My Little Reminder

Well, folks, I don’t think the post that I mentioned previously will ever be up to the standard that I want it to be. At the same time, it feels wrong not to write about it. What happened a couple weeks ago is exactly what I was told at one of my interviews for the organization: No matter how bad your week may be, no matter how tired you are or if the work day feels incredibly long, wait until the youth come in to work; you’ll quickly be reminded why you’re there in the first place.

Our communications intern became my first little reminder. I had spent the previous day working on database entry (after a certain amount of time, this becomes excruciatingly mind-numbing), and that night—Valentine’s Day, no less—I went home with more database entry to do. I was feeling a little bummed because P and I had to spend our first Valentine’s Day a part. Even though I’m not a huge fan of the holiday, I still wanted to be with my boyfriend. So after hours of a single mind-numbing, tedious task, and an evening spent only being able to chat with my Valentine, work did not seem so appealing the next day. I also knew that I had to give a presentation with our communications intern for the United Way that day. I should also mention that the day before I was asked to speak at the presentation because our development director had another event to attend. Last minute public presentation, neat.

I’m not a terrible public speaker, but I also don’t enjoy it all that much. This presentation wasn’t going to be for a large audience, but I still had to figure out talking points and try to go over everything in my head at least a couple times. Earlier in the week, as well as the previous week, the development director and I made sure our intern (have I mentioned he just turned 14) practiced his part of the presentation in front of us a couple times, we told him the importance of talking points and practicing his speech. The day of the presentation was particularly hectic and I barely had time to jot down thoughts and ideas, or anything that came close to an approach to this speech. When I picked up T from school that day, he was nervous and prepared, I was nervous and feeling fairly unprepared.

I really shouldn’t have worried. T stole the show. Our audience (a construction firm that chooses to donate to the United Way, and because we are supported by the United Way, we help with presentations to such companies) was attentive when the UW representative and I spoke, but when T spoke, the audience laughed and asked him questions, and in the end, asked if they could place a rather sizable order with our t-shirt company. As I gave T a ride back to his house, I told him that everyone thought he did a great job. With a huge smile and a tone that exuded sheer satisfaction, no arrogance and no attempts to be nonchalant, T said “Yeah, I was pretty good.”

The look on his face and those five little words made my entire week. Yeah, T, you were great. Way to go, kid.