Speak Up for Yourself

In the past week I’ve had two very different experiences that turned out unexpectedly well and I was pleasantly surprised, I also learned a little something about myself. So I thought I’d share them with you.

Getting Things I Want

I finally had a meeting about my end of season report, it’s a pretty extensive report and I always make a lot of recommendations in it that I think will improve our program.

Now, as I mentioned in my wish list post I think it’s important to make sure that you’re making others aware of what you want/ need for your program just in case they’re willing to give it to you but I never expect to get everything I ask for… at least, not right away.

So I went into my meeting thinking that I would get about half of the stuff I had highlighted as a priority, and I expected one of the recommendations to be greeted with a hard “no”.

This was something that would actually improve camper and staff experience, but would cost us a few bucks, and when your program has a tight budget, you expect anything that will cost a few bucks to be shot down pretty quickly.

How To Stop Making Assumptions

 

Here’s a fun game, here are three quick stories that have a common theme… see if you can figure out what it is. (Hint: it’s in the title of the blog post!!)

Last summer I had a conversation with my LIT (Leader In Training) Director that went a little something like this:

Me: Ok, so our numbers for the 4 week program are down, why don’t we start offering 1 or 2 week sessions as an option.

Him: Yeah, we had already talked about that being a possibility, so I went ahead and told them they could do that.

Me: Oh, well, ok.
Does some quick math (on a calculator obviously, because I can’t do much math in my head)
Me: Tell them they can pay x amount for one week, x amount for 2 weeks or the original x amount for the full 4 weeks.

Him: Well I already told them they could pay x amount for 1 & 2 weeks.

Me: Oh…why did you do that?

When will you get a “real” job?

Hey guys, before you read any further, did you know you can follow my blog with Bloglovin? Neat!

Ok, back to the topic at hand…

I recently attended a family event, which was great, it’s always nice to see extended family and catch up with them.

We ate, we laughed, we reminisced about embarrassing stories from my childhood… good times were had by all.

But then come the questions… you know, the ones about camp – the “when will you get a “real” job” questions and their variations, I’ve gotten really good at fielding these over the years but these ones were extra funny some how.

Here’s how these hilarious conversations went down…

What do you do the rest of the year?

“Well, it’s a full-time, year round job… so I do camp stuff!
Just like any small business, I create the budget, write reports, hire staff, recruit campers, etc.”

 

Can’t you get a promotion so that you don’t have to work at camp in the summer anymore? Does’t so-and-so work at your company? Can’t you get a job like his? He doesn’t have to work at camp.

5 Quick Tips – Awkward Conversations

Awkward conversations happen. Sometimes it’s because it’s a difficult or uncomfortable topic, sometimes it’s because of the relationship you have with the staff member, and sometimes it’s just because you’re not used to being in a position where you have to discuss certain topics with staff (don’t worry, it get’s easier with time, you’ll get there).

I thought it would be a great time to cover this since I recently talked about awkward conversations in my last post about Campmances, if you missed it, check it out here.

Scott Arizala, of the Scott Arizala Show has a great video about having difficult conversations over at Camp Hacker. I highly recommend you check it out.