this blog is me dealing with the aftereffects of my divorce. Part of that is changing and working on me. I understand that part of the reason divorce happened was mine. I wonder if my ex would take part of the responsibility too?
As I've mentioned I'm working a job I don't particularly enjoy, at a nationally owned pet store. Now, most of my jobs have dealt with either, or both, of children or animals. Petco is no exception; obviously we have animals, but sometimes we also give tours to school groups. Just the other day our manager, due to frequently re-occuring aches and pains, left early and neglected to tell anyone that we had a school group arriving later that afternoon.
Enter about 20 smiling, laughing and excited first graders. Since my background is in education, my co-workers were more than happy to call me up to the front of the store and let me take care of the 'problem'.
My first reaction was 'Shit, why me! I don't want to do this,' which is my typical reaction when confronted with something out of the blue. Once I let that thought roll out of the way, though, reality shone through. I have plentiful experience working with children of all ages, so this is nothing new. I used to perform animal shows for the Museum, as well as work at a zoo and currently working at a pet store, so i'm pretty familiar with animals. Put the two together and I'm pretty good at leading an educational tour for a group of first graders. Besides, my presentational style kicks ass :). I shrugged my shoulders and went for it.
It felt good. I asked them questions, I remained positive, I engaged and challenged them, while at the same time showing them some neat things. It brought back a lot of old feelings, very good feelings that I used to get from my old job when performing in front of a group. I had their attention from the beginning and I was able to keep it for an hour.
This made me realize that, perhaps, i've been avoiding the truth; that my true calling is in education. After undergrad I took a yearlong course in Museum Studies. One of the courses was 'Education', which was the class I most dreaded. Part of our requirement was to, in a group, design a program and then actually lead a class. My group worked with an outdoor education center. When all was said and done, my teacher called me a 'natural'. It felt good. I've rarely been called a 'natrual' by someone I respect.
Since then I've been working for schools, musuems and zoo's, always in education. Ten years ago if you had of asked me if my career would have been in education, I would have laughed and laughed and ....
So, my point is, I've decided to look into getting a degree in education, and really consider this as a 'true' path, although it really has been my career path up until this point, I haven't embraced it. I've always thought that there was something else for me over the horizon; something better. But, maybe this is it. That's not such a bad thing.
A second discovery at work:
Usually I"m a very passive person. At work I usually prefer to focus on my given task and attempt to avoid customers as much as possible, which is stupid since we are a customer service organization. Customers are annoying, though. One day I'll have to write about some of my experiences with them.
When I'm in avoidance mood, it can often trigger resentment and anger when customers dare bother me with their petty problems. I dont' like feeling angry for this reason since it is a very shallow and unnecessary reason to be upset, and so I end up getting pissed off at myself, leading to an unending downward spiral.
Recently I've been working on stopping the spiral using a simple solution; becomming proactive. Instead of cursing customers out in my head and warning them away from me, and ending up having a bad interaction with them, I've been working on approaching and talking with every customer I see, even when I'm in the middle of something else. This way I'm in control and I have made the decision to start the interaction. It makes me feel so much better, and makes my time with customers so much more positive, and , I"m sure, makes the customer feel better too. It's a win-win situation if there ever was one.
Key word for this week, children, 'proactive...or is it...pro-active...
Secondly, I've made some discoveries about me at work this past week. As I mentioned this blog is me dealing with the aftereffects of my divorce. Part of that is changing and working on me. I understand that part of the reason divorce happened was mine. I wonder if my ex would take part of the responsibility too?
As I've mentioned I'm working a job I don't particularly enjoy, at a nationally owned pet store. Now, most of my jobs have dealt with either, or both, of children or animals. Petco is no exception; obviously we have animals, but sometimes we also give tours to school groups. Just the other day our manager, due to frequently re-occuring aches and pains, left early and neglected to tell anyone that we had a school group arriving later that afternoon.
Enter about 20 smiling, laughing and excited first graders. Since my background is in education, my co-workers were more than happy to call me up to the front of the store and let me take care of the 'problem'.
My first reaction was 'Shit, why me! I don't want to do this,' which is my typical reaction when confronted with something out of the blue. Once I let that thought roll out of the way, though, reality shone through. I have plentiful experience working with children of all ages, so this is nothing new. I used to perform animal shows for the Museum, as well as work at a zoo and currently working at a pet store, so i'm pretty familiar with animals. Put the two together and I'm pretty good at leading an educational tour for a group of first graders. Besides, my presentational style kicks ass :). I shrugged my shoulders and went for it.
It felt good. I asked them questions, I remained positive, I engaged and challenged them, while at the same time showing them some neat things. It brought back a lot of old feelings, very good feelings that I used to get from my old job when performing in front of a group. I had their attention from the beginning and I was able to keep it for an hour.
This made me realize that, perhaps, i've been avoiding the truth; that my true calling is in education. After undergrad I took a yearlong course in Museum Studies. One of the courses was 'Education', which was the class I most dreaded. Part of our requirement was to, in a group, design a program and then actually lead a class. My group worked with an outdoor education center. When all was said and done, my teacher called me a 'natural'. It felt good. I've rarely been called a 'natrual' by someone I respect.
Since then I've been working for schools, musuems and zoo's, always in education. Ten years ago if you had of asked me if my career would have been in education, I would have laughed and laughed and ....
So, my point is, I've decided to look into getting a degree in education, and really consider this as a 'true' path, although it really has been my career path up until this point, I haven't embraced it. I've always thought that there was something else for me over the horizon; something better. But, maybe this is it. That's not such a bad thing.
A second discovery at work:
Usually I"m a very passive person. At work I usually prefer to focus on my given task and attempt to avoid customers as much as possible, which is stupid since we are a customer service organization. Customers are annoying, though. One day I'll have to write about some of my experiences with them.
When I'm in avoidance mood, it can often trigger resentment and anger when customers dare bother me with their petty problems. I dont' like feeling angry for this reason since it is a very shallow and unnecessary reason to be upset, and so I end up getting pissed off at myself, leading to an unending downward spiral.
Recently I've been working on stopping the spiral using a simple solution; becomming proactive. Instead of cursing customers out in my head and warning them away from me, and ending up having a bad interaction with them, I've been working on approaching and talking with every customer I see, even when I'm in the middle of something else. This way I'm in control and I have made the decision to start the interaction. It makes me feel so much better, and makes my time with customers so much more positive, and , I"m sure, makes the customer feel better too. It's a win-win situation if there ever was one.
Key word for this week, children, 'proactive...or is it...pro-active...
