I volunteered for two hours at Normal Community High School's registration on Monday morning.
Entering the gymnasium which was awash with orange and black booster apparel, I was initially stationed where parking passes were being collected. Someone ran off to get me a comfy chair, but before they could even do that it was discovered that no adults were available to help with the pickup of textbooks.
Thus I became the lone adult working with a dozen Student Council teenagers in a very slick system. My job was to draw their printed schedule out from a gigantic alphabetized stack and hand it to a teammate who sprinted off into the eye-high piles to gather the books and deliver them to the pick-up station.
The sophomore named Erin sitting next to me was recovering from a leg injury. I haven't been around teens much, so I analyzed my role as best I could in this team situation and came up with the following strategy:
1. Whenever Erin and I were alone, ask questions in a casual and friendly tone about things that had everything to do with her and nothing to do with me.
2. Whenever we were busy, say "please" and "thank you" a lot to my half-aged teammates as humbly as possible, as if they were sparing my life.
3. Otherwise, smile, listen, and shut up!
Situation 3 was the dominant one, as Erin was clearly a popular person. It was an experience to be a fly on the wall. In the end, I think my redeeming value was that I kept the schedule piles straight after people shuffled through to peek at their own schedules.
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