Pocahontas on the warpath

Terrifical it wasn't. But camp is over, hamdullah.

Horrible experience from beginning to end. Starting this last week, I was on a meal count. Pocahontas was just in a foul, foul mood from Monday on. She'd been off Sunday to celebrate her anniversary and just came back foul.

And today is the last day of camp, so maybe she's in a good mood, but I don't know. I'm not there. She scalped me.

The Monday she returned, she was bitter from the start. Hey, it was the last week of an 8-week camp; who wasn't at the end of their rope? Seriously?

But she was taking it out on people all around; i.e., not just me. And honestly, I'm used to being dumped on. I can handle it. It's annoying, unprofessional and essentially immature, but it doesn't have long-lasting effects.

But when she starts ordering the kids around, that's just wrong, and Monday that started big time. It kind of started because the maintenance man just doesn't do his job. He's supposed to take out the trash, but he doesn't, so she snaps at people to do it.

After Sunday night's dinner, no one dumped the trash and it was half-full. To his credit, MM doesn't work at night, so he wouldn't have done it. Technically, it's no one's job but sometimes someone steps up and does it, but Sunday, no one did.

So Monday, Pocahontas jumped on a guy we call Dragon to do it. She snaps, "Young man, come here. Take that trash out. The MM won't take it out after breakfast if it's not taken out at night, and they didn't take it out. Get this out of here now. It stinks." Or words to that effect.

When she returns to the kitchen, I asked if MM really did say he wouldn't take it out after breakfast if it wasn't taken out after dinner the night before, since it sounds weird. The guy is lazy and bitches about doing his job, but if you tell him to do it, he will do it.

Pocahontas can't actually say he told her that, because, of course, he didn't. She merely wanted the trash dumped and that was the most convenient exaggeration to make. But to me she says, "It's all right. I asked [Dragon] to dump it, and he did."

Which is also a lie. She didn't ask. Asking implies that the person can say no. She ordered and bullied him into it.

And really, she is a physically intimidating person. She's tall and heavyweight and also extremely loud. One morning I was sitting on the porch talking to Mermaid and I heard her shout "hello" to Pawnee, who was coming in the back door. The front porch is essentially three rooms away from the kitchen.

Anyway, I went out after the Dragon episode and asked Mermaid if SoCal, the camp administrator, had been around. I related the episode, mentioned how close to the edge Pocahontas was and how she's yelling and ordering around people who are not her underlings, and how the MM isn't taking out the trash.

So that was one episode. Others continued. We had the usual Friday camp number discussion, which went something like this:

Me: Should I make 96 pieces of toast for tomorrow morning, like I did this morning?

Pocahontas, rather smugly: No, remember, we don't have as many people for breakfast on Friday.

M: Yes, we do. It's lunch that's smaller.

P: No. It's breakfast.

M: No, we have day camp and staff for lunch on Friday.

P (growing in impatience and rudely): Yes, remember we went through this last week? We have less people for breakfast. (Yes, her grammar kills me.)

M: No, the residential kids go home after breakfast.

P: Oh, you're right this time.

God, she kills me. She just doesn't listen to me. We also had an incident with timesheets. She kept asking how long they went til, and I said the 25th. She completely ignored me. I had to run to the office and do something for her, and while there, she called them and asked the same question. I told the person who answered I'd already told her. She said yeah, I remember -- I was there.

She also does things that just belittle me. Besides referring to Pawnee and myself as "my girls," which irks me to no end, she just refuses to acknowledge any error. We've had a running argument over the amount of tea we should make. The kids don't like it (they inhale the punch) and I argue we don't need more than a gallon at night. Sometimes I argue we don't need it at all, like when we also have punch.

Wednesday, against my arguments (I always lose; she constantly reminds me it's her kitchen) we made a thing of tea, which is three gallons. Well, three meals later AND after Pawnee and I drank probably a gallon of it, I finally threw out the half-gallon that was left. Still, Pocahontas argues it's something I've done that makes them not want it: I forgot to put out ice, I made it too soon, I made it too late. Anything but acknowledging I might have a point when I say the kids prefer punch over tea.

She refuses to apologize to me, even for tiny things. We worked across from each other one day as I was placing frozen burgers into a pan. Suddenly something splashed over and I jumped. She asked what was wrong and I said, "Oh! You just splashed some pudding on the burgers."

And she said, "Oh." And walked away. No acknowledgement of the accident, no apology, even if it was meaningless. It's that kind of thing that makes me feel like used chewing gum on the bottom of a shoe.

And, like I've mentioned, other people have noticed this. And it's been so bad, I've been counting meals left until freedom. I'd run into, say, Stingray or Ogre and say, "Only six meals left!"

Thursday was so brutal that I vented to several people about her. I was almost to my boiling point I had to let it out. Six meals remaining. Five meals remaining. I can do it.

I even spoke to both her boss, HiHo, and the Y camp administrator, SoCal, and relayed how hard it was and especially right now.

So possibly Thursday night was no surprise. Or maybe the surprise was that it wasn't me that exploded.

In the dinner line Thursday, it was business as usual, which means she made snide comments to me here and there. I tend to just ignore them, and as a result I really don't remember the specific incident. But I do remember whatever she said, in front of children, was more harsh than usual, because after she said it, I glanced up at Tiger Lily, who is one of the people who's noticed I've gotten some nasty treatment. TL gave me a brief look that said, "I just can't believe she did that" and I resumed passing out food, also catching a glimpse of Baloo.

A bit later, I was out in the dining room, checking on milk and Baloo stopped me and said, "Something needs to be said. That's unacceptable, especially in front of the children. Do you want me to say something?" (I learned later that his kids, who heard her comment to me, had asked him why she was so mean to me.)

I thought he meant talking to the bosses about it, and I said yes. And, unbeknownst to me, he meant to her, and right then, as he thought all the people had gone through the line. (As did I; I don't leave the line while we're serving.)

So when I came back in, I suddenly heard Pocahontas screaming at him. She was just yelling things like, "Don't you come back here and get in my face!" and "You think I don't know what you're saying about me?"

And it just went on and on. Baloo, to his credit, didn't raise his voice. She, on the other hand, was absolutely ballastic. And, as it turned out, not everyone had been fed yet. A group of leaders (fortunately) had just arrived to eat, and they were making their way through the line as this unfolded.

As soon as Pocahontas screamed "GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN!" Birdie ran and closed one door and Baguira slammed the other. The one-sided screaming went on and on. "I'M FIFTY YEARS OLD. YOU CAN'T TALK TO ME LIKE THIS." My name was thrown around left and right.

Close to tears, I went out the back door, completely unable to cope. All I could think was, "My God, I still have to work two more meals with this woman."

When I escaped, Kanga, the camp director (SoCal wasn't on site) was trying to officiate, saying, "No one is leaving this kitchen angry" and other stuff that wasn't falling on welcome ears. (I've no idea what Pawnee was doing.)

I walked around the building to the front, where I tried to smile and figure out if anything had been overheard. Apparently not because the dinner din is really loud, which was good. The campers had no idea what happened, but the leaders did.

Poor Fox came up to me and asked if there was any food because he hadn't gotten a plate. Completely uncomfortable, I went into the kitchen to get him some. (At this point, Baloo was outside the kitchen, and the yelling had stopped.)

Once in there, I found Pocahontas on the phone. She was yelling into it, obviously to HiHo "...AND WARDA KNOWS ANYTHING SHE WANTS TO SAY SHE CAN SAY TO MY FACE--" (yeah, like I have a prayer at being listened to. Open to criticism she is not.)

At this point, she saw me and screamed "GET OUT. JUST GET OUT." And I said, "Fox hasn't eaten yet." And she repeated, "GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN."And I grabbed my bowl of spaghetti and my tea and left.

I sat down with some kids and chatted with them about their camp experience and finally caught Kanga's eye. I said I'd been thrown out; what was I supposed to do? (Technically, Pocahontas isn't my boss, Kanga is.) Kanga really isn't qualified to do anything and just said, "Do whatever you need to do."

So I said I was going to campfire and saying goodbye and then going home. No way was I going to go back into that situation. I would have left then and there, but my keys, watch and glasses -- not to mention the extra tea -- were all in the kitchen, where she had to work late because I wasn't there. (When I went in later, I saw it was in a pretty bad state of disarray. Pity.)

I've no idea how it turned out. People asked me to stay just for the heck of it but I had no desire to go through the breakfast line on either side, you know?

Had it been more than one day left, I could have dealt with it. But at this point, what was the point? She's out of control and even with a day off she was just not easy to deal with.

It's a shame because she really is a nice woman who just didn't realize the difference between school and camp and had signed on to be a manager, not a worker.

So I'm done. My scalp is cooked and I am home.

Overall, the experience is one I will forget ASAP. In trying to find positives, I did meet some nice people. That's about it. My one regret, besides taking the job in the first place, is not being able to say goodbye to the day camp kids. They were probably completely baffled I wasn't there this morning.

And the thought of Pocahontas having to answer to about 20 "Where's Warda?" inquries she's getting today just tickles me.

So the end of camp does bring a smile to my face. Who'd have thought it?

It's terrifical: Camp ends this week!

Hamdullah, it's almost over: this is my last week of camp. I leave in T minus two hours and 30 minutes and will return home Friday inchallah around 4.

Who knows, though. We could decide to celebrate Friday or something. And I could still be asked or told to work day camp the following week. But for now, I only have six days left, and five with Pocahontas.

Today's her anniversary (28 years) and she's off, so I'll be working with HiHo. I'm looking forward to the break.

He's a really cool guy who runs a hoagie shop somewhere in downtown Tallahassee. He does camps on the side during summer. When told he had to have a camp name, he popped off with "HoHo" immediately. I thought he was a little quick to have come up with a name so quickly, but until last week, I had no idea why. Then I heard Pocahontas talking about him to someone on the phone and dropped his last name.

It's "Silver." I didn't even get the connection immediately, because Pocahontas uses real names and therefore hadn't spoken "HiHo" It wasn't until later at night -- I swear I can't stop thinking about the darn kitchen -- that I put it together.

Hi ho Silver, away!

And Friday, I, too, will be away. Man, I am so ready, as is everyone else. Friday I again heard multiple leaders telling me how bad Pocahontas is to me. I know she doesn't mean it, but it would help if she listened.

Her grave error this week was Friday lunch. Seems it slipped her mind we only feed day camp and leaders. After six weeks, you'd think management would have it, but she had Pawnee prepare pizza for 110. Which, I might add, is a heck of a lot of pizza.

One kid from her school is here and has spent, against the rules, a ton of time in the kitchen. He said something to her about going home for lunch Friday and, like last week, she flipped.

What do you mean, she asks him. He says yeah, lunch today. She completely flips out again and I'm like, um, this is camp. They go home. It's what happens on Friday -- remember last week?

And no, she didn't. She totally disregarded everything -- even me -- once again.

Oh well. One week left.

Yesterday, I kept Mackenzie and we went to see "Ramona and Beezus," which, as a longtime Beverly Cleary fan, I felt stuck really truly to the books. It pulled incidents from many of the books into one well-told story. I loved it.

Ramona's word -- not the bad word, the word she invented -- in the movie is "terrifical," and that's what I am hoping the last week of camp will be.

And even if it's not, then ... well, GUTS! -- at least it will be over.

I think I can I think I can

Well, this past week at camp might have been Pocahontas' tipping point. She pretty much went nuts.

Camp isn't school. Her school is well-stocked and well-run. They have definite things to work with, like numbers of kids.

We just don't. Try as we might, we can't get the correct numbers of how many children we're trying to feed.

Monday, we were told the prior week, we'd be feeding 142 for the week. Well, Monday morning at breakfast, the line suddenly petered out. It was like, "hey, guys, send in the next cabin -- we're ready!"

And there were no more. We'd served 105 people, which, as you might remember from math class, is <142.

So Pocahontas went on the warpath, so to speak, and demanded to know how many kids were in camp that day. 105. So at lunch, we prepared for that and it went OK. Dinner, too.

The next day, we prepared for 105 and pretty much ran out -- had to cook something else on the fly. After much ado, she got a new number from the administrator guy, the one who'd previously given her the 142 number.

Pocahontas, meanwhile, is flipping out and not listening to me try to explain some things to her, like the day camp variation. See, during day camp, even though kids sign up for the week, that doesn't mean they're there all week. It's summer, and many times, the families take long weekends, meaning they're out of day camp either Monday or Friday.

And I'm pretty sure that's what happened, because instead of asking what the count for the week was supposed to be, Pocahontas asked how many kids were there that day. We'd had over 10 kids not show up, and the person she asked didn't understand she was really being asked the bigger question.

And that's continued. I'm trying to get Pocahontas to understand she needs to ask the one camp administrator the questions, because everyone else just speculates. There are a few people (three) who can speculate with a greater degree of accuracy, but the administrator guy is the one who knows. No one else can even guess.

So even though it's unprofessional for the administrator to give us such grossly wrong numbers, it doesn't help to grill other people on what we're being told. They don't know and they get baffled as to why they're asked.

I talked to the person who was doing weekend camp this week, for example, and she told me she heard she would have fewer than 10 campers. I relayed the information to Pocahontas, who was later given a count of 33. I said that seemed wrong, could we question it? We did, and got the old "we already told you..." lecture.

By Friday, though, they'd corrected the count to 23, and then, when the weekend person came in for her instructions, it was further reduced to 17. She's not the one reducing it, though -- the administrator is. She doesn't know.

Friday, in general, was a nightmare. We'd previously been told 100 for lunch, which isn't even mathmatically possible. I brought this up as soon as I got the number from Pocahontas, saying the most possible was 80, because 60 day campers max plus 20 staff members is 80. And we don't have 60 day campers right now; it's more like 45.

But the number stood -- for awhile. By Friday morning, we pried again, and got the number to 70. Which is WAY less than 100, especially when you have pre-cooked two pizza slices for each person. It takes a long, long time to do that, and it's really annoying to have to go back and re-store the food.

But two additional things happened to further sent Pocahontas down the path to insanity, and most of it was because she simply tunes me out. I've, this entire time, been telling her how the counts are impossible and too high, but she doesn't listen to me at all. She looks like she is, but later, when something else is introduced, she'll say, "Well, you never told me that!"

Which is what happened when, just before lunch, someone wandered in and said -- not to her but within earshot -- that a group of kids was going out to lunch.

My God, she flipped. Completely flipped. She ran out of the kitchen to the nearest people with "staff" shirts on and got into their faces, saying, "HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL BE HERE FOR LUNCH?" She just yelled at them. She kept repeating this group was going out to eat, why didn't someone tell her, she'd been told to cook for 100, etc.

NEVER MIND the fact that, and I had been telling her this as soon as she overheard the exchange, that the group of people in question NEVER eats with us on Fridays. Never. Yes, the count is wrong, but it already was wrong. My estimate of 45 or so campers plus 20 staff members, which I'd been chanting pretty much as a mantra, didn't include that group of people because it NEVER does. But she refused to listen to me and essentially verbally assaulted these other people -- who had no idea. I knew, and I told her, but she refused to listen.

And not 10 minutes later, when she calmed down from that (someone else mentioned to her that the group of people never ate Friday lunches with the group. When I mentioned I'd said that, she actually said, "No, you didn't.) someone else came in and asked for 29 forks and napkins for lunch.

And, without listening to anything else, she flipped again. Just completely went off. And I just calmly asked, "Is that just day camp?" And the answer was yes. She was in charge of day camp that day and, in her mind, that's all she was responsible for. The leader didn't know -- or care, really -- about any other groups eating.

As I was trying to explain to Pocahontas the girl meant day camp only, she kept up basically this insane woman chant about wrong counts, groups eating elsewhere, etc. I kept calmly reassuring her that the count was only for day camp and not for staff.

We wound up feeding 60, which was essentially my estimate.

To her credit, Pocahontas puts up with a lot of crap. Unfortunately, she's lost her filter for it. She's got so much thrown at her she has no idea who's right, wrong and who's simply stuttering out an answer to get rid themselves of the lady screaming in their face.

The administrator has no business being in charge. I mean, the two people in charge cannot count the number of children in camp. How basic is that? We are getting different numbers all the time, and they vary widely. But you can't ask people who don't have the facts to give them to you. They can speculate, but if you want accountability you have to go to the top.

Pocahontas doesn't quite grasp the concept of how the camp operates. Having been through training and also associating with people outside of the kitchen, I know a lot more of what goes on. But I also pay attention to the kids as they come through. I listen.

She pretends to, but doesn't really - or at least it seems to me. She gave one of the Hungarian kids a hard time about asking for something at breakfast. She and I had switched places and instead of me asking one by one, "Do you want this? Do you want that?" and showing it to him, she kind of hit him with a rapid-paced barrage. He didn't understand. I jumped in and said he wanted everything but grits and she said, "He should answer me for himself!"

I wasn't sure if she knew he was one of the foreign kids and whispered in her ear after he left that he didn't understand much English. She said, "Well, he should know by now." Good Lord.

The next day, when he came through, she was nicer and tried to play. She asked him, "What's my name?" and gave him a hard time. But when I looked at her and said, "What's HIS name?" she kind of got quiet. She knows no names -- everyone, for some reason, is "baby." It's a little offending to the over 14 crowd. She also likes to call me "Mommy," and she's done that to a few of the adults, too.

Maybe by the end of camp, she'll get the hang of the differences between day and residential camp. I always think it's funny when she screws up because she makes a big deal about "knowing all my babies."

Last week, one of the groups came through the line at breakfast and she gave them a big, hearty "Good morning" and then added, "How did you like my wonderful dinner last night?"

They just stared at her and I whispered, "They're day camp; they weren't here for dinner."

Mad ramblings from camp

Only three weeks left! Really less than that, since this is Day Two.

And next week, the camp numbers are "so low," I understand they will tell some of the staff members not to show up. I won't be so lucky, of course, but the thing is, they *could* do this the right way and it appears they won't.

They are some people who are ready to quit and walk out. Based on previous decisions, it's likely those people will be told to stay and the group, and most people live 4+ hours away, which wants to stay will have to depart home and then return.

We'll see what happens. There's one person here, who intends to stick it out, who says if she is sent home for next week she will not return the following one. I don't blame her. You sign up to work a summer camp and count on it for housing (which many did), you need it.

The mosquitoes are back en masse and flies are all over. However, having grown accustomed to Moroccan flies (meaning having things like food, drink, surfaces and body parts including eyes) covered in flies, I can't get too upset about 3-4 flying around the kitchen.

The kitchen. Sigh. The novelty is gone, not that there ever was one. I'm getting tired of having a verbal list of stuff to do being barked at me at 6:49 and then, at 2:47 p.m., being told "we forgot" to do some minor thing, like put out ketchup at lunch for pizza.

I'm not so much an audio person. I hear a list like this: "Slice carrots, pull peaches, pan pancakes and sausages, pull up the rugs, bleach out the sink, empty the cereal container, make tea, pull hash browns and get a count on chicken nuggets" and it goes right by. It comes out as more like, "Slice blah, blah, blah, blah, yadda, blah, empty the cereal container, something about tea, yadda yadda blah." I do the one or two things I remember and then ask about the rest. Then I get, "I told you to ..."

I have not done this for 30 years like she has. And the food, by and large, isn't stuff I eat or have prepared. I have no idea, for example, what a good salad bar looks like, how to make tomato soup or how long to boil eggs.

I'm getting blamed for stuff I didn't do, too. This might have been my tipping point. I know last week I was in a crappy mood and although 99.9 percent of it was because BOTH jobs I was so close to getting weren't filled, it had a lot to do with hamburgers.

I counted the darn things. I know what hamburgers are. I used two complete boxed, identially marked with "beef patties" on them. I then went to a third box, also marked "beef patties," and used about nine or so perfectly round burgers.

Burgers I eat. I know what they look like, both raw and cooked. These were burgers. Pink, somewhat round and all. But one of the boxes came out of the oven shaped a a little funky. Like the salisbury steaks we serve. Now, they were not salisbury steaks, but they were shaped like them. The looked like burgers, though. No fake little grill marks like on the salisbury.

Never mind. Pocahontas saw them and, in front of everyone, told me I'd messed up and that they weren't burgers. I said yes, they were, and explained how I knew. She claimed the third box was salisburies, I was just too dumb to notice (not her words, but clearly her meaning.) I asked how many "salisburies" she'd seen. She said she'd counted 21 so far. I said well, then you're talking the ones from the burger box, because I only used nine from the new box, and those were round, ask Pawnee. (Who confirmed.)

Pocahontas still wasn't satisfied, saying I'd mistaken the boxes. Now, I have done this before. I can read. I am the one who did the inventory, who loaded the freezer in the first place, who placed all the burgers together, who pulled them and who panned them. I know what kind of box it was. It was a burger box. And I know what burgers look like. Salisbury steaks aren't pink, for crying out loud.

But she didn't believe me, seriously. It went on and on, and meanwhile, I was still feeding kids going through the line. All this took place in public. I was so upset.

Even later, when Pawnee again vouched for me, she was skeptical. She then ate a "salisbury" and said, wow, salisburies have garlic and onion flavoring and this doesn't. Of course it didn't. It was a hamburger. Like I'd been saying all along.

And I thought she finally believed me. Until the following day, when she brought it up again. I looked at her and said quietly, "I swear to you on my grandmother's grave those were hamburgers." And she finally quieted about it.

We had a real salisbury incident I got blamed for last Thursday. We ran out and immediately I was pointed at, asking how many I'd panned. I did 90. And we were out, so what happened? I must be wrong, right? Uh, no, I panned 90. I don't know why you're out.

Finally she blamed the Y, and feeding three spare people who came in. (Never mind I could name three staffers who didn't.) She went on and on about the counts, which have been wrong badly before but we've never actually run out of food. She even called her boss and bitched to him about it, not paying attention to the fact that, while yes we did feed people we shouldn't have, people who should have been fed didn't show.

Friday morning, when I arrived at 6:30, I went to pull the pancakes and stuff out for breakfast. On the rack, facing out and everything, was a half-pan of salisbury steaks. The other lady, Pocahontas' friend, neglected to pull them all out of the freezer when they went to cook them.

I'm ready for it to be over!

Happy Fourth!

It's the Fourth of July and I'm in America. Weird feeling.

I tried to go to a party today, but got lost. I am so directionally challenged it's not funny. I just called the invitee and apologized; as it turns out, I think I was less than 1 1/2 miles from the place, but never figured it out.

Instead, I rested up more from camp and just putzed around.

Yesterday, Nic and Zac were here and Kocur got a workout. Zac loves her so. She went on three walks, and then I took the two to see "Toy Story 3."

It's an amazing movie. I mean, there is absolutely no flaw in it. It's a great end to the trilogy. See it. And be prepared to cry. Yes, for toys.

Camp is halfway done. I'm down to 74 hours a week, and that's about half of what I've been doing. So it's pretty amazing. I'm even done, for the most part, around 9 p.m. I learned a neat trick by Tuesday -- after finishing, go rush to the showers and get in before the onslaught of girls. That way, instead of waiting on an open shower at 10:30, I am ready for bed!

So last week it wasn't terribly bad. I'm only in the kitchen so it works for me. The kids eat on time and I get out as soon as I'm done.

Instead of getting back to Havana at 7:something p.m. on Friday, I was home at 4:30. It was great and Kocur loved it.

It's my only two-day weekend of the summer and I tried to make the most of it. (Yes, this includes putzing around.) I even went to Target, which is real civilization from where I am currently living.

Tomorrow, sadly, I have to be at work at 7 a.m. This will be brutal, but I'll get over it. I'm just so thrilled to be halfway done.

Technically, though, I am not sure I am halfway done. I am now in the kitchen, and that means I have to be there to feed kids. After residential camp ends on July 31 -- what I have been told is the end of camp -- there is another week of day camp. I might wind up having to work that, too.

In real world news, I've still heard nothing. Hanging on as best I can.