Today - part one, lengthy, just *fine* to skim

Today had very very hard parts and pretty good parts.
We couldn't get out of bed until we absolutely had to in order to get
to work. We knew, I think, that we didn't have much more idea on how
to make recruitment of middle schoolers fantastic and we knew if we
got up even a lil early we'd probably obsess about it. So in a strange
way, we felt calmer just going. Wrote stuff on a poster board on the
way to work.

We got there. We met the new coworker. We introduces ourselves to
staff at the school and other recruiters with afterschool programs and
set up our table. All we had was the poster I made, arts and crafts
the kids did in last session of this program with other coworker, and
some registration forms.

R. was *stressed* and wanted more information. She was clearly
displeased. "Why don't we have posters from the head office? What
exactly will we be doing? What are we supposed to tell the kids?"
Me: "What we're telling the kids is basically that we will be helping
them to do service in the community and devise their own program. We
can do some crafts. We'll cook some healthy recipes. We'll plan a
field trip. As I just took over this program, I'm not exactly clear on
what precisely we're doing yet either, but I do believe the kids will
get a lot out of having some buy-in and say in their own program."
R. : I don't think they can do that. I think we need to structure it
more. I think we're not getting enough training. I think we should
have a poster that's like _______. It should be _______."
I went into meek michaela mode. Somehow, she suddenly had all the
wisdom and I had no clue what was going on and I felt about 2 inches
tall. I wanted to hide. I ended up agreeing with her. I ended up
saying that I really hadn't planned it well enough, and well no, I
didn't have training. Well, no, I hadn't figured out the whole
curriculum. I said, "Well, let's the two of  us meet and hammer out
the exact structure. I think there's definite truth to what you're
saying, and I'm open to your suggestions and sitting together and
figuring this out."
She sorta went on like this the whole time we were there, although she
still did a good job talking to a couple of the kids. Most of it,
though, was wrapped up in her talking and me listening. She said we
need more organization and structure. That it's really cool that I'm
able to go with the flow but she can't work like this.
That it's obvious I put a lot of time into my job but that she doesn't
*have* all that time; she has a daughter.
That it's not fair. That the other coworker who lost so many kids in
this program was set up for failure because we're not given enough
structure by management. And and and.
I lost my power, my sense of planning, my confidence.
And she left early because she needed to to be with her daughter. And
that's when I really started being able to *work* by talking with
other recruiters and exchanging ideas and really connecting with kids
that came to the table.
No, it wasn't well organized. No, it wasn't the most compelling
presentation ever. Obviously, I'll need to work with other ways to
enroll kids and R. has great ideas for presenting to them a more
concise message so they have a clear idea of exactly what they'll be
doing.

When I left, I couldn't find much. I was disoriented. I felt defeated.
I felt inferior. I felt lost.
I called Steven, who helped a tremendous amount. He is ever the voice
of reason. And he talked with me and we finally identified the
problem: I had subtly switched personalities, and the personality I
had switched to with R. was not aware that I am competent.
I decided to email R. and just explain to her the plan for the
program. To do some additional planning and give her some additional
training on our curriculum so she didn't feel so lost. And to really
honor that she doesn't feel she can lead a program (or even really co-
lead a program) that is in this much transition with this much
uncertainty.
So I figured out to get more precise for her and allow her to just
observe me and my teaching like she had additionally wanted to do -
rather than acting like she had all the wisdom and had much better
ideas then me and should tell me what to do.

So I was feeling somewhat better, but also somewhat disturbed that I
switched that much and into such a lack of sense of my own plans and
competence. And then she resigned. She resigned.
I talked with her for half an hour or so. She was full of complaints
about the manager and how the whole program isn't organized enough and
how it's the manager's fault. *Sigh*
I apologized for my piece in things and let her know that I am willing
to offer her more training and more structured ideas of what's going
on, but did admit that - yes, this program does have a lot of needs
and is in a lot of flex, and yes, it's not just a job where you walk
in and teach and then leave. It takes thought and collaboration
and....
She said she's awed by how much I do and doesn't think the manager has
any idea how much burden she's putting on me. How most people couldn't
do my job, and she is one of "most people" who just doesn't want to
work in this kind of environment. How she could do well at it but she
wouldn't be happy. It doesn't feel safe to her when there is so much
in flux and when the manager clearly expects us to figure this all out
by ourselves.

Okay, this is really lengthy! I'll divide it into two posts.