I have never physically been on a sinking ship, but lately, I think I know how it feels.
I've only ever been in one other situation like this: When I was 19 and on vacation from college, I worked for several areas of a town-run summer camp. The first was the environmental camp, where we led children through the woods and caught frogs and identified trees. That part was fine. The teen camp, however, was not fine. Every day the 12-14 year old students would arrive at the high school cafeteria and hope to be entertained. Every day we would disappoint them. For most of the time (especially when the weather was bad) the camp was like a 6 hour study hall. Occasionally we would take them on field-trips. One was to the Boston Science Museum. It took an hour and a half to get there on the bus. On arrival, we all went to a show at the Omni theater. After the show they ate lunch in the lobby and got right back on the bus. They never even had a chance to go through the turnstile into the actual museum. Same with the Red Sox game: we had to pile the students back into the bus during the 6th inning.
The students hated it and who could blame them? Some of them just stopped showing up; some demanded money back. But this was a town program and we had never made it into the black in the first place. So the kids were unhappy and the staff was embarrassed and bitter, but all the strings were being pulled by people higher up who had never spent even a day at the program. The environmental camp was a utopia by comparison. So later that year, they scrapped the environmental camp due to low enrollment numbers.
I like to take pride in what I do. I like to be associated with organizations which, if not necessarily successful, are trying to do the right thing. There's no benefit to being a shining star if you work in a mud puddle.
Posted by liz at September 14, 2005 09:31 AM