There is nothing worse in the arts world than a one-man show.
Alan Alda IS Winston Churchill. $68. One night only at the Glenview Community Theater.
See Pauly Shore BECOME Gandhi at the Ravenswood Covenant Church on 9/11.
Nothing. worse.
Don’t worry. This won’t turn into a daily retirement blog. But that has been the most recent issue in my life, so that’s what you get for another few days. This weekend I’m going to Wisconsin to hang with friends. It’ll be bars, bags, guns, and fun. Then I’ll turn this into a “bad decision” blog. Anyway…
Yesterday, a friend asked how it is going. All in all – and granted, it’s been four days – it is going well. In large part, simply because of a change of mind. Permanent vacation vibes.
Retirement is easier when you actually believe you’re retired.
For the past several months, I was stuck in this weird limbo where I didn’t know where I’d be working, how long I’d be there, or whether somebody from CPS would suddenly decide I should report to a school 47 miles away because a guidance counselor’s cousin heard I once taught government.
Now I know exactly where I’m reporting every morning:
Nowhere.
And I have to admit, the commute is fantastic. I do not miss driving in Chicago traffic. At all. There hasn’t been a single moment when I’ve been sitting at home drinking coffee and thought, You know what would make this better? The Kennedy.
I also don’t miss having to be at work at 8:00, which, for me, meant being there by 7:30 because, apparently, I spent my entire working life afraid someone might catch me arriving on time.
On a morning like today, I’d already be leaving the house. Instead, I can drink another cup of coffee. Read the paper. Read the Bible. Eat breakfast. Exercise. Put something away as part of my ongoing Swedish Death Cleaning project. Look at the clock.
9:17.
Well, shit. Now what?
That is the one downside I’ve discovered. Retirement mornings are delightful. Retirement afternoons are…long.
In the morning, I get my exercise done. I read. I do whatever little tasks I’ve assigned myself to maintain the illusion that I’m a productive member of society. Then sometime around 1:30, I realize I’ve completed everything on my agenda.
I can read some more.
I can watch a movie.
I can take a nap.
I can stare at the dog until she becomes uncomfortable.
Normally, I’d go kayaking, take the dog somewhere, ride my bike, or just get outside. Unfortunately, Chicago has decided to celebrate my retirement by being approximately the temperature of Mercury’s surface. It’s been in the mid-90s, so I’m not taking the dog to the park unless I want to return home carrying her in an oven mitt.
But something else has happened that I didn’t expect.
I’ve slowed down. Literally.
When I walk to the gym to swim, I just…walk. This is new for me.
Normally, walking is simply an inefficient way to get from one thing I’m supposed to be doing to another. I walk quickly because I need to get to the gym, swim, shower, get dressed, get home, and move on to whatever comes next.
Now I amble.
I walk to the gym. I swim. I take my time getting dressed. Then I amble home. I’ve even started running farther from my house, knowing I’ll have a longer walk home afterward.
Because why not? There is nothing waiting for me. For someone who has spent most of his life rushing from one thing to another, this is surprisingly pleasant.
The other adjustment is that I’m alone a lot during the day. Yesterday after swimming, I stopped at Starbucks and sat there reading for a while. Yes, I wanted coffee. Yes, I wanted to read. But mostly I wanted to be among the humans.
I didn’t need anyone to talk to me. I just wanted confirmation that civilization was continuing while I was at home reorganizing a drawer. So I need to work on that part.
My original plan was to substitute teach a couple of days a week, which seemed perfect. I’d get out of the house, make a few bucks, interact with people, and then leave before anyone could ask me to join a committee.
Unfortunately, I quit a little too late for that. The private schools have their substitute rosters filled, and CPS apparently isn’t even hiring substitutes. (but I really didn’t want to work for CPS again anyway)
So, ironically, after spending the last few months desperately trying to escape teaching, I am now unable to teach.
Life comes at you fast.
I’ve started looking for other things. Next week I’m volunteering at a senior center where I’ll help play Bingo. I’ve volunteered there before, but back then anything in the evening came with a calculation: How tired will I be after work? How late will I get home? Is this worth giving up my precious free time?
Now? Sure. Bingo. Let’s get crazy.
I also signed up for two board-game nights at local bars. I like board games. I like bars. The only downside is going without a wingman, which isn’t exactly my favorite thing. But maybe I’ll meet some people who also enjoy board games, have a beer, and spend an evening arguing with strangers about whether I am legally allowed to place a settlement there.
Four days ago I was a high school teacher.
Next week I’m playing Bingo at a senior center and searching the Internet for other retired people. This transition is moving quickly.
There are also trips coming up. I’ll spend time at Webster, Wisconsin this weekend. October in Boston, November/December in Ohio, January in Utah, February in California, March in Banff.
Once winter arrives, I can ski during the week. And one of the nicest things about all of those things is knowing there isn’t work waiting for me afterward.
No Sunday dread. No wondering what fresh organizational insanity awaits Monday morning. No commute. No 7:30 arrival. And no feral fourth period.
That last one is important.
Whenever I start thinking, Maybe I should have kept working, I remind myself that every year there was at least one class that made me question every decision I’d made since birth.
Even at my old school, where I generally enjoyed teaching, there was always that class. You teachers know the one. The class where the bell rings and you briefly wonder if you could make a living selling plasma.
This year, my feral class was a double period.
A DOUBLE PERIOD.
So if I find myself bored at 2:15 one afternoon, sitting comfortably in my air-conditioned house wondering what to do with myself, I can always close my eyes and remember what 2:15 used to feel like.
Suddenly boredom seems pretty damn good.
I don’t know what this version of retirement will ultimately look like. I don’t even know if it is retirement. I may find another job. I may teach a college class. I may volunteer more. I may buy a little business. I may become the most feared 60-year-old board-game player on the North Side.
Or maybe I’ll just learn to be a person who doesn’t need every hour of every day filled.
That might actually be the biggest adjustment.
For most of my life, I’ve had somewhere I needed to be and something I needed to do. Now, for the first time in a very long time, I can walk slowly.
So far, I kind of like it.
And that’s the mindset shift. I’m living for me each day. Not in a selfish way. I do chores at home, make my wife dinner, etc, but I’m not on anyone else’s schedule or demands. Like I said, vacation vibes. And knowing it’s not just a week or two but could be for the rest of my life actually makes it easier. My life has slowed down to a speed I’m enjoying. I don’t rush. I don’t stress. I don’t worry.
For one, since I was a toddler, I’ve just been living each moment and enjoying that.
As the man said, “Enjoy every sandwich”
This song popped up on my random “liked songs” playlist. I hadn’t heard it in a bit, but I instantly remembered why I saved it to begin with.
Last night I resigned.
I’m done. I threw in the towel. And, strangely enough, it feels pretty good.
The funny thing is, I actually liked my job. Not necessarily this job, in its current bizarre incarnation, but the actual job I signed up to do. I liked teaching. I liked working with kids. I liked creating lessons. I liked those moments when a student suddenly understood something, or got interested in something, or just stopped staring at me like I was an obstacle standing between them and lunch. There was a reason I chose teaching as a second career.
Unfortunately, at some point the job I liked became a smaller and smaller part of the job I actually had. What remained was the dysfunction.
The uncertainty over where I would be working. The uncertainty over how long I would be working there. The possibility of being moved every month or two. And finally, the announcement that I was being sent to some bizarre assignment almost as far from my house as one can travel while still technically remaining in Chicago.
Three hours a day in the car. For what? Nobody could really explain.
That, of course, was almost beside the point. The way it was handled was simply another example of how seemingly everything is handled.
Eventually I realized I was in an abusive relationship. Sure, there were some good times. And the paychecks were nice. Really nice, actually. Let’s not pretend I won’t miss those. But eventually you have to stop saying, “Maybe they’ll change.” They’re not going to change.
So I packed my metaphorical suitcase and left CPS.
I don’t know what’s next. That sentence is as scary as it once might’ve been in my life.
With the exception of a few years when I was transitioning careers and staying home with my kids, I’ve worked since middle school. Since then, I’ve almost always known what came next. School led to a job. A job led to law school. Law school led to being a lawyer. Eventually, law led to teaching.
There was always a next thing.
This time there isn’t.
I can’t really say I’m retired. But I also can’t really say I’m not retired.
Maybe I’m retired for a month. Maybe six months. Maybe forever.
Maybe there’s a third career out there waiting for me.
But keeping with my relationship metaphor, I’m never going to meet the right one if I insist on staying with the bad one.
So, for once in my life, I’m going to see what happens.
I have some ideas. I’d like to volunteer. I’d like to get involved helping adaptive athletes. I’d like to find some game nights and meet some new people. Maybe one of those things will turn into a job. Maybe something completely unexpected will turn into a job. Maybe nothing will. That’s okay too.
Because I already have plenty to do.
For starters, my travel calendar somehow looks considerably busier than that of someone who supposedly has nowhere to be.
Labor Day in Wisconsin. Boston in October. Ohio and South Carolina in November. Ohio again in December. Skiing in Utah in January. A West Coast hockey trip in February- three games, three arenas. Skiing in Banff in March.
And that’s just what I’ve booked so far. Apparently unemployment requires a surprising amount of travel.
When I’m home, I’ll practice guitar. I’ll strength train. I’ll train for triathlons. I’ll read. I’ll cook. I’ll volunteer. I’ll kayak while it’s warm and ski when it’s snowy. And maybe, occasionally, I’ll do absolutely nothing.
I’m going to have to practice that one.
Mostly, though, I’m going to enjoy my life. That’s it. That’s the goal.
Not necessarily for the rest of my life. I’m not making any grand declarations about what I will or won’t do six months from now. For the next few days, weeks, months – or maybe years – I’m just going to enjoy myself and see what unfolds.
I’m letting go of the idea that I need to fight everything. For roughly 30 years, my professional life has been divided between two systems that desperately need people willing to fight to make them better: criminal justice and public education.
I fought. Sometimes I even won. I helped some people. I hope I made things a little better for a few of them. I know there are students I helped. I know there are clients I helped. There are probably some people I helped without ever knowing it. And there are plenty of battles I lost.
For years I’ve felt a little like Sisyphus, pushing that damn rock up the hill, watching it roll back down, muttering a few obscenities, and then getting behind it again.
Well, somebody else can grab the rock. I’ve done my shift. That doesn’t mean I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t mean the problems aren’t important. It just means I’ve finally accepted that I don’t have to fix them myself.
Someone else can fight that fight.
I can walk away with my head held high.
I showed up.
I cared.
I tried.
For 30 years, I pushed.
That’s enough. So I’m throwing in the towel. I’m putting down the rock. I’m walking away from the fight.
And for however much time I have left – whether that’s 30 years or considerably less – I’m going to try something radically different.
I’m going to enjoy it.
I’m about 75% sure I’m going to quit my job this week. That sounds dramatic, so let me explain.
I was laid off this summer. But because I have tenure, being laid off doesn’t necessarily mean being unemployed. Instead, I became a “reassigned teacher,” which is one of those wonderfully bureaucratic phrases that means, “We don’t really have a job for you, but congratulations, you still work here.”
Honestly, my first reassignment wasn’t terrible. I wasn’t exactly living my educational dream, but I was getting paid, the commute was manageable, and nobody had set me on fire. At this stage of my career, I have learned to recognize a win.
Then today I got re-reassigned. I’m not sure “re-reassigned” is an actual word, but I’m pretty sure it is an actual CPS employment status.
My new school is approximately as far from my house as you can get while remaining within the city limits of Chicago. Any farther and I believe I would need to obtain an Indiana teaching license. Depending on traffic, I’d be looking at something close to a three-hour round-trip commute.
Three hours.
I could fly to Nashville faster than I could get home from work. So I requested another assignment. Maybe they’ll change it. Maybe they won’t.
But somewhere between looking at Google Maps and contemplating spending 15 hours a week sitting in Chicago traffic, I realized something:
I don’t think I care. Not in the bad way. In the good way. I think I might just be done.
When I was in college, there was a wonderful used bookstore on campus. One day I stumbled across a book of sayings by Hugh Prather. It was very 1970s, very philosophical, very “perhaps we should all sit beneath a tree and reconsider our relationship with the universe.” I loved it.
There was one thought that has stuck with me for decades. I don’t remember the exact wording anymore, but the idea was that there is another way to go through life besides kicking and screaming. I remember thinking that was brilliant.
Then I apparently spent the next 40 years kicking and screaming.
Excellent implementation, Ross.
But maybe I’m finally ready to try the other way. Because I’m tired.
I’m tired of CPS.
I’m tired of bureaucracy.
I’m tired of caring deeply about things while sitting in rooms where it sometimes feels like caring is an eccentric hobby.
I’m tired of pushing the rock up the hill.
Camus famously imagined Sisyphus happy. Good for Sisyphus. I imagine my Sisyphus checking his pension, dropping the rock, and saying, “You know what? Somebody else can push this thing for a while.” And then going home for lunch.
Maybe that’s where I am.
I’ve worked since I was in seventh grade. I’ve had jobs almost continuously for more than four decades. I’ve been in the Army Reserve. I’ve been a lawyer. I’ve been a prosecutor. I’ve been a teacher. I’ve had deadlines, bosses, clients, students, court calls, meetings, lesson plans, alarm clocks, commutes and people asking me to do things that could absolutely have been handled in an email.
Maybe I’ve done enough for a minute. Maybe I don’t immediately need another career. Maybe I don’t need a five-year plan. Maybe I can just stop.
I can wake up and decide what I want to do that day.
I can exercise.
I can read.
I can learn something completely useless.
I can practice an instrument.
I can cook dinner.
I can do things around the house that have been sitting on my list since approximately the Clinton administration.
I can volunteer at a food pantry.
I can help people who actually want my help.
I can explore hobbies.
I can write.
I can travel.
I can sit outside on a Tuesday afternoon and commit the radical act of not being anywhere else.
And maybe after six months I’ll be bored out of my mind and desperately searching Indeed for something to do.
That’s possible.
I know myself. There is a nonzero chance that by November I will have taken up woodworking, started a small business, joined three nonprofit boards and somehow become treasurer of a neighborhood organization I didn’t know existed.
But maybe not.
Maybe I can learn how to simply live for a while. That idea feels strangely uncomfortable. Which is probably a sign that I need it.
So, yes, I’m 75% sure I’m quitting this week.
Maybe CPS will give me a better assignment. Maybe they won’t. Strangely, that doesn’t seem like the important question anymore.
The important question is whether I really want to keep pushing the rock.
For the first time in a very long time, I think I’m willing to consider putting it down.
Hugh Prather was right. There is another way to go through life besides kicking and screaming. It only took me about 40 years to consider trying it.
I am a big fan of AI. I use it all the time.At work, it has helped me create unit plans and lesson plans. I’ve used it to research vacations, compare hotels, figure out things to do, and answer the endless random questions that pop into my head. And, to be completely honest, I’ve also used it as someone to talk to when I’ve exhausted my wife and friends on a topic that I can’t stop ruminating about.
There are only so many times you can say, “But here’s the thing I’m worried about…” before another human being starts looking for an exit. ChatGPT, on the other hand, never says, “Yes, Ross. You already told me that six times.”
Recently, though, I discovered an AI feature I didn’t even know existed.
As a side project, I’ve been looking into buying a small business. My ideal would be something like a coffee shop or hot dog stand. Nothing huge. I have no desire to become the next Ray Kroc. I just think it might be fun to own something small, run it for a few years, and see what happens. Originally, part of the idea was that eventually one of my kids could take it over.
My kids have responded to this plan with roughly the same enthusiasm they would have if I suggested we open a family asbestos-removal company.
So apparently this would be my business. Still, I keep looking.
There was even a great little sushi place for sale in Park City that intrigued me. Unfortunately, despite my ongoing campaign to convince my family that we should all abandon Chicago and live happily ever after in Utah, nobody else seems interested in moving there full time.
Sushi empire: postponed.
One day I was asking ChatGPT about a business listing. As we talked, it started asking questions: What kind of business was I looking for? How much did I want to invest? What locations would I consider? How involved did I want to be? Eventually, it asked if I wanted it to automatically search for businesses that met my criteria.
Wait. What?
I didn’t even know it could do that. So I set it up.
Now ChatGPT searches for businesses for sale that might fit what I’m looking for and sends me the results. As I’ve looked at listings and discussed the pros and cons with it, I’ve been able to refine the search further.
Too expensive. No.
Franchise pretending to be a business for sale. No.
Owner wants $400,000 but somehow can’t provide financial statements. That’s going to be a no.
Small neighborhood coffee shop with actual revenue and profit numbers?
Now you have my attention.
Once I realized how useful this was, I set up another automated search for high school social studies teaching jobs in Chicago. Same idea. Instead of checking a bunch of websites every day, I get a report showing me what it found.
The next experiment will be airfare. I have a trip planned for March, and I’m going to have it keep checking fares and see how good it is at spotting a deal. Maybe it saves me $300. Maybe it doesn’t. That’s part of the experiment.
Anway, just thought I’d pass it along if you didn’t know you could automate ChatGPT for things like that.
For years and years, I judged my father for a decision he made. He had an opportunity to take a risk that, in hindsight, probably would have paid off. Instead, he took the safe road. I thought this was ridiculous.
I would never do that.
I wasn’t going to be like my father. I would take the chance. Bet on myself. Go for it. Fortune favors the bold and all that inspirational-poster bullshit.
Now I’m 60, I’ve raised three children, I’ve had mortgages and tuition payments and careers and layoffs and all the other fun things adulthood throws at you, and I’ve reached an unfortunate conclusion:
I would have done exactly what my father did. I’d like to say I wouldn’t. But I would.
Because apparently my father wasn’t a coward. He was a guy with a family who understood that “betting on yourself” sounds a lot more exciting when other people aren’t depending on the outcome.
This is one of the annoying things about getting older. Your parents keep being proven right even after they’re dead.
My father died about five and a half years ago. My mother had died suddenly about a year before him. I’m not particularly proud of this, but at the time I didn’t think about either death nearly as much as I would have expected. Obviously I was sad. But there wasn’t some movie version of grief where I wandered through the house clutching an old photograph while sad piano music played. Life mostly kept moving.
After my mother died, I ended up taking care of my father, who had been ill for a bit. I actually think I did a pretty good job.
I paid his bills and handled the things that needed handling, but I also tried not to turn our relationship into one long elder-care administrative meeting. We had brunch every Sunday, long after he lost the ability to hold a conversation. And we kept having those brunches every Sunday until he died.
At the time, I thought that was mostly something I was doing for him. Now I’m not so sure.
Because strangely, I’ve missed my parents much more as the years have passed.
Not in an Oh my God, they’re dead, I’m next! way. Although at 60, I do occasionally encounter an obituary of a 62-year-old and think, “Well, that seems unnecessarily close.”
It’s something different.
My children grew up. Or, more accurately, they became semi-adults and then actual adults, although I’m still waiting for someone to provide me with the official certification process.
And parenting adult children turns out to be weird.
When they’re little, the problems are relatively straightforward.
Kid is hungry? Feed kid.
Kid is bleeding? Apply Band-Aid.
Kid is being an asshole? Time-out.
Adult children don’t work that way.
You can’t put a 24-year-old in time-out. I’ve checked.
Instead, they have jobs and relationships and disappointments and anxieties and opinions about how you raised them.
Especially that last one.
And somewhere along the way, I started wishing my parents were still around. Not because I needed them to fix anything.
I just wanted to ask:
Was I like this?
Did you worry about me this much?
Did I blame you for everything that was wrong with my life?
Did you ever hang up the phone with me and think, “Jesus Christ, what did we do wrong?”
Mostly, though, I think I want one of them to tell me I’m doing okay. That’s the part I wasn’t prepared for. When my parents were alive, I was still someone’s child.
No matter how old I got, there were two people in the world who remembered me before I had accomplished anything.
Before I was a lawyer.
Before I was a teacher.
Before I was a husband.
Before I was a father.
Before I had any idea what I was doing.
Which, to be fair, remains largely the situation.
Someone was above me on the organizational chart. Now they’re gone. And I’m management. This seems like a serious oversight.
My mother actually did tell me she thought I was doing a good job raising our kids.
My father? Not so much. He wasn’t exactly Tony Robbins.
Still, I find myself wishing he were here so I could ask him what he thought.
I’m probably romanticizing the conversation. In my imagination, he’d put his hand on my shoulder and say:
“You’re a good father. Your kids will figure it out. I’m proud of you.”
In reality, he’d probably say…well, nothing because his generation didn’t hold on to kids that way. Then we’d order brunch.
There’s another reason I’ve been thinking about him.
One of my sons once told me he didn’t want to be like me.
That hurt. A lot. Probably more than he knows.
And then I realized something. I once felt exactly the same way about my father. I wasn’t going to be like him.
Except now, decades later, I understand him.
Maybe that’s one of the great jokes of parenthood. You spend 20 years raising children who eventually explain all the ways you screwed them up. Then you have to wait another 20 years to see if they revise the report.
And here’s the other strange part:
I don’t want my son to be like me. I want him to be better at being himself. I don’t want him spending his life looking around for approval—from me, from his mother, from a boss, from a girlfriend, from anybody.
I want him to wake up and think:
This is my life. I like it.
I want him to live with joy. If that means being different from me, fantastic.
I’d just prefer he discover that without making me the villain in his origin story.
But I suppose I don’t get to control that either.
Maybe someday he’ll look back at some decision I made and think:
Oh.
Now I get it.
Just like I did with my father.
Unfortunately, my father isn’t here for me to tell him. That’s probably the part that bothers me most.
I spent years judging a man who was making decisions with responsibilities I didn’t yet understand. By the time I understood them, he was gone.
Maybe that’s why I’m tired.
Tired of worrying about whether my kids are happy.
Tired of wondering whether I did enough.
Tired of wondering whether I did too much.
Tired of wondering whether some insecurity I passed along screwed somebody up.
Tired of occasionally feeling like I’m the asshole in everybody else’s story.
Which brings me to my current retirement plan:
Utah.
Preferably tomorrow.
I would like to move to the mountains, ski, ride my bike, read books, drink coffee, sit outside, have dinner with my wife, see my children when they want to see me, and generally stop conducting a nightly performance review of myself as a human being.
I realize this is an extremely privileged existential crisis.
“My adult children have complicated feelings about me, and I own a house near ski resorts.”
GoFundMe forthcoming.
But maybe getting older is partly about realizing that eventually you have to stop trying to get an A in life.
My parents are gone.
My children are adults.
They get to decide what their lives mean.
They even get to decide what they think of me.
And I get to decide what I do with whatever time I have left.
I hope someday my son understands me a little better. But perhaps I don’t need him to understand me today. After all, it took me about 50 years to understand my father.
And Dad never got to hear me say it.
So I’ll say it now.
I get it, Dad.
Thank you, Dad, for loving me no matter what and no matter how you showed it.
I guess I’ll take job satisfaction where I can get it.
Let’s start with the most obvious positive: I’m getting my full salary.
That’s something.
Of course, that’s also what makes this a job and not a volunteer gig or a hobby, but after the uncertainty of the last few months, getting up, going to work, and receiving my normal paycheck is not something I’m going to complain about.
And there were some genuinely good things about the first day.
The day started with an all-school assembly welcoming the students back and laying out expectations for the year. I loved it. I begged my former school for years to do something like that, and we never did.
It seems so basic. Start the year together. Show a little enthusiasm. Build some community. Ease everybody into Day One.
And, most importantly, tell everybody the rules.
Here is what you can do. Here is what you cannot do. Here is what will happen if you do the things you cannot do.
Novel concept.
Before the assembly, I had already noticed students putting their phones in their lockers. And then something remarkable happened: I didn’t see a kid with a phone all day.
I’m sure there are some burner phones and dummy phones floating around. Kids aren’t stupid. But the school had already confiscated three hoodies that violated the dress code, so I don’t have much doubt they’ll take phones, too. And if they take your phone, a parent has to come to school to get it back.
Good.
My former school wouldn’t let us confiscate phones. It was a shitshow. We were basically asking teenagers to voluntarily ignore the most addictive device ever invented while it sat six inches from their hands.
You can guess how well that worked.
So, overall, I was impressed with how the school started the year. Clear expectations. Clear consequences. Some school spirit. Adults actually acting like adults and running the building.
Another positive came from one of the classes I’m working with. There are only seven students, but it’s an advanced class and every single one of them was awesome. Engaged, interesting, and fun to talk to. I think I’m going to love working with them.
The other classes weren’t anything I haven’t dealt with before. They’re teenagers. I’ve taught teenagers for eight years. Nothing particularly scary or shocking there.
So what’s the problem?
I’m bored.
And I don’t mean “teaching is boring.” I mean I literally don’t have enough work to do.
I had three free periods in a row today. That’s 165 minutes. Then I had a class. Then another free period. Then one final class.
Five free periods in one day.
Normally, a free period is wonderful. You grade. You plan. You answer emails. You make copies. You stare blankly at the wall for seven minutes wondering why you decided teaching was a good second career. At my old school, I had a guitar in my room to play during free periods, or I’d even go for a run.
But I don’t have my own classes, so I don’t have much to plan. I don’t have assignments to grade. I don’t have tomorrow’s lesson to create. I don’t have my own classroom, so I’m not going to bring a guitar.
There are only so many times you can check your email.
It’s not the school’s fault. I’m here because of the reassignment situation, and they’re figuring out how to use me. But I realized today that I really don’t like not working at work.
I’d rather have a full schedule of my own classes. I’d rather be planning lessons, teaching, grading, complaining that I have too much to do, and wondering why I ever wished for a free period.
Instead, I have time.
Lots and lots of time.
Which got me thinking that what I really need is a side hustle I can do online. If somebody is going to give me five free periods a day and a laptop, there has to be something productive I can build during that time.
An online business? Writing? Something involving education or law? Something completely different?
Hmm.
That’s a problem for another day.
For now, I’ll take the win.
I have a job. I’m receiving my full salary. I have some interaction with students. I have co-workers to talk to. I already found one class I’m genuinely excited about. The school seems organized and willing to enforce its rules.
Would I rather have my own classroom and a full teaching schedule?
Absolutely.
But this is where I am right now.
And compared with all the things I imagined might happen when I got laid off, sitting around occasionally wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do with almost 4 hours of free time isn’t exactly a tragedy.
Could be a lot worse.
So, for now, I’ll take my job satisfaction where I can get it.
And maybe figure out a side hustle.
At the end of my college career, I stayed in Madison for another year working. One of the fun things we’d do was go to Madison Muskies games, the Class A minor league affiliate of the Oakland A’s.
For $5.25, you got a ticket, two food items, and a drink.
Even in the late ’80s, I’m pretty sure this was not a sustainable business model.
They played in what was essentially a glorified high school stadium, and our favorite bet was whether there would be more runs or errors in a given inning.
Spoiler alert: errors usually won.
It was not good baseball. I have no idea how many of those players ever made it to Oakland. I’m guessing not many. But it was a great time.
A year later, I spent the summer in El Paso with the Army Reserve. I had a pretty chill 9-to-5 job, so at night I’d often head into town to the Dudley Dome—which, despite the name, was not a dome—to watch the Class AA El Paso Diablos, then an affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers.
I don’t think either the Muskies or the Diablos exist anymore. Too bad.
The Diablos were a step up. Bigger stadium. Better baseball. And, most importantly, 10-cent hot dog nights.
I remember sitting at one of those games when the older couple behind me insisted that I put some of their homemade salsa on my 10-cent hot dogs. I did. It was fantastic.
Think about that for a minute: baseball, cheap tickets, 10-cent hot dogs covered in a stranger’s homemade salsa, and a couple of people I’d never met treating me like we’d been going to games together for years.
What’s not to love?
That’s another thing I’ve always liked about minor league baseball. The fans just seem friendlier. There’s less intensity. Nobody’s acting like the fate of Western civilization depends on whether the home team wins. You’re there to watch some baseball, eat something unhealthy, laugh at whatever ridiculous promotion they’re doing between innings, and enjoy a summer night.
Last year, my wife and I went to a Salt Lake Bees game. Now I was getting closer to the big leagues. The Bees were AAA, affiliated with the Angels. Better players, nicer stadium, better baseball.
But still cheap. Still relaxed. Still fan-friendly.
Then today, my wife and I took two of our kids (against their will) to a Chicago Dogs game.
The Dogs are independent baseball, so we’re heading back down the baseball food chain again.
And the play was…uh…not good.
I’ll forgive a lower-level player for bobbling a line drive. These guys are still infinitely better at baseball than I ever was or ever will be.
But three guys watching a ball drop between them?
That’s pretty bad.
It happened twice by the time we left in the sixth inning.
The opposing pitcher also walked four batters in a row. For the non-baseball fan, that means he walked the bases loaded and then walked in a run. Two batters later, he walked in another one.
Ouch.
But you know what?
I loved it.
The ticket was cheap. Actually, mine was free. Parking was free. Bottomless popcorn was $3.50. Bottomless soda was $3.50. We sat outside on a summer afternoon watching baseball and laughing at some truly questionable fielding.
And it reminded me how much I love minor league baseball.
Maybe even more than Major League Baseball.
Don’t get me wrong. I love going to Wrigley Field. There’s nothing quite like a packed major league stadium, especially when the game matters.
But minor league baseball feels different.
Nobody is charging you $18 for a beer. Nobody needs a second mortgage to take the family. The players aren’t superstars. The stadium isn’t a cathedral. Sometimes three professional baseball players stand around and watch a catchable fly ball hit the ground.
Twice.
And somehow that’s part of the charm.
I’ve been going to these games for almost 40 years now – from the Madison Muskies, to the El Paso Diablos, to the Salt Lake Bees, to the Chicago Dogs.
Different cities. Different teams. Different levels of baseball.
Same basic formula.
Cheap tickets. Cheap food. Friendly people. A summer evening or afternoon at the ballpark.
And every once in a while, if you’re lucky, somebody sitting behind you offers you some homemade salsa for your 10-cent hot dog.
I’ll always be a fan.
I have a print hanging on the wall next to my bed that says: (the one in this post)
What if it all works out?
I see it when I wake up in the morning and again when I go to bed at night. It’s basically twice-daily cognitive behavioral therapy via home décor.
Like a lot of people, I have a pretty healthy negativity bias. Give me an uncertain situation, and I can immediately come up with seventeen different ways it might end badly. What I rarely do is ask the equally plausible question:
What if it all works out?
Which is odd, because I have approximately 60 years of evidence suggesting that it usually does.
Not that everything has gone the way I wanted. Of course it hasn’t. Bad things have happened. Plans have fallen apart. I’ve made mistakes. Other people have made mistakes that I then got to enjoy. But I’ve survived all of it. Sometimes I’ve learned something. Sometimes I’ve changed direction. Sometimes I’ve just said, “Well, that sucked,” and moved on.
But somehow, every new uncertainty arrives, and my brain says, This could be the one! This could be the catastrophe we’ve been preparing for!
My latest example: my job.
After weeks of uncertainty following my layoff, late Monday I finally learned where CPS was assigning me. It’s technically a 30-to-60-day assignment unless the principal asks me to stay. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll probably rotate somewhere else every month or two.
When I saw the school, my immediate reaction wasn’t, “What if this is great?”
Of course not.
I thought it was going to be a rough school. I assumed I’d spend every day as a substitute, bouncing from classroom to classroom. I wondered whether I should just quit.
My brain went straight to Worst Case Scenario Theater, where apparently I have season tickets.
My wife suggested that perhaps I should actually go to the school before deciding it was terrible. I believe her exact wording may have been slightly less gentle than that. At the time, I interpreted this as an appalling lack of support.
Unfortunately, as happens far too often for my liking, she was right.
So Tuesday morning I showed up.
And everyone was nice.
I met administrators and teachers. I sat through professional development. People welcomed me. More importantly, I learned they didn’t want me to spend my days randomly substituting. Instead, they assigned me classes to co-teach.
The next day I helped with orientation, met more people, learned my way around the building, and got an even better feel for the place.
And now?
I’m actually excited about being there.
I’m still going to give it the 30 days before making any declarations, but at the moment I can absolutely see myself asking to stay for the year.
Once again:
What if it all works out?
Because it did.
And all that worrying accomplished exactly nothing.
Actually, in some ways this assignment may be better than my old job. I have three classes instead of five. I’m co-teaching, so I don’t have to do all the lesson planning or grading. I have five free periods during the day, which is almost absurd. I’ll probably get bored, but I recognize that “I have too much free time at my full-salary teaching job” is not going to generate much sympathy.
And because I’m technically a short-term reassigned teacher, I’m probably not going to be handed a bunch of long-term projects or extra responsibilities.
Three classes. No grading. No lesson planning. Five free periods.
I may have accidentally stumbled into the greatest teaching job in America.
There is a part of me that still wishes I had a permanent position. I like working. I like feeling productive. I like being part of a team and having something that feels like mine. In fact, I may ask around and see if another teacher wants some help for a period or two. Five free periods might eventually cause me to start wandering the halls asking strangers, “Anybody need anything laminated?”
But that’s a pretty good problem to have.
A few days ago, I was imagining all the ways this assignment could be awful.
Today, I’m thinking it might be pretty great.
That’s why the print stays next to my bed.
I’m apparently a slow learner.
But twice a day, I get the reminder:
What if it all works out?