Before we left for Kansas I (Leah) was offered a job as a
paraeducator at Manhattan high school. It didn't pay much, but it sounded like something I might actually enjoy - working with special education students one-on-one in the classroom. I knew that once we got settled in in Kansas, I would have to go fill out paperwork, get a TB test and go through training.
Only a couple of days after we had moved into the new house, I received a frantic phone call at 7:00 am from Maggie
Braun at the HS asking where I was, because I was supposed to start work that day. I was totally confused, and explained to her that I hadn't filled out any paperwork or gone through training. Maggie (not so nicely) informed me that I
had to come into work
immediately because I was on the schedule. She said not to worry about signing papers or getting trained.
I was starting to have a bad feeling about this job (and really didn't like being yelled at first thing in the morning.) And I figured that there had to be a good reason why she was so desperate to have someone work for her. Despite my reservations, I started work at the HS the next morning....
I arrived at Maggie's classroom, and walked into total madness. She greeted me by yelling, "Oh, you must be the new para. New para! Go answer my phone! Go answer my phone now!" I answered her phone, and (while talking on the phone to someone else) she said, "oh, you must need a tour of the school. Here, she'll take you on a tour" (as Maggie pushed a girl in front of me.)
The girl that stood in front of me was about a foot shorter than me, and was wearing old, dirty, stained sweats and a T-shirt. It looked like
remnants of the girl's meals from the last two weeks were stuck on various parts of her outfit - mustard on her shoulder, some ketchup smeared on her pants, and what appeared to be grape jelly spread across the front of her shirt, along with a variety of unidentifiable other condiments. She also looked (and smelled) like she hadn't showered in weeks. I assumed that she was a student. But then she shoved her badge in my face that read "
Paraeducator." She said, "I'm a Para. Let's go."
As I followed her through the halls, I realized that this girl did have some mental (and social) disabilities. My tour consisted of her running in front of me, while pointing and yelling "D Hall! A hall! C hall! B hall! A hall!" As we ran through the halls, she would occasionally wave at someone and then tell me that they were also a Para. I soon realized that
all of the Paras appeared to be seriously mentally handicapped. Occasionally, she would point at a room and say something like, "That's the Tribe room." When I asked, "What's the Tribe Room?", she would say, "Duh, it's the
Tribe Room."When we finished the tour, I received my classroom assignments for the rest of the day. So, I went to my first class, and thankfully met an extremely nice and kind teacher. I mentioned that I hadn't been trained yet and she sent me right over to human resources. Human resources told me that I absolutely had to go through orientation before I could start working. If I had worked the entire day, I wouldn't have been paid for my time.
I had had enough. I went back and told Maggie what HR said, and I left. On my first day of work in Kansas, I worked a total 43 minutes before quitting. I'm pretty sure that that is a record.
-Leah
As a side note, Maggie continued to call me at 7:00 in the morning, leaving messages asking where I was, why I wasn't at work, and finally that I needed to write her a letter of resignation.
