For many friends and family, this is going to be old news, but I'll tell the story anyway for those following along at home...
Back in May, while studying in Granada, I got an e-mail from a friend of mine explaining that a fellow runner she knew was looking for an assistant cross-country coach for the fall. At first, the idea seemed a bit crazy: take a part-time job in the fall?! There's plenty of good climbing to be done in September! Why would I ever commit to being in the city during the week when the weather is pleasant and the mountains are calling?!
But within a week I was starting to think a bit differently.
I had often thought about the idea of coaching. But I'd never had an opportunity like this come up. And even if one had come up while I was working full-time at Microsoft, I probably wouldn't have felt like I could do such a thing. Leaving "real" work at 2 p.m. for a few hours just isn't something that's usually done by Microsoft employees. Coworkers would scoff. Bosses would boo. Why would anyone do such a thing? would be asked.
So here was an opportunity to try something that I'd always wanted to do. I would still have 6 weeks of complete freedom in the U.S. before I'd need to start work: a good deal of time to visit plenty of summits. It wasn't long before I started thinking about fun things to do with middle school runners.
So.... eventually I returned to Seattle, two months later, and after some phone- and e-mail-tag, Joe (the coach) and I talked on the phone... and then four of us met in person (Joe, the director of the middle school, and the athletic director). And that (in addition to a resume and cover letter and references) was all that we needed to make a decision: I would be co-coaching with Joe for the fall!
Which brings us to September. This week I have transitioned from an unemployed loser to a part-time loser, part-time "Middle School Physical Education Faculty" member. Wow! On Monday I attended a few meetings and got a tour of the school and even got to go to my first practice! On Tuesday the entire staff, from cook to head of school, attended a retreat at the Kiana Lodge on the Kitsap Peninsula. What a treat! And today the cross country team had a great game of capture the flag. Talk about fun stuff!
I must admit that working with the faculty from the Northwest School is, um, a little different from working at Microsoft. It's amazing (and perhaps a little scary) how much I seem to have in common with the staff. Shouldn't I have more in common with the people I've been working with for the past eight years than with the people I've been working with for two days?
But the head of faculty whom I sat next to on Monday just so happens to have biked the length of the Danube, and then along the Elbe, this past summer. (I was on the Elbe too!) As we biked home from the lodge (yes, almost 20 of the faculty biked to the Bainbridge ferry and from the ferry to the lodge), I chatted with another faculty member about cyclocross. It turns out that he's raced it a bit and wants to race more this fall!
EJ, on the maintenance team, offered to show me a good route to bike home from the school, so she went out of her way to bike with me to the school from the ferry dock and then up north towards our neighborhoods. And yes, she lives just a mile from me!
When I google'd the head of the middle school to see if I could find any information about her, I read about her climbing Mount Stuart. Not exactly an experience I would expect a school administrator to have...
In sum, I seem to share more with the average Northwest School employee in terms of lifestyle (bike commute!), location (west side!), outside interests (climbers!), and gender (at least half of them are female!) than I do with the average Microsoft employee. I won't try to delve into the reasons that this is the case, but I will say that it made me feel comfortable and almost at home... with a group of people that had been strangers just a couple of days before. One of the Spanish teachers even invited me to join her Spanish I class if it fit in my schedule!
One of the memories from Tuesday that might capture the difference between working at a school and at Microsoft is this: we went around the room introducing ourselves (all 100 of us); just names, roles, and number of years we've been at the Northwest School. One of the teachers was bold enough to try to make an announcement during these quick introductions. Her announcement was that she was pregnant and expecting a baby in February! Everyone applauded, offered congratulations, and in general the mood was festive.
In contrast, I can't even imagine such a scene at Microsoft. Truthfully, only once in eight years was any of my coworkers ever pregnant at all! (Several spouses of coworkers were pregnant, but that's not quite the same thing.)
This may be a cliche sentiment or a bit of an exaggeration, but at Microsoft I always felt like kids and family were things that got in the way of work; at the Northwest School, they literally are the work! It actually feels really good to be in an environment like that.
Cheesiness aside, the transition back to commitments and work has been fun so far, but I'm already feeling restless to get back into the mountains. Lucky for me, Labor Day weekend is approaching and I've got a couple of friends happy to chaperone me on a trip to visit my tall friends. So with that, I'll dust off the GPS, get out the tent, and get ready for one last multi-day hurrah in the wilderness before the summer makes her exit!
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