working conditions

I work in a great place.

I started in mid-October 2010 and immediately felt at ease with everyone that worked there. My weird sense of humor and sarcasm was right at home with my coworkers', and most days there is a lot of laughing. Really great people. Also sometimes there is cake.

Over the last thirteen months, a handful of people have left or moved, and a lot more people have joined us. They are all also good people, and there's still plenty of laughing. But it's still a little different, less of a small group/family kind of feeling as we expand.

Regardless, I feel very lucky to have this job where I get to hang out with smart, interesting, funny people. I don't make much money at all, but the environment and pace of the work make it almost okay.

In my last two years of teaching at charter schools, I knew that my colleagues were fantastic and interesting people too, but I never got to really see them. We were all penned up in our classrooms for ten to twelve hours a day. A good job--teaching or not--isn't about the money near as much as about how you feel when you're at your job, and how your coworkers get to interact and make you think or laugh. A good set of school supplies is an excellent perk, but it doesn't compare to a commiserative laugh.