Find the Floor

Back in my retail days (at the evil toy store), I worked for a time in the cage where they lock up all the video games. (They got rid of the cage in the latter days of my employment with them.) It was a small booth where we constantly were filling the shelves only to have the games (and other electronic stuff) sell.

We'd get trucks in. We'd place the newly arrived merchandise on the shelves. People would purchase things, and we would hand them out to them.

It was a decent system most of the time. But, it was retail, so from time to time, we would get new items in that didn't have room on the shelves. Or we would get shipments and it would be so busy we didn't have time to put them away. At those times, the floor of this very narrow booth would fill so one could barely walk back and forth to get stuff.

When I'd arrive some evening (I was in college at the time) to find the booth piled with boxes, I would play a game called Find the Floor. The object was to get every box off the floor of the booth by putting all of the games and such on the shelves.

Some days this was easier than others, depending on how busy the store was.

The only way to play the game was to take it one box at a time. And keep plugging away until all the boxes were gone.

Ever since then (we're talking 25ish years now), any time I get overwhelmed with anything, when I feel so buried that I think I'm going to be living in whatever figurative mess I'm in forever, I take a deep breath and play Find the Floor.

So, I found myself back to Find the Floor these past couple weeks.

On the first day of school, I thought I was there for two days. Then it grew to two weeks. Then longer...

And it was a mad scramble. The room had been a math room last school year, and there were still math posters on the walls. (If you notice, each week the picture up top has changed. I've slowly gotten seats moved and math stuff off the walls.)

I had nothing in the room. The remote control for the projector wasn't working. (It needed new batteries.) I had no lesson plans, a barely working computer, and three classes of seventh graders and two classes of eighth.

On the third day, I got in touch with the English department chair. The English classes all do the same work, so now I had plans. Only, how do I execute those plans?

I learned to make copies (something subs don't usually have to do). I learned where the keepers of the supplies are (I had two broken staplers in the room). And I scrambled to get syllabuses (syllabi?) copied so the kiddos could get their supplies and not get behind the other classes.

Every day, the list grew longer. I still needed to get the math stuff off the walls. But when I had a spare minute, I was figuring out what I needed for the next lesson. I made seating charts. I got their books from the library to check out. Grading...

I collected homework and assignments, but grading kept getting pushed back.

The second week I had the lesson plans before the week, but still every night at home I was prepping for the next day. The dream was to get two days ahead. It almost happened.

And then last Thursday, I finally found the floor.

I got the desk cleared off. I hadn't graded the papers, but I managed to organize them. The math stuff was finally off the walls. I had established a routine for the classes, and the seventh graders were kind of starting to follow it. (The eighth graders... Well, let's just say there are some issues.)

I had the plans for the next week. I had many of the copies I'd need. Things weren't 100% done, but suddenly it all felt manageable.

Then Friday the sub caller left a message. She had "news".

The permanent teacher would start the following Thursday (that's today), so I was just about done.

Whew.

These assignments are hard. I avoid them, generally. But when I find myself in this situation, I like to stick it out so that the kiddos don't get too much of a disruption. (There've been classes that have as many as three different subs before getting a full time teacher. Needless to say, by the time the full time teacher starts, it's bedlam.)

It'll be nice to get back to my usual day-to-day subbing. But I've got a few more days before that happens. But the end is in sight. I've found the floor. And I'm up to date on my blog reading.

It's nice to feel like myself again.