Someone's in the kitchen

Well, I am halfway done with the halfway point. If that doesn't make sense, I'm halfway through this work week and at the end of the week it'll be halfway through with camp.

I'll also have a two-day weekend when it's all said and done. For whatever inane reason, weekend camp is still going on for only SIX kids this weekend. Go figure.

This week, though, camp has improved, if just the administrator caved and decided to just leave me in the kitchen. It's far best for the camp, that's for sure, so I don't mind it. It definitely beats working 17+-hour days.

There's no pay raise at all but no pay cut. Oddly, this is the proposal HiHo (the guy with the food contact) suggested both the first and second weeks of camp. SoCal, the administrator said sure, but I'd have to take a pay cut. So no deal.

But in the end, feeding kids wins out. They do get hungry when you leave them for a week, so it's best that I look after them.

So with that, combined with the fact there are 40 fewer people, it's not too bad. That's not to say it's fun or anything like that. The camp director is doing things such as coming through the food line and not speaking to either Pocahontas or myself, so I know she's angry at being usurped. Or something.

She is a nice person and loves the camp, but she's just not ready for the position she's in. Way too young -- even flirty with the "junior leaders." I think she's under a lot of stress and just doesn't know how to deal with unhappy leaders, which she created by not informing them properly and by not looking after them.

The administrator and director still aren't good at communicating, either. With us, the staff or whomever. Two days ago, on Breakfast One, the group came in to lay out the place settings. They asked how many cups for water and I said none; because we had juice, we didn't get water, also. (They also get milk.)

About 15 minutes later, after the leaders and group had gone and the whole mess of kids was piling in, the camp director came in, walked over to the cups, took a tray of 36, and walked to the ice bin. She walked right by me and didn't say a word.

When she started the process of icing the cups, I went over to her and asked what she was doing. She said, "Getting water." That was it. No mention if it was for her, a sick kid or whatever. So I said, hesitatingly because I really had no idea why she was getting the water, "We're having juice today so we don't need cups."

Without looking at me, she uttered some short sentence that meant we needed water cups. I told Pocahontas and we verified there'd been a change because some kids were getting dehydrated.

So that's not a big deal to change the system, and it's a valid reason. But the execution is extremely poor. Why not come back, say, "Hey, I know we haven't done water with juice for camp this year but we changed our minds -- can you help me get 130 cups of water? And the kids are coming in now so we need to hurry. Thanks!"

Not hard, is it? But it's beyond the capacity of the leader of leaders.

I'm trying to hang in, though. I'm getting a nap-sized break during the day and have the ability to check e-mail on a decent and regular basis. So yay!