It's in the Details

I have very few fears in my life. I fear snakes, cancer, and going to a job that I hate everyday.

I had a taste for the dreaded job the other day. I am on a committee for my job where we help make literacy decisions for my district. Well, I am just not suited for making certain decisions where it takes sorting through the small details. We had to discuss the pros and cons for choosing books for the district. Unfortunately, I think all books are good. I had very little negative things to say. Instead of concentrating on my task, I started to think...

"This is what it feels like to hate your job."

These teacher were talking and I should have been listening, but that is next to impossible at 3:00 pm on any school day afternoon. Generally, I am spent by this point in my day.

I have a GO-TO GIRL at school when I need to know details. She knows dates, rules, and schedules like she has spent the night memorizing them. We all have our gifts and details never became a part of my way of thinking. Instead, I leave that in the hands of experts. I pay them off with ideas, banana bread, and burned CDs. So, it is a fair trade.

I made it through four and half years (I got a little distracted) of college and graduate school without ever using a planner. Yes, I owned a planner every academic year. The beautifully collegiate cover of the planner would convince me that it would be the year that I would actually jot down assignment due dates, work schedules, birthdays, and sorority functions. Instead, I would make it to the middle of September and be on my own. Thank goodness for repetitive work schedules, syllabus, and friends who did have planners. And birthdays, I have the same friends that I have had since I was fifteen so I have those dates memorized by now (Except Janelle's...I know it is December 3 or 4).

There is no way to avoid committee work in my line of work, but I know that I cannot sit and care about whether kids want to read about amphibians or weather more. I don't know? Both. Is that a good answer? Again, the details kill me. Usually, the people on the committee end up telling me that, "Of course we would want the weather book." Hmmm. That sounds good to me.