Jobs- A Short History and a New Adventure

I got my first official job when I was 15 and we lived in Hawaii.  We were poor enough that I qualified for a special summer work program. I ended up being assigned to "Waimanu Home for the Mentally Retarded".  Not PC to call it that today, but that was what it was called then.  I had the coolest boss.   His name was Clyde.  We would pile all of these intellectually handicapped adults into a van and take them on adventures.  They would take their clothes off any time, any place.  They must have gotten bulk parmesan cheese at their cafeteria, because the smell of Parmesan will always remind me of that place.  I was the only haole (white) girl who worked there.  One of my best friends worked there too- her name was Toakase Fakava.  She had a huge Afro with a comb stuck in it and was one of 16 children.  Her home had no furniture, just woven mats on the floor.  They were from Tonga, and they were awesome.  That job taught me that I never wanted to work with mentally handicapped people, that it just wasn't "me", that being around "those kind of people" was something I just "wasn't cut out for".  Hmmm.  Maybe Heavenly Father knew differently.....

That job was followed by LOTS of waitressing jobs.  North's Chuckwagon where a pot full of hot coffee exploded all over me, Mr. Steak,  two summers waitressing in what felt like a postcard in Grand Teton National Park at Signal Mountain Lodge , the graveyard shifts in Grand Junction where the yucky old Greek man stuck his tongue in my ear and all the drunks thought they were hilarious, one night as an accidental cocktail waitress (now THAT was a mistake), Utah Seafood Company where I was fired for leaving an odd spoon on the table, but really for not being a part of the hot tub/partying crowd, the Claimjumper up Provo Canyon where I spent a memorable stroke of 12:00am on New Years Eve in my car with a breast pump. The things we do to pay the bills.  I respect waiters/waitresses.  In a busy restaurant they must be incredible multi-taskers and deal with LOTS of stress.  Stress that used to make me have crazy waitressing dreams, where I was "sat" six huge tables at the same time and we were out of everything.  That's stress.

While I was a student at BYU I had a couple of very glamorous jobs.  I worked custodial from 10:00pm-2:00am Monday- Thursday nights.  I got to do exciting things like cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming.  Lots of vacuuming.  I was a favorite target of some of the guys I worked with- always good for a big old jump when they snuck up behind me when I was vacuuming all alone in the middle of the night.  I actually didn't mind that job much.  Made some good friends, and it was better than the Morris Center cafeteria where I wore the ugly nurses uniform and scraped food off lunch trays.

Since graduating I've taught just about every Social Studies subject there is to students in grades 7-12.  I've taught US History, Geography, American Government, Sociology, History of the American West, Careers, Health, Service Learning and World History.  I've also been the Social Studies specialist for my school district.  I love to teach.  The time flies for me, I get to be creative, I am my own boss, I love getting to know my students- I am a teaching nerd.  Its stressful, though, no doubt.  When I first started teaching my waitressing dreams were substituted with teaching dreams.  I've had many.  This is the typical scenario:

"Its the first day of school at an inner city school.  I am completely unprepared to teach my class full of gang members who look up at me menacingly from their chairs. I search for an exit but there isn't one."

Yeah, that one is a classic.

Tomorrow I am starting a new adventure.  I am going to be a teacher-mentor for JHAT, the Jordan History Academy for Teachers.  Its a joint project of Provo, Wasatch, Jordan and Murray districts.   Its part-time, and I basically get to set my own hours, so it should be perfect for my life and my family right now.  Its exciting, and a little scary.  Mostly its scary because for now I will also be continuing to do what I've been doing for the last 12 years (along with some time in the classroom)- teaching online for Utah's Electronic High School, and I'm hoping that I can handle it all.  My duties for EHS are changing, though, and EHS will be dead and gone (courtesy of the Utah Legislature) by the end of this summer, so I just need to last that long.

And, oh yeah, still be a good mom to my kids, and pull off a wedding in three months.

I can do this.  Breathe, Jan.  Breathe.  

But for  now, back to the sewing machine.  Bridesmaids dress number one, here we come!

The Inequality Map

My daughter shared with me an interesting article from the New York Times that one of her friends posted on Facebook.  I love having smart children with smart friends.   You can read the whole article here.  Its called "The Inequality Map".  The Sociology teacher in me loves this kind of stuff.  

Here are some highlights:

America is full of inequalities.  How can I tell which kinds are socially acceptable?

• Fitness inequality is acceptable. It is perfectly fine to wear tight workout sweats to show the world that pilates have given you buns of steel. These sorts of displays are welcomed as evidence of your commendable self-discipline and reproductive merit.  
• Moral fitness inequality is unacceptable. It is out of bounds to boast of your superior chastity, integrity, honor or honesty. Instead, one must respect the fact that we are all morally equal, though our behavior and ethical tastes may differ.

• Income inequality is acceptable. If you are a star baseball player, it is socially acceptable to sell your services for $25 million per year (after all, you have to do what’s best for your family). If you are a star C.E.O., it’s no longer quite polite to receive an $18 million compensation package, but everybody who can still does it  
• Spending inequality is less acceptable. If you make $1 billion, it helps to go to work in jeans and black T-shirts. It helps to live in Omaha and eat in diners. If you make $200,000 a year, it is acceptable to spend money on any room previously used by servants, like the kitchen, but it is vulgar to spend on any adult toy that might give superficial pleasure, like a Maserati. 

• Technological inequality is acceptable. If you are the sort of person who understands the latest hardware and software advances, who knows the latest apps, it is acceptable to lord your superior connoisseurship over the aged relics who do not understand these things.

 

• Cultural inequality is unacceptable. If you are the sort of person who attends opera or enjoys Ibsen plays, it is not acceptable to believe that you have a more refined sensibility than people who like Lady Gaga, Ke$ha or graffiti.
• Jock inequality is unacceptable if your kid is an average performer on his or her youth soccer team. If your kid is a star, then his or her accomplishments validate your entire existence. 
  

• Vocation inequality is acceptable so long as you don’t talk about it. Surgeons have more prestige than valet parkers, but we do not acknowledge this. On the other hand, ethnic inequality — believing one group is better than another — is unacceptable (this is one of our culture’s highest achievements).  

So, what do you think?  Anything here bother you?  Interest you?  Notice any other interesting contradictions in American culture lately?  I'd love to hear about them.

LESSON LEARNING:  Be careful.  Equality is a touchy subject.  As much as we might shout about it from the rooftops, most of us still have our own prejudices. 

And don't forget to check out the original article here.

Money, Moolah, Dinero, the Green Stuff

Today in Sunday School I taught the Marriage and Family Relations "Finance" lesson.  The lesson no one is supposed to like, but everyone needs.  I actually really enjoyed it, maybe because I had a great group there today and most of us were in the mood to talk.  The lesson got me thinking a bit about money and some interesting things I've learned about it over the years.


First, a  little history.


My dad (age 54 when I was born) put himself through college during the Great Depression.  Yes, THE Great Depression.  He was tight with money, except maybe when it came to spending it on himself.  


When I was a little girl we belonged to he country club.  At one point we lived in a really exclusive area of San Diego and had a live in maid.  My dad drove very nice cars and played a lot of golf.   He eventually ended up losing a lot of money by hanging on to some stock too long.  I didn't really understand what was going on at the time, but I remember him getting upset when he read the stock reports in the morning paper.  


Then, when I moved in with my sister when I was ten and my sister was nineteen (and her husband twenty-one), I quickly moved down the economic ladder.  Mike was in the Navy, and was kicked out of the ROTC-type program he was in when he let his grades slip while my sister nearly died of Cancer.  The Navy had asked him which one was more important, the Navy or his family, and in their eyes he had given the "wrong" answer.  When I was a teenager it seemed to me that we had NO money.  I remember being so poor that we didn't have the money to take the city bus without looking in the couch.  I typically had two pairs of pants at a time, and two pairs of shoes.  I remember my junior and senior year having these hideous green pants that I hated and a pair of jeans.  I sewed many of my clothes from .99 a yard fabric.  


When I went off to BYU I was determined to pay my way through school without debt.  I did it.  I never had a car, rarely ate out, and spent my late nights (Sun-Thurs) working as a custodian from 10:00pm to 2:00am.  One time I lived for two weeks on a box of Malt-o-Meal and a bag of apples.  In the summers I worked at least full time. 


When Spence and I got married we paid for most of the wedding ourselves.  I think our budget was $500.  I sewed dresses for the sisters and maid of honor, and Aloha shirts for the brothers out of more of that .99/yard fabric.  But it worked.   I was married to the right person, in the right place, and that was what mattered.  We were happy.


Since we've been married I've assumed the role of the tight-wad most times, while my husband is a bit freer with the money.  Not irresponsible, just different. He grew up in a different family than I did when it came to money, so his attitudes are a bit different.  That's the way it goes when you are married.  You work it out (or you don't, and have big issues).


Here are some things I've learned about money over the years:


*Money doesn't buy happiness.  Significant research backs me up.  People are more stressed, and therefore less happy, when their income falls below a certain level (recently determined to be $75K- see Time Magazine).  Above that, however, money doesn't make you happier.  My richest time, as a kid, was also my most miserable time.


*Tough times can actually be some of the happiest, when you are going through them together.  I remember a Christmas when my husband was out of work and our budget was really limited.  We talked to the kids about it and they were awesome.  It was a great Christmas.  We made things for each other and it was fun keeping them a secret.  Don't keep your struggles from your kids.  They will generally step up if they know whats going on.


*Be careful with credit.  Do you really NEED that new car?  We've chosen to drive older cars and its made us more able to spend our money on things that we will remember like trips with the family.  


*Spend your money making memories.  This past summer we took a three-week, cross country trip in our van with the eight of us.  It was awesome (believe it or not) even though we did it on a budget. I know we'll all be talking about it for the rest of forever.  "Remember that time..."

*You often get more pleasure from small indulgences that mean a lot to you (fresh flowers, good bread, etc.) than from big-ticket items like TV's.  The fun that comes from those things fades quickly.  See Scientific American- Can Money Buy Happiness?.


And the next time you feel poor, watch this, and count your blessings:

 For more information see The 2010 Miniature Earth Project