These episodes were pretty hilarious but also really touching. In episode 10, Janine and the other teachers get ready for open house at Abbott Elementary. Janine thinks it is going to be this big thing, but the other teachers, from experience, know that it’s not going to be as big a deal as Janine wants it to be. Janine prepares the classroom to meet the student’s mom but then she also gets in this situation where she meets Barbara’s daughter, Taylor. Barbara is disappointed in her daughter because she works at an alcohol company and didn’t go into teaching like she did. Janine tries to intervene and deescalate the situation but that just makes Barbara and Taylor’s interaction more intense. Gregory, meanwhile, finds out how Ava got the principal position, which he always wanted but didn’t get, because Ava found the superintendent cheating on his wife. Ava is gleeful that she gets to rub this in the superintendent’s face, but then later the superintendent, after a lot of letting Ava rub her success in his face, informs her that the woman Ava thought he was sleeping with was his wife after all, and that he had just divorced and remarried her. This puts Ava in hot water and she is at risk of losing her job. Meanwhile, Janine waits and waits for the student’s parent to arrive, and after 8:30 a woman finally walks in and apologizes for being late, and Janine goes off on her for being late. The parent tries to explain but Janine doesn’t want to hear her explain, but then the parent takes her jacket off and Janine sees she is wearing an ER nurse uniform and the parent tells her she was doing a surgery on a man with a bullet wound. Janine reflects and then apologizes for reacting the way she did, and the parent forgives her.
The desking episode was hilarious. First I got to meet Jacob’s boyfriend, Zach, and we get to meet him because the teachers are figuring out who is jumping on the desks and Zach, who is an expert in shoes, does research on the footprints of the shoes to see who the potential culprits could be. The students are jumping from desk to desk as part of a social media trend, but it is annoying the hell out of the teachers and the custodian, Mr. Johnson. It gets to the point where Mr. Johnson goes with Gregory on a stakeout in the custodian’s closet to see who is desking. They end up having a good discussion where Mr. Johnson informs Gregory that he has had many jobs before being a custodian at Abbott Elementary. Gregory is disappointed in not getting the principal job because that’s what he wanted to be for a long time, but Mr. Johnson tells him that as a young man himself he went through many different careers instead of settling with one, and that he may even leave his job as a custodian one day and find new work. But his message to Gregory was to basically not put all his eggs in one basket and get so down on himself for not getting the principal position. I really appreciate Mr. Johnson’s perspective because it’s easy to put your eggs in one basket and stake your life on one career position, but when you don’t get the position, it can feel soul-crushing. Mr. Johnson helped Gregory take a more long-term view of a career since he is older than him and has experienced more in the workforce.
It kind of reminded me of when I went to a symphony orchestra performance, and it felt as if I was meeting all these movie stars because I had wanted to be in a professional orchestra and wanted to know how to get in. Up until then I had auditioned for only a few professional orchestras and was feeling dejected for getting rejected from them. But then I got to meet one of the cellists in the orchestra after the performance, and she told me to not put all my eggs in one basket, meaning to not be so hung up on the results of the audition. I’m really glad she said that though, even though at the time she told me that I kind of deflated inside because all I thought of before that was, How can I get into a professional orchestra? And when I didn’t get the results I wanted, I got really discouraged. But looking back, I’m glad I had those jobs in food service and law because I learned about new industries and gained valuable work experience. After a lot of reflection, I had to really think, Am I going to stake my whole life on this career? What does a career even look like to me? Sometimes my ego gets so caught up in this one-dimensional idea of what a career should look like that I block out other possibilities and opportunities that could actually help me grow. I still find myself in the position of basing so much of my self-worth on being a musician even though deep down I probably understand that my self-worth isn’t based on the career I have. But when I was working jobs unrelated to music, I really based so much of my self-worth on having a successful music career so I didn’t think that the jobs I had to support my career could be fulfilling in their own unique way. Over time though as I gained more experience at these jobs, I felt more confident and I ended up creating value at these jobs.
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