Abstract:

For Laura Reasoner Jones, the job she doesn't like is making gingerbread playdough around the holidays--one of her pre-schoolers' favorite activities. But she reminds herself that it "just might be the catalyst for some really good times for
my families."

Jones, L.R. (2004). Jobs we plain don't like. Teacher leaders Network diaries. Retrieved from the Teacher Leaders Network 11 Apr 2008. Link: http://www.teacherleaders.org/old_site/diaries04_05/LJ19_04_05.html 

Full Text:

Jobs We Plain Don't Like

You know, I really do love my job. It is a wonderful job, fulfilling and challenging, fun and interesting. But there is one week every year that I have come to resent, and that is the week in December when I have to make the gingerbread play dough.

I always do this in December as part of the run-up to the winter holidays. It is a great time to decorate cookies, roll out dough and play Candy Land, a very cozy set of activities. But it is not the interminable playing of the endless Candy Land that I detest or resent; it is the play dough, pure and simple.

You might say, "Well, why do it then?" A simple answer—the kids absolutely love it. During this week, we read the traditional story "The Gingerbread Man", decorate and eat gingerbread families, (Miss Laura always has equal numbers of girl and boy cookie cutters), and use my homemade gingerbread play dough to roll and cut out figures. We play Candy Land, as much as I can stand. We put our articulation or vocabulary words on little cut-out paper gingerbread figures and hide them for practice. It really is fun.

But the weekend before this event, I always find myself in a foul mood. I know I have to find the recipe, spend a great deal of non-reimbursed money at the grocery store for supplies, and then cook and package the stuff for use beginning with my Monday morning home visits. So, this year I decided to examine why I hate this so much, so that maybe next year I can find a way to not be so resentful.

This Saturday morning I am already ticked off about how much it costs to buy the pumpkin pie spice called for in the recipe. $3.99 for a little jar! I decide to cut back and use old cinnamon instead. There, now maybe I can do this. Then, I begin to measure and cook. Ah yes, this is where the resentment really starts. I always want to ask my husband to buy me an apron that says "For this I got my master's degree and my National Board Certification?"

My arms are drooping from the constant stirring and from kneading the hot dough. And here is the second part of the resentment: I hate what this does to my hands. I bag up the six individual bags, half of what I will need this week, and see the skin already start to dry on my palms. I have to remember to put hand lotion in my car so I can put it on after every visit or I will be bleeding by Friday. Oh, yes, and then I remember that I can't wear my wedding rings all week because I might forget to put them back on after I play with the dough in a child's house. I get more and more annoyed.

I start to wash the pans to prepare the second batch and think, "What is in here that hurts my hands so much?" And then I notice that my 50-year-old Revere Ware pans have never looked better—there is something in that cream of tartar that is making the copper shine like it is new! Man, no wonder the skin on my hands starts to peel off!

I know that everyone has something about their jobs that they just plain don't like. For my younger daughter in her first job, it was the fact that she had to clean the floors of the bakery where she worked after school and on weekends. She just couldn't get past that piece of the job, and tried to be scheduled to work so that she would never have to close up at the end of the day. My older daughter dreads talking with certain customer service people in her medical sales job—she will deliberately avoid certain times of the day so she can talk with her preferred people. My husband speaks carefully about certain corporate duties, but I can read between the lines. There is always something.

Maybe this week, this year, I will try to find some pleasure in gingerbread play dough. After all, one of the reasons I make 12 individual bags is so that I can leave the play dough with the families, in my never-ending quest to try to get the parents to play with their kids. (Of course, the other reason is sanitation!) Maybe I can try to remember that the gingerbread play dough just might be the catalyst for some really good times for my families. Maybe this will be the week that they will all sit down together and do something fun together.

Maybe I can try to stop being so conceited about my education and remember that my job is to help students and families. It won't kill me to have dry, cracked hands for a few weeks. And I can be thankful that my own family can afford to buy the supplies—most of my students' families couldn't afford that pumpkin pie spice out of their food budgets.

And maybe I need to be thankful that once again, as they do every week of every year, my little preschoolers will be waiting at the window or the door as I pull up to their houses or apartments. They will run to their moms or babysitters and say "Miss Laura is here!" and jump around while I pull things out of my bags. They are truly glad to see me, and I am truly glad to see them. And maybe I will say, as I say every week, "We have a lot of cool things to do today," and I will mean it.

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