Frustration (CAUTION: LONG)

Sometimes, while sitting and thinking, I am reminded of how fucking irate this summer made me. The whole thing turned out to be a major disappointment. That being said, I think it would be interesting to pull a Ranch Kid and write an epic, ranting post about it. When I began my employment at this new camp, I was over the moon. I thought it was going to be everything the new CC wasn't. While that assumption turned out to be true, I quickly learned that it wasn't necessarily a good thing.

The two main adjustments I had to make this summer were related to staff culture and camper demographics. The majority of the girls who came to camp this summer were from upper-middle class homes in Macomb and Oakland counties, and this was clearly reflected in the programming. Typically, higher socioeconomic cultures value achievement, competition and following the rules. Children from these backgrounds have a certain sense of entitlement that poor kids typically don't.

As a result of all this malarkey, it was stressed to us as a staff that the parents of these children wanted them to come home from camp with their clothes clean, their every need met and 15 new badges completed so they could start the school year off ahead of everyone else in their Girl Scout troop - and you better believe that if someone's daughter left a single flip flop behind, they'd be calling the office the day after checkout. For the most part, the people I worked with came from this kind of background. They had been good kids from good homes and were lifelong Girl Scouts. They were white and from the suburbs. They were valedictorians and Sunday school teachers. This was the only camp and, consequentially, the only type of camper they had ever known. They didn't understand my stories about how we couldn't wear bandannas around Flint kids. They couldn't believe that children actually got SENT HOME from camp, or that they could kick holes in doors or come to camp with no pillow because they didn't have one, or that 15-year-old campers could be pregnant. There was no Orchards week at this place. The staff was completely sheltered because all they ever had to work with were children with parents who cared. Although I also come from a middle-class background, we had vastly different worldviews because of my three years working with every type of child imaginable.

That being said, they weren't very insightful when dealing with children. If a kid is acting up, you get to the bottom of it. You watch them. You talk to them. You find out where they come from and what makes them tick, and you formulate a plan based on that. And you don't waste any time in finding something that works. All anyone seemed to be able to do at HH was bark orders at campers. There was a campwide assumption that all children listened to adults and followed directions the first time, and if they didn't, well...no one could quite comprehend why. A co-counselor of mine was baffled when her 7-year-olds wouldn't focus on a badge work lecture at 8 PM after s'mores and a dance party. Another staff member didn't see the connection between a camper's cognitive impairment and her inability to pack her suitcase in 15 minutes. Things that you were forced to look for and figure out in Artichoke Land weren't part of this world.

Sure, everything was organized, the director was competent and there weren't any pop machines. However, I soon discovered that what appeared to be a friendly, hard-working, tight-knit staff of goodhearted Scouts turned out to be a complete sorority. Many of the returning staff had been coming to that camp since childhood, and it became apparent that the only real credential they had for working there was having been a Girl Scout since age 4. It angered me to see that the most of the people touted as the best counselors weren't even good with kids. Some of my co-workers didn't even know all of their campers names. Getting to know your campers and making their camp experience special was considered a secondary concern. I personally made an effort each week to memorize each of my kids' names in the first 10 minutes I knew them, and to have a conversation with each of them every day (let me remind you that I had the largest unit on camp every single week this summer - 22-26 kids each session). I worked my ass off to keep my cabin homey and welcoming and to make each kid feel special. People couldn't understand why I sat in the main cabin reading to kids at night when I could be in the counselor room running a formal meeting about what fucking paperwork needed to be filled out for sack lunch on Wednesday. I did what a counselor is supposed to do. I was a mentor. I was not some sort of babysitter paid to feed campers and walk them from activity to activity. But, as the definition of "good counselor" was someone whose kids were always on time to flag and did a service project and finished 3 badges a week, I was completely mediocre.

It was painfully clear who the "in crowd" was, and they could do no wrong. Many, many unfair, fucked-up things happened this summer because of the veterans' upper hand in managing the camp. I had a huge problem with one of my counselors. She was never around. She slept and talked on the phone at inappropriate times. She yelled at kids and played favorites. She complained about doing all the work in the unit, then bitched that I never gave her any responsibilities. She was also too immature and emotionally unstable to sit down for more than 10 minutes and actually solve a conflict. She insulted my character in front of the rest of my staff and threw many a temper tantrum around the campers. As a blue, I made genuine efforts to work on our relationship. Her terrible communication skills made this impossible, so I went to my director. Who did nothing. She promised to reprimand this counselor (she should have been harshly warned, if not fired), but I saw no change. And why? Because this person was an 18-year-old lifelong camper and scout. She had been my director's camper when she was a counselor. Her older sister was my superior, about one rung down from the director, and would constantly come to my unit to "support" her sister and breathe down my neck. It was clear that everyone thought I had no credibility in judging MY staff member who exhibited unacceptable behavior in MY unit. This person, who made my life an absolute living hell, will continue to return to this camp and earn leadership positions simply because she's been a camper for twelve years, and THAT is the main reason I can never go back there, the one that REALLY, REALLY pisses me off because it's SO FUCKING WRONG. My director's friendship with our barn director AKA Satan(what is it with the past two years' barn directors?) led to the very unprofessional firing of another staff member, my close friend. The BD chose not to confront my friend about her infractions when they started happening. Problem: my friend was consistently late getting to the barn in the morning - definitely an issue to be addressed. However, instead of warning her about it as soon as it started happening and giving her a probationary period to improve (pretty standard workplace norm), she never said anything about it and decided to fire her randomly one day without consulting with her co-director. The co-director was in charge of scheduling staff at the barn, worked just as closely with this staff member and should definitely have been involved in the decision. This also happened the Friday before the last week of camp. WTF? If something is wrong with one of your staff, FIX IT WHEN IT HAPPENS. Keeping people around making mistakes AROUND CHILDREN for 5 weeks and then firing them suddenly makes no sense whatsoever, and does nothing for professional development. Another counselor was fired, essentially, for being gay. Her younger sister came to camp for a few weeks and told other campers about her sexual orientation, who in turn told their parents. Parents became uncomfortable, complained to the Girl Scout council about it, and she was fired on the spot. She's getting a lawyer involved.

Thankfully, I learned a lot from working at this place. For one thing, it did nothing but affirm my convictions 110%. I still have the same beliefs about working with children, and I have a heightened understanding of balance in a camp workplace. I also toughened up from having a legitimate enemy - I've never been so openly disliked by someone I worked with. AND, I did make a handful of good friends.

Soooooooo, in conclusion:

GOOD CAMPER DOES NOT EQUAL GOOD COUNSELOR. Good Girl Scout does not equal good with children, and strong personal manager/employee relationships should not blind superiors to the obvious faults of their staff members, especially in an enterprise involving working with children. Camp is for the camper - a place to have a lot of fun and grow in ways that aren't possible at home or school, whatever that may mean. Camp is not about turning in paperwork or earning credentials. I feel good knowing that my kids loved me, but the fact that their happiness didn't make a difference in my value as an employee is something I will never forgive.

....and we need to just open the perfect camp. THE END!