A Difficult Job

The last time I had to hire a receptionist, we had 84 people apply for the job. Many of those people
had different qualifications and experiences, but I had an image in my head of what I wanted, and I didn't see that on any of the resumes that I was reading. Often when I hire for a position, I am looking for a particular personality type. I strongly believe that you can teach a person to do a job (any job), but you cannot teach them to be someone that they are not. At the time, I was working hard to build parent contacts, especially among our Hispanic student population, and I thought that having someone up front that could speak Spanish would help me a lot. I had also seen how stressful that job can be and I knew that answering phones was a small part of the position. 

While I had not formally met Liz, I knew her sister from my time at Greene Early College and I had heard several stories about how great of a person she was. She was in school part-time but didn't really know what she wanted to do. She had taken a part-time job working with ESL students at GCMS and I used my connection with her sister to call her. She was unsure about taking the job but I did my best to convince her to interview and we offered her the job quickly after. Her first day was April 1st, and in retrospect, I probably should have waited one more day. I am amazed that she came back after she had to read fake names over the intercom (she realized it with Chris P. Bacon) and was frightened with fake roaches. But she did come back and somewhere along the way, she became part of our family. 

Today we say goodbye to a young woman that has helped us all countless times. She has endured the craziness of the front office. She counsels students when they are upset or sick. She calms parents before they make it to see us. She finds substitutes when we have none and she knows who to call before a fire drill. She helped us build bridges to our Hispanic community, who, for the first time, knew that they could call the school and ask a question about their child. But more importantly, she had the right personality. She knew how to make us all feel better about the place we spend most of our daytime hours. And along the way, she figured out that she wanted to be a school counselor. While I hate to see her leave us, I am reminded that I made her promise that she would finish school when she took the job. 

Liz has a difficult job in keeping us all straight, but I think in some way, we served as her internship for counseling. Her experience has been priceless and we have all been better having her here. Thanks for everything Liz.