Tuesday 17 August 2010

Just Sharing

So I was thinking and I realized that it might've been a mistake to share my age, seeing as people will assume "She's just a kid, doesn't know what she's saying, it's okay for her to make mistakes."  But that's wrong.  You're never too old to make mistakes.  And if you should somehow reach that point in your life when you are, it means that life has grown dull and there's nothing left to learn.  Sometimes we need a mistake or two to keep you grounded.  So I solemnly swear to never stop making mistakes.

I'm not counting this as a real post, but I felt it necessary to share.

-JJ

Monday 16 August 2010

First Order of Business

Before I start up this blog, there's a few things I need to touch on: the idea that inspired me to register this web address, the concept of the blog, a description of my job, and a few of my major mishaps in my 6 days of work so far.

So the other day, while vacationing in Busch Gardens, I realized there was something I needed to add to the list of things I want to do with my life.  It was simple in concept but nearly impossible in execution.  It was to work at Disney as a character.  I looked up the requirements of the job and felt that I met them completely and even had some prior experience in my own job right now, but had no idea how to actually get the job.  Then I had an idea.  Sounds silly, I know, but I hoped that maybe, just maybe, if someone important at Disney were to read a post by me entitled "Dear Disney" (a post I'll write soon) asking to get to work as a character just once for a summer, then maybe, just maybe, they'd pull some strings so I could get the job.  I know it's a ridiculous idea, but what can I say?  I'm a dreamer, I imagine magical and improbable scenarios constantly.  This one was practical by my standards.  Soon, though, I realized I had no blog to put the post on, so I just dismissed the idea.  But regardless, I still had the idea and I couldn't completely kick it out of my head, so I went and registered the blog address "workingclasscitizen.blogspot.com." (I initially wanted "wcc.blogspot.com" but that's the world cricket championship blog or something.)

Tonight, though, my lack of a blog purpose changed.

You see, my family went to some seafood restaurant in Williamsburg, Virginia, and our waiter inspired me more than he'll ever know.

It was clearly his first day on the job and nothing seemed to be going his way.  First of all, our table was missing a place setting and he didn't notice until my mom pointed it out.  Then he forgot to tell us the specials and soon after he gave my sister a diet coke rather than a regular one.  Next, he forgot to take my youngest sister's order and then sort of spazzed out and knocked her cup over.  He rushed to replace the drink but in his haste he wasn't really paying attention to my order and didn't tell me the "Vegetable of the Day" when I asked.  I asked again and you could tell he was having one of those moments where you just can't remember anything, so he had to ask the waiter walking by what the vegetable was.

By the end of the meal, there was an expression on his face I knew I had seen before.

It was the face I had made after my first day of work.  A face of complete dissapointment in yourself, because you know you can do this job, but you just can't prove it to anything because the world has turned against you.

And so the blog was born.  Because I am one super special talented person of awesomeness.  I'm absolutely AMAZING at doing one thing, and one thing only: Failing.  Falling, tripping, spazzing, slipping, crashing, stumbling, breaking, and basically just being a destructive force creating havoc in the world around me is how I've made a name for myself in this world.  I burn food, I break glasses, I drop things, I crash into people, I run into walls, I trip on my feet, and sometimes I even fail at a cartoon character level of failure by getting stuck in hammocks, slipping on banana peels, and so on.

Now I know you're probably wondering how this is relevant at all, but allow me to explain.  We all have that day when we get home from work and just want to burn our hair off and staple our eyes shut.  So on those days, just come visit my blog and read about my most recent screw ups.  And until I get fired, I want this blog to be both your comic relief and a comfort.  Because I survive everyday of my life without getting fired.  So I'm sure you can survive one.  And if you're not having a rough day, then maybe my exceptional ability to fail can become an exceptional ability to make people smile.  Because there's nothing I love more than that.  And even if I can't see it, just knowing it happened will make my day a little brighter.

The final thing I need to touch on is my job.  Before I even describe it, I need to make this clear - I love my job.  More than you can possibly imagine.  And sure, I'm a total klutz/spaz but that doesn't mean I'm bad at my job.  I do a lot of things right, but that's not the focus of this blog.  So even if I at somepoint complain about it here, it does not in any way, shape, or form mean that I dislike my job in the least.

So what is my job?  I work at a children's gymnastics school, teaching and spotting during the week for all different ages.   On the weekends, I work at birthday parties.  Every week has a different theme, so sometimes I need to pretend I'm a zoo keeper and other times I need to pretend I'm at a beach (although my favorite week was PJ week, when I was allowed to wear my PJs to work and was encouraged to have pillow fights with the children during warm-up).  But the icing on the cake is the weekends, when  kids of all ages have birthday parties.  Whether they're turning 2 or turning 6 (I'm sure the age range is wider but so far that's what I've worked with), almost everyone wants to meet "The Bee" at the end of the day.  This means that someone (half of the time, me) has to dress up as a giant bee and take pictures with the children, hugging them, sitting them on my lap, giving them high-fives, and all the while trying to not trip over some sort of equipment and navigate without periferal vision.  I really do love it, although so far my luck with said task has not been so good.

This post is getting really long, so I've decided that I will write about my defining failures in a later post (that's next, then Dear Disney).  Once I get home from vacation and begin working, though, I'll record all of my failures.

Also, I'm only 14 (15 in a couple weeks, though) which means I also have school and extra-curriculars.  So if I'm not working one day but I do something exceptionally spastic, I'll be sure to share it with you regardless.

-JJ