We return to one of my favorite themes, communication.
I play the phone game Last War. Recently, one of our alliance members left, citing an unwillingness of the fellow members to garrison his base when his shield fell. “What’s the point of an alliance if we’re not going to protect each other?“ He bemoaned how often people say they have too many troops they need to burn. He complained that he’s been there from the beginning, and now the game is turning into Farmville light. He joined the proudly fascist UMG Trump group shortly after.
There’s half a dozen reasons you might not be shielded, from going out and seeking to engage your competition to being stuck on ”war fever“ which prevents you from enabling it. You might just not be paying attention on Thursday night when the new round begins and end up getting attacked, losing all your troops, and teleported somewhere randomly on the map. There is no mechanism for telling your alliance members your shield is down. There is no perfectly reliable explanation nor implicit obligation around shielding that everyone who plays the game knows is supposed to occur besides doing so if you’re not active and don’t wish to cost your alliance points. That was summarily ignored so this player could point the finger and leave.
I, being bored and feeling not-quite-trolly yet still unwise, messaged him and said I hope whatever else was wrong in his life gets resolved. Before he left, I made the feeble attempt to lay out those half-dozen reasons anyone at his base level would be perfectly familiar with. We’ve all spaced and not shielded when we were supposed to. We’ve all tried to garrison lost causes. I was met with, ”You don’t know me! You don’t get my point!“ and ”You smug assumption-making yada yada!“ (not direct quotes) As if you need to know a person’s intimate inner life to know when they blame others and pretend not to understand you, it’s a sign they’re thinking clearly and doing well.
This, petty, interaction occurred on the heels of communication breakdowns at work. I’m about a month in. I’ve spent the vast majority of my time assessing. I want to see what works and doesn’t. I want to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of the people on the ground. I want to see, just like when I worked for the State, if the narrative in any way matches the evidence. Let’s lay some groundwork first.
On Wednesday, during a time when I was attempting to quiet our kids, apparently something I said got interpreted as, ”You don’t have to listen to the other adults here, I’m the one in charge.“ This sent one of my staff into a panic/rage in which she didn’t show up to work the next day, called several people associated with the company to decompress, and eventually send another staff member over to me to relay her frustration and interpretation.
When I asked what it was they thought I said? No one really knows, all they know is how they felt.
Further context, I’ve created an Excel sheet with messages about my leading philosophy. I’ve said, in writing, I will support them in any punishments they deem necessary. I’ve said, to both my boss, my bosses boss, and every single person at my site, that I’m not even trying to keep the role I currently have. I’m looking to demonstrate I can bring order to chaos and would prefer a more administrative and logistical role that engages the adults more than the kids. Nothing about every word I’ve offered previously, in writing or otherwise to anyone that would listen, would make the idea of ”Hey kids, fuck all these other adults, I’m the boss!“ make any sense whatsoever.
I can cop to being inarticulate. I write for a reason. When I get worked up, like I was Wednesday after a truly annoying and problematic individual aggressively chose condescension within 5 minutes of meeting each other, I can feel myself talking too fast and stumbling over the rush of words fighting to come out first. I can believe full well that whatever I said, it didn’t come out as I wanted or meant. That said, this is where adults and people interested in being fair and patient might go, ”Huh, that was weird, is that what you meant?“ And allow the awkward or weird moment to be checked, addressed, and moved on from in that moment. Instead, it became a Chinese telephone game of gossip and drama predicated on perfectly misinterpreted nothingness.
It gets a layer deeper in goofiness. I said for the last few weeks I’ve been mostly observing how my aftercare program does or doesn’t work. What I have done is introduce 1 thing, a small story/chat, before our snack time, to try and settle the energy. I observed this from another school and site director who is lauded for her program and who I’ve connected with and had prolonged discussions with each morning at my site. I’ve not told a single person how to discipline. I’ve not told a single person they can’t implement something they’re currently doing for ”parties“ and to raise funds. I’ve just tried to assess both the staffs’ and kids’ response to a 15-minute change. The only staff member to engage the change actively loved it and saw the utility immediately, telling me plainly, and we discussed how to evolve it further by getting the older kids involved and in how we select what to read or talk about.
Recall, the staff member that got most incensed by my inarticulate phrasing sent over our ”blunt“ staff member to relay her concerns 2 days later. In the course of laying out the case, several other grievances came tumbling out. In particular, the phrase, ”Kids need structure! I’ve never seen it more chaotic!“ This staff member didn’t agree with delaying the snack because thee kindergartners haven’t eaten since 10:30 AM (we eat snack around 3:30 PM) and her grandson, who is in the program, eats a lot when he gets home so she knows they must all be functionally starving by the end of the school day, or something.
Let’s take a moment and compile a few more of the grievances relayed to me haphazardly, if at all, over the course of my time there. I’ll provide the context for each one. Remember, I’ve been doing this job 4 weeks, the first 2 working only 2 or 3 days a week.
1. I thought you were anti-paperwork!
We have kids who are probably not appropriate for our program. Some of them have behavior plans we’re expected to follow. Literally no staff member was following any directives or guidance from those plans. This means if we’re trying to make the case that a kid isn’t appropriate, and we’re not even following our own rules, we’re going to stay stuck with a disruptive child when we go to the parents and try to describe the efforts we’ve made to accommodate. My desire was to not look like we’re prejudiced and targeting kids with higher needs, so I was looking for guidance both from my boss and existing site practice as to what circumstances they actually chose write-ups. I was also in ongoing discussions with the star site director, who almost never employs write-ups, because after all, we’re talking about children who do children things. I, also, literally created a form to better track and account for the behaviors and my staff’s responses to those problem children.
All of this was interpreted as though I have no desire to punish, do paperwork, or appropriately respond to kids who I believed would “just figure it out.” That’s an actual quote from someone about what they thought I thought.
2. The kids need structure!
I’ve asked, both in print and in person, for my staff to start discussing and picking topics they’d like to employ as part of our programming. Exactly 1 has responded to that request. We got our story time and chat because of her effort and response. I created a list of a year’s worth of programs that might inspire their choices. They’ve either refused to read it, or are continuing to pretend they don’t understand the expectation. They’ve been perfectly unable to structure the children's day on their own, and then want to come to be exasperated about how much the kids need it. One example, letting their popcorn and hot chocolate days extend snack time indefinitely until you’ve got messy tables and kids pulling out things from their backpacks because no one has told them it’s time to clean up or engaged them with the agenda for that day.
3. I’ve been walking on eggshells not knowing how to punish.
I’ve explained in writing that I am not a yeller. I come from an abusive upbringing, and know the difference my crazy trauma-passing-on mom had on me versus my understanding and patient dad. I try to model this. I’ve never told a single staff member not to yell. I’ve never talked to them after the school day and said, “That was wrong.” I’ve never not supported them after they yell and the kids get quiet. I’ve said, “That’s not my style.” If you believe that’s the most effective way of correcting for a child’s behavior or wish to have a program that signals that’s the nature of your control, more power to you. Except, I believe my model and observed compliance from the children, makes you feel insecure and unsure about yours. That wasn’t something you were able or willing to discuss, so it became an indictment as to my level of permissiveness for chaos.
I’ve heard from a dozen people at all levels of my organization about the “problem child” nature of my site. Everyone has something gossipy and negative to say. At the same time, the people on site are getting reassured that what they’re doing is great or okay. You know, because you hire someone to direct something that already runs perfectly. Me, a professional skeptic, takes it all in and attempts to include people in the dialogue and decision-making about how we’re going to fit a more specific time-frame and nature of engagement. We’re not a daycare center, but my staff have been operating as a quasi one for years and don’t like the idea that they’ll be expected to do more than hang out and get paid.
There’s been little to no time to get everyone together to try and get on the same page. Watching children means I’ve had one uninterrupted conversation lasting 7 minutes in 4 weeks. When I called a meeting, of the 6 people hired to handle the afternoon care, 3 showed up. This is a staff that has also been not showing up on their scheduled shifts, not showing up on time, not staying their full shift, and not communicating with me when they will or won’t be there. 1 of the 3 at the meeting refused to even look at me as I described a plan for scheduling the 3 hours we have to engage the kids each day. I began proposing ways to continue to offer their hot chocolate and popcorn concurrent to snack time. She looked straight ahead, mouth agape, shrugged and under-her-breath said, “Sure, I guess” to things like, “Would it help to heat up the water earlier and collect their money before they enter the cafeteria so we can move things along?“ Her mother, the blunt one, who asked her the questions, was dutifully taking notes and copying the schedule I wrote down.
Like all jobs, this one doesn’t pay enough, has too many layers of middle-people who don’t do much beyond send too many emails and offer too many opinions, and regularly talks out of both sides of it’s mouth about its values and means of achieving its goals. They’re too broke, but are a globally recognized non-profit with giant state-of-the-art buildings in the heart of the city. They’re about honesty, respect, caring, and responsibility, just not if it means carrying out the necessary consequences and incentives. Also, the nature of the work isn’t back-breaking, complicated, nor one most people would feel comfortable asking inflation and productivity adjusted minimum-wage for.
For me, very much more important than all of that, as with most social-worky jobs, you have a deeper obligation to yourself and humanity. We’re talking about child-development. We should be broadly enthused by the prospect that we could inform and infuse their lives with something that might stick. When I ask you to pick programs you’d like to teach to them, some of you as literal teachers on my staff, should be excited and engaged, no? Instead, because I’m asking for more than the bear minimum of showing up and keeping everyone alive, I, and every previous director, is the enemy on their way to being foiled by gossip and lazy intransigence.
Eventually, my most-incensed staff member and I had a 45 minute conversation, before the official meeting, and worked out that it was a wholly insane misunderstanding and have been, and would continue to be, on the same page as every conversation we’ve had before that day. I literally told her week 2 that I would love to just put her in charge and disappear towards a role more suited to my skills and interests. We ended in chuckling and on high-fives.
The success or failure of my effort will not entirely be predicated on my ability to dictate a 3-hour schedule. I’ll need staff buy-in. I’ll need to be able to follow-through with consequences approved by my and her boss. I’ll need the space and time to tweak things as we observe whether or not the times I’ve approximated work for time for going to the bathroom or on whatever the program will be for that day. I’ll need to see how we navigate audibles when a room isn’t available or when a staff member in charge of a certain thing isn’t there that day. But, ultimately, this is the smallest of potatoes that is simultaneously people-at-this-level’s entire world that I need to tweak and align.
Exactly here we open up the conversation on what will probably be the next blog. The myopic places we come from that inform how or whether we engage a problem or conceptualize a goal inform this playing field as much or more than any individual’s disposition. My responsibility is to never personalize it. I’m not haunted by the scared and angry rants I got from parents at DCS. I know, viscerally, intimately, what it’s like to live as a source of perpetual misunderstanding. I’m still not going to yell, even if that’s what you continue to prefer. I’m going to invite you to conversation, even if you stare the other direction with your mouth open but silent. I’m going to box my goals into something I can measure, and base my assessment of their success or failure on whether or not you’re even doing the first things required first, if at all.
“I’ve never seen so much chaos!” Consider, you’ve never had someone consistent and present enough to hold the mirror long enough up to the nature of yours.
