I wasn't even going to work summer camp this year, but new people are
running it, and one of the camp directors begged me to come back and
swore up and down it would be more organized this year. Ha, I say. Ha.
On the bright side, my camp is great. Partly because of me. No false
modesty here, I'm a great organizer. I work in gymnastics camp, but I
primarily do arts and crafts. Unlike other camps, I know what project
we're doing before I get there, I get the supplies together and in the
room before the kids even get in there, and I have backup plans in case
the activity doesn't last for the full hour. We generally leave the
room cleaner than we found it, and all the supplies get put back in the
cabinet as soon as we're done.
Unfortunately, the supplies are shared by all the other camps, which
means I've shown up to work and found all the glue left out in the snack
area with none of the tops on. I've found markers scattered about the
facility, paint spilled and just left to dry in clumps on the floor, and
supplies being used up just because the campers are bored and the
counsellors can't think of anything else to do with them, even when it
isn't a scheduled arts and crafts time.
None of our games have pieces, none of the decks of cards have all the
cards. One camp doesn't even follow their own schedule, so when parents
sometimes come to get their kids early, no one knows where they are.
Yeah, real professional.
When I get there, after the gymnastics part is over, my first duty is to
help put all the equipment away. The CITs (counsellors in training) are
supposed to help too, but they'd rather play. A counsellor from another
camp decided to practice his backflip off the tumble track, even though
the safety mats had been put away, and badly injured his ankle.
We're supposed to have 1 counsellor for every 15 campers, at all times,
but I've been left alone with more than 20 kids more times than I can
count. A friend in another camp showed up to work and there were
absolutely no counsellors with her camp on the playground when she got
there. All of this has been brought to the attention of the camp
directors numerous times in the past few weeks, with no action being
taken.
When I said I wanted to work with children, I wasn't referring to my
coworkers.