After meeting a very rude lady at VBS today, I will tell you what happened at the end of the week, I decided I could use her as a perfect example of what to do to not make friends.
1. Do not tell me things I already know. This lady told me today that, since we did not see some bickering that was going on after VBS ended, we should get more teachers. Thanks a lot lady. As assistant director, I've been helping plan VBS since November and I will be the first one to tell you that my #1 wish with VBS every year is to have more people than we do.
2. Don't ask if I saw something when I obviously did. This same lady walked up to me and asked if I saw what had happened, after I broke it up and reprimanded the boys. Nope, didn't see a thing. I thought they were looking at the flowers...
3. Don't tell me I didn't do what I just did. I walked up to the boys and started to reprimand them, at one point on of the boys started to walk away and I made him (a little forcefully but not too much so) come back to the group I was talking to. After talking to them for about 30-45 seconds (my main job was to make sure kids didn't run into the parking lot so I felt that was of utmost importance at the moment) she comes up and asks me if I yelled at them. Nope, we all stood there and I sang them a song.
4. Don't yell at me for not doing something you didn't do. Don't ask why I didn't break up the little 2nd grade name-calling when you sat in your car and watched it for "a minute or two" (that's what she told us after I said "As soon as I saw it I broke it up" and she replied, "But it's been going on for a minute or two.") I would like to thank this lady for being an extreme benefit to the community of Griffith by just sitting by and allowing something bad to happen. It's not like a gang fight where her life would have been in danger, it was second grade name-calling. Even if she didn't want to break it up, I am standing by the main entrance with a nametag that says: SAM - Asst. Director. She could have come and gotten me or any other adult with a nametag, their red cardboard and the size of an index card so they're not too hard to find.
5. Don't make empty threats. This lady told me "My children will not be attending the rest of the week." Well, Karla (the director) and I would actually be
excited. That's right, excited. We had 150 kids we are responsible for every day. 147, while it doesn't seem like that big of a difference, would be a burden off of our shoulders. Plus, we know what VBS is to many parents. It's a babysitter. Ours is even a free babysitter. I am expecting to see her children there tomorrow. Without us, she wouldn't get her 3-hour break.
Maybe it was my upbringing but some people amaze me at how rude they can be to another human being. I apologize to this lady, I may have been a little rude to her (wait until you hear my sarcastic comments that I didn't say to her... you'll realize I was really,
really nice). I have been working for 9 months towards an extremely stressful week of me being responsible for more children than she will ever be so she could have a peaceful three hours. If she wants to be in charge next year, I will gladly give her the church's phone number.
Other than that, VBS has been going awesome and has been an incredible week. The children are all having a blast and we haven't had any worker problems yet (we usually run into at least one).
I just got my iPod