Super Counselor!

Monday, the first day of the week, the day where we get new campers, new weekly schedules, it's a fresh start. Usually.

One of our kids was going on the overnight trip and the "procedure" for getting them to the right place to leave on time is to take them to the nurse so she can check them out then they get on the bus from there. My co-counselor and I are pretty good at taking turns with who takes the whole group and who takes the one kid where they need to be. It was my turn, so I take one of our boys over to the nurse's room. She wasn't there. Okaaaaay. We were a few minutes early and we had left before they made the announcement to get the overnight kids to the nurse. So we waited a few minutes.

Soon another group showed up looking for the nurse so I knew we were in the right place. We were suppose to have the kids at the nurse by 9:15, and when it rolled around, the nurse was still nowhere to be found. The group that came in after us eventually left, while several other counselors just dropped off their kids and left without even checking to see if the nurse was there. I somehow ended up with fifteen or twenty kids and only one other counselor in sight staying until the nurse got there. Thank goodness for him because otherwise I would have been illegally outnumbered (not literally "illegally" but you know what I mean). Neither he nor I would be going on the overnight, there were counselors assigned to go but they were nowhere to be found either!

One of the lifeguards happened to wander by and stop in, thankfully. He went up to the office to find out about the nurse. When he came back, he informed us that the nurse was going to be late but she would be in around 9:30. I looked at the clock, it was already a few minutes past 9:30. Great. At quarter to ten, one of the administrator's came into the room for something else, but then found out about the nurse still be absent and said that we should all go down to the pavilion and wait for the nurse there, rather than have everyone in the tiny space. So the ONE other counselor (and junior counselor at that, he wasn't even 18 yet) and I took all the kids outside and down to the pavilion. Which was where we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.

Finally, after ten, ANOTHER administrator happened to walk by and I explained what was going on and how the nurse had STILL not shown up, and she immediately went up to the office to see what was going on. When she came back, she said that the nurse still hadn't arrived yet, but the bus for the overnight doesn't leave until the children had been checked in, so there wasn't a whole lot we could do in the meantime besides keeping the kids out of trouble. I thanked her and let her know that there were just two counselors watching all of the kids (and one of us was a junior counselor) because everyone else just dumped their kids and ran. And those were the words that I used when I explained what happened later, "dumped their kids and ran."

At about 10:30 or so (more than an hour after we were suppose to have dropped off the kids and moved on to the first period with the rest of our group), one of the overnight specialists (someone who just runs the overnights), came over and started to take attendance to see who was with us at the pavilion and who was waiting at the bus circle. Next, we got the kids lined up outside the nurse's room (she had still not arrived) and had them go in two by two and get them checked in to make sure none of them were sick or anything. After that, we went over to the bus circle to wait for the bus's to show up. Even though everyone had been unofficially checked in, it was only a temporary solution. Any children who were taking medication with them on the overnight still had to be checked in by the nurse no matter how late she was. A legal issue in which we had no choice.

11 rolled around and the nurse had STILL not arrived, but reinforcements had arrived! The counselors who were going on the overnight had been summoned and were at the bus circle with us. The kids at this point were getting tired of waiting and kept asking when the nurse was going to come and when they could leave. I kept saying "she'll get here when she gets here, the bus isn't going to leave without you."

Finally, around 11:30 the nurse shows up, the few kids who have meds go and see her while counselors get the bus loaded with gear and kids, and the original junior counselor and I can go back to our groups, just in time for lunch. I quickly explained what happened to my other counselor and gave more full a story to our specialist who said that I did exactly the right thing and to make sure that the administration knew that the other counselors were just dropping off their kids so that they could come up to my "level." A simple thanks and/or acknowledgment is really all I need.

My last several jobs did hardly anything when a good or exception job was done, unless you whined and complained and made yourself noticed the entire time you were doing it. Their opinion was that of "you're doing what I hired you to do", it was expected, not appreciated. I got several "thank yous" and made sure to thank the junior counselor who stayed several times myself.

The rest of the day went fairly smoothly, aside from a loose tooth, many tears, and a trip to the nurse and the office.

One of the boys has a loose tooth and accidentally got bumped in the mouth, which made it hurt and bleed. It had to be one of the boys who has a flair for the dramatic too.

"I feel like I'm going to die!" He said through tears.
"You're not going to die, I promise." I replied, trying not to laugh.
"But it feels like I am!"

I took him to the nurse, got some ice, tissues, and a case in the event that the tooth fell out so we had something to put it in. He was fine when it was just the two of us and I got him talking, keeping his mind off it. But when people asked what happened or if he had time to think about it, he would start crying again. Later, after the last period, my co-counselor took him to the office to see if he could be picked up early (he is one of the children who is picked up late, he goes to supervision after camp is over). He wasn't able to get picked up early, so he did his best to tough it out. The last I saw of him, he was swimming around in the pool as if nothing was wrong.

So yeah, not too bad a day at camp. I'm glad it all happened after I've been doing this for a week, so I have an idea of what I'm doing at least. We'll see what the week will bring...