Bad News, Good News

On the very same day, near the end of April 2008, I encountered an extraordinary duality of experiences.  I had a moment very low (bad news), followed almost immediately by a moment very high (good news).  Wow!  What an unforgettable day!

I was living alone at the Pinegate Apartments in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  I had come there the year before singing the old Frank Sinatra tune, "if I can make it there (New York), I can make it anywhere (including Chapel Hill)."  How naive?  I was getting nowhere with my dream of working either at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or nearby Duke University.  

Instead I had part-time jobs at Kohl's Department Store (Where You Can Expect Great Things) and with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.  Regarding the latter, I was a substitute teacher.  Or I should say, a substitute baby sitter.  

I remember when I was a student growing up in Oswego, New York how my classmates and I reacted when a substitute teacher showed up.  Not good!

Most of the time when I received an assignment to be a substitute, the regular teacher left instructions which amounted to "busy work."  It was some meaningless thing for the students to do to keep them from making trouble.  The children in the early grades were very obedient.  The high schoolers ignored me and quietly did what ever.  The real problems were with the students in between.

The week before the day I had a difficult experience.  The middle school students in my care were given an assignment by their absent teacher (through me) to sit at their desks, read a text quietly and answer written questions based on the reading.  I walked around the classroom trying to make sure they were all following the directions.  

Suddenly, I turned around and saw, what appeared to me, one female student standing above another with her arms around the second child in a menacing grip.  I previously observed the two arguing.  In a protective mode, I shouted at the one standing to immediately return to her seat, which she did.  A few minutes later, she ran from the classroom.  

At the end of the period, when the rest of the students left, a school administrator came and asked me what happened.  Of course, the girl told a different story.  I was accused of manhandling the child, throwing her into her seat.  She claimed she was only giving a friend a hug, which it didn't look like to me.

The next day, I was summoned to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools administrative offices to give an official statement.  They told me that after a final decision was made I was welcome to return and discuss the matter further, which was a lie.  When I returned, they wouldn't talk to me.  They hid from me.

I should have expected I would be fired.  The girl probably told her parents her version who would then have wanted me to be removed immediately, if not sooner.  What would I have done if my daughter Rachel had told me she had been pushed by a substitute teacher?

But when I opened my mail box at Pinegate that day and received the official notice of my dismissal, I was forlorn (bad news).  I returned to my apartment in a somber mood.

However, very soon I received a phone call from Nancy Edwards, Secretary for the Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She asked if I was still interested in the position in OSR I had applied for six months previously.  Sure I said.  She then set up a time that afternoon for a phone interview (good news) with Kevin Maynor (Director, Cost Analysis and Compliance), who was looking at candidates.  

My somberness was replaced by joy.  I felt a sense of confidence that this was the break I had been looking for since I moved to North Carolina the previous year.  

I was right.  The phone interview led to an in person interview with my future boss/friend Kevin the very next day.  That led to a job offer a couple of days later, which I gladly accepted.  The substitute teaching job was forgotten.  Almost!