MY SUMMER PICTURE FOR THE NONEXISTENT WORK BULLETIN BOARD

We have a tradition at school.

Teachers and staff send to the administration pictures of themselves or of their families doing something fun during summer break. From there, this shared file gets printed out and put on a bulletin board for all of the staff to enjoy.

Sounds like a great motivator, right?

One year I sent in a picture of myself crawling through the mud under an obstacle at the Muddy Princess Mud Run. One year I sent in a picture of myself standing in front of Madison Boulder, the largest glacial erratic in North America (I looked like an ant). One year I sent in a picture of me kayaking.

But, Covid happened. Rather than move the pictures to a more accessible location, staff was simply banned from using that hallway. It is, after all, the hallway where two doors are: Principal and Vice Principal. Gotta keep them safe from the rest of us poisonous minions, right?

So, instead of being able to enjoy the printed pictures of our colleagues, we can (if we are so inclined) glance at the shared Google folder instead because, hey, getting on our work computers to open our work files to maybe peruse some pictures in our work Drive is so motivating.

This year I might submit this picture of my summer break. It’s ME as a playing piece from the card game Rat-A-Tat-Cat. It’s as authentic and as motivating as shoveling through work folders to maybe see someone’s teeny tiny wedding icon.  Maybe it’s even more motivating because it’s colorful and interesting and speaks volumes about my personal life and who I am and how I spent my summer break (unpaid, mind you) from work.

Oh, phooey. You just know someone will say, “Wow, kid, sour grapes much?” or, even better, print out or virtually share this blog with someone actually IN admin (but I doubt it since most of those coworkers who friended me on social media have since UNFRIENDED me, anyway).

Whatever.

The truth of it is: If you really gave a crap about what we did while thankfully away from that insane asylum, or if anyone actually gave a good damn about our mental health, you wouldn’t make us WORK for an iota of camaraderie.

But don’t take my word for it. What do I know? I’m just a relatively innocuous card in a much larger and far more entertaining game.