Teacher and Career Lessons

If you have insurance don't use your roadside assistance, it counts against you!

Crazy story, it's been a while. So I was working at Papa Johns and spilled oil on a customer's driveway. Working for a major company like PJ's I thought I'd be protected. Nope, they put the claim through my insurance, and it counted as an accident(no fault) of course! Well that combined with four roadside calls in 2 years. Apparently the insurance companies only allow 2 calls in an 8 year time period. I guess I'm above the curve :)

 Anywho, apparently God didn't want me there, so I started full time nursing school! It's been nuts. I've been losing weight. 30 lbs since my last post, give or take. i don't know exactly. I'm still over 200 so it's not like I'm giving myself a gold star yet, thank you Weight Watchers for teaching me to eat right. 

Don't go into a "helping profession" other than medical if you expect to get paid well and not be worked to death. I mean at least the healthcare field pays you well why they work you to death, I think....we'll see I'll get back to you on that. 

So I'm a feminist, took me a long time to say that. Now that it's socially acceptable. It was my first march! And a really cool experience. 

I believe very highly this applies to why the teaching and counseling field's didn't work for me. I don't believe typically "women" professions are paid what they're worth. Case in point, I was making $15 an hour as a master's level clinician at the biggest social services organization in the whole cenral florida area. I said forget this, for this level of stress I'll work delivering pizza's at Papa Johns, and i did. Easiest job ever, mindless, but easy. 

I'm convinced that teaching is the same way after working in the field from age 23 to 38 off and on about 7 years. Also it got way worse because of all the legislator interference by the time I stopped. Even crazier story. My last teaching job in Orange County, and the final straw. 

I was taking my special education high school students into Publix in Lake Nona. Guurrlll I should have fought this one, now that I'm older and wiser and embrace my fighting spirit. So anywho, I'm bringing my 9 high school kids in everyday and noticing this assistant manager was really annoyed by us. So being a do gooder, I start emailing the district coordinator about my experience, incidents, etc. It goes on for about 2 months. I don't hear anything, no idea they're keeping this all in a file for me. 

One day, the "higher ups" from Publix's upper management come in to inspect the store and how everything is going. Meanwhile I have this student, probablly my highest functioning one with a brain injury not being dressed in uniform everyday. For Publix, this is a button up pants and a belt, he comes to work in track pants with spandex.

 I keep telling him, no change, but being so with it, and also a teenager I just think he's ignoring me. Anyhow on this day, this assistant manager doesn't want to deal with it, so instead of asking the kid to sit out in the employee lounge on the second floor(no windows). He has the whole class go upstairs and wait till they leave. 

While up there my other kiddo says, "miss why are we all up here, we're not all out of uniform." This was the sweetest kid you'd ever meet, also my main class leader so the other kids are really hurt too. I said, because one of us is out of uniform. So later that week I talk to the parent of the kid in the spandex pants and tell her what happened.

 She tells me why he wears those pants, and it has to do with his disability and him still being able to use the bathroom independently. I literally had no idea, and he was too embarrased to tell me(teenager, and just in general u know). She goes to Publix and tells the management she's going to riot. 

Well the offending manager calls the school and says, "what's this I hear about  us putting the kids up in a room without windows." I wasn't sure how to handle an irate manager, so I told him, let me have you talk to my assistant principal. He does, and next thing I know I'm being escorted off campus by two AP's. Also, apparently I'm also too much of a risk to be a substitute in the county as well, due to this file. I can't fight it because I have less than a year with the union I paid dues to be part of. 

The experience just left a bad taste in my mouth for teaching. I was trying to do the right thing, but as my mom said, "I probablly should have just kept my mouth shut." That' not who I am though. So here I am in nursing school, losing my mind thinking "can I handle this?" I'm also in recovery, have mental health struggles, and not able to manage my diet the way I like. it's been hard, I can't say I can't go to meetings because they're 24/7 on zoom, but honestly I still don't really get as much as I do in person meetings. Most of those have not returned to meeting in person, after a year. It's been a really hard recovery year. 

I have almost 9 years sober, May 15th. I got sober in 2012. It's still a daily battle spiritually. We are in a war of unseen rulers and principalities. This is definelty a turning point. It's made me closer to my higher power than ever, because that's all I have some days to hold on to. 

I'm just stressed out and wondering how I got here. Feeling backed in a corner a little bit, and not sure I have the energy for this uphill battle without help. My recovery family has got me through, limping along to this point in nursing school. This has probablly been the biggest challenge to my sobriety yet. But I know I'll make it through, because I know how to be honest, and ask for help. That has saved my ass so many times. 

There's so many ass sayings in my recovery program I can't remember how they all go. The jist is you can either save your ass by being honest and asking for help, or you can sit there and suffer in silence and feel like it's falling off. I remember the main one though, if you feel you ass is falling off, put it in a bag, and bring it to a meeting. Works every time. Ya'll are my meeting tonight, Covid edition 2021. Everything looks different, why not this?