Figment of My Imagination

Ah, the life of a lowly staff assistant.  Today, I started to wonder if I'm really a figment of my own imagination.  Increasingly, I feel invisible.  People seem to look right through me.  I've spent almost an entire school year at my job and only a few people actually know my name.    I greet them warmly and try and learn their names.  I even make sure to say hi to the janitor.  This is a person I prefer to have in my corner.  You never know when such a connection may prove valuable.   Unfortunately, learning the names of their employees, seeing them and greeting them isn't a skill that comes easily to those on the top of the local food chain.

They do have a lot on their plate.  Between students, parents and staff they are pulled in a lot of different directions.  Working with a class of employee that is invisible may be a coping strategy.  How can they know that I'm not that different from them?   It's easier to make hard decisions that affect employment, housing, food on our table when you don't see the people you're impacting.

A gaggle of English teachers hold private court.  They look at my entrance into the room as an intrusion.   They can't know that I have as many or more credit hours in English as they do.  Their circle isn't as elite as they seem to think. Their education is not a protection against poverty.  Circumstances, fate, bad luck, bad choices aren't magically kept at bay.  Education isn't the garlic against the vampires of life.  Wait! Those are figments of my imagination as well.

Today, I wanted to find out what hours we will be paid for on two upcoming late-start days.  We've been told that on the last two days of school we will be paid for 2 of the 3 hours the students will be there.  We are to  adjust our schedules accordingly.  Since other staff don't know what is expected of the two late start days, I had the audacity to ask.

Me:  "J.  Do you know what hours we're expected to work on the late start days next week?"
J: (If looks could kill, I'd be dead.) "Is your student here then?  If so, then you'll be here."\\
She turned her back to me.  I should have walked away.
Me:  "I'm sorry but I don't really understand."
J: (With another deadly look.) "Doesn't your student need you?"
Me:  "He doesn't require constant supervision and he is capable of taking a test on his own."
J." Well, I don't know then.  I think you're supposed to be here."
I was starting to feel a hole burning through my solar plexus.  The invisible death rays from her eyeballs were beginning to take a toll.  I didn't have an answer and now I was beginning to have a hole in my psyche. I felt small and very insignificant.

I never got a chance to express my real question, "How many hours can I count on being paid for on those   days?"   I was embarrassed to ask it that directly.  I didn't want to betray how desperate things are.  I didn't want to have be concerned with a pay for an hour or two.  I didn't want it to equal how much gas I can buy and how many miles it will take me.   I'm not trying to be a slacker but I don't want to work for free especially when I'm already invisible.  It doesn't give me anything to deposit in the invisible bank.  Wait, I'm not invisible.  I really don't exist.
  
When the classified staff kept finding the staff lounge used for other activities, it was suggested that I contact the person responsible for scheduling and let him know that it was affecting staff members.    I've never gotten a response.  I expected as much but I'm still disappointed.  Maybe I really don't exist?  Maybe my body is trapped in a coma prison or maybe I seem brain dead and my mind has created this life for me to keep me occupied while people argue over whether or not to pull the plug?

At lunch today, I sat with a woman my age.  Her face is lined with exhaustion and resignation.  She works closely with a child that is very limited.  Day after day, she cares for this child.  The teacher she has worked with all year does not believe in addressing her by her name.  She is reduced to the word: staff or aide.  I smiled and told her, "How do you like being called the "n" word?"  We laughed only slightly.  This hits too close to home. Being invisible or not existing is preferable to this.

 Kindness costs so little but could yield so much.   Even if you don't feel it, act kind any way.  Life will become a lot easier.  Smile.  Notice the garbage man, the senior citizen greeting you at Wal-mart or wiping trays in some fast food joint dressed in a ridiculous uniform.  You never know if some day you'll disappear and a simple act of acknowledgment or kindness will bring you back to life.