Trying to Separate Work and Personal Life
When you see people out of context, does it throw you too?
Tonight I ran into a family I know from school at a local restaurant and it felt weird. It's a Sunday night, I am there to eat dinner and watch the Bears play Sunday night football. Working at school on Monday is the farthest thing from my mind. But no, a gathering of Little League Baseball teams has to spoil my animosity. First I forgot the parents' names, became self-conscious of my lack of makeup and sneakers, and then worried about the beer at my table. Maybe it’s a bit different for me because I am an elementary teacher and those kids are just as shocked at seeing me in the real world as I am to see them. This has happened to me twice before. Once it happened at Trader Joe’s after school when my former student just tapped me on my back and then had nothing really to say to me. I just smiled at her, made a joke about all the food I was buying, and then tried to avoid her family at the checkout. The other time I was on a date. I was all dressed up to celebrate an anniversary, and we got seated right next to a table where my student and his family were sitting. Making the initial eye contact was followed by awkward introductions, and then I tried to act normal while my student kept turning his head over the booth to see me sipping a glass of wine.
Teachers don’t live in their classrooms, and I guess I have to remember that my students also have a life outside of school. Sometimes those worlds collide.
Maybe I should wear more disguises.
Update--I just ran into another parent of a former student. Only this time neither one of us was showered and we were at Taco Bell. Perhaps embarrassing to us both.
posted by calipand @ 9:44 PM
5 Comments:
why is it you always run into people when you look your worst. never when you're all dressed up or at least took time to run a comb through your hair and a little lipstick. such is life.
did you ever have a "come as you are" party? call people up at any hour, and they have to come to your party dressed just as they are... I wonder if anyone ever really showed up without changing?
One of the more shocking episodes of my young school life was passing a faculty room at my school when the door was open and I briefly could see the teachers were in there laughing it up and SMOKING! Teachers actually doing things like my PARENTS did! Yikes!
It is unnerving to see people out of context. Being a barista I know my customers as "Large Chai Guy" or "Large Skim no whip Mocha" and it never seems aproppriate to call them by such names outside of the Kisok where I serve them coffee. However we do have some loyals who I know by name and have shared more intimate details of our lives besides how we like our coffee. But it always seems awkward seeing my customers without an apron on or a counter to lean over and talk!
That is why I live 15 miles from school. I have my own grocery store, movies etc. Although, I am still afraid to wear my fumari t-shirt in public.
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