Is This a Job?

Have I mentioned that I have a new job? I am now the proud accompanist of the middle school choir classes at the Other Small Town just down the road from Small Town.

However, "job" might not be the precisely correct word to use for what I'm doing two mornings each week.

It has all the trappings of a job--I had to fill out an actual job application, and be interviewed by an actual principal of the school, and I punch a time clock each morning (something I find inexplicably delightful), and I've been told I'll be sent a paycheck (although I haven't been here long enough to experience this).

But it's also unlike any job I've ever had.

For one thing, I have four Saturdays every week. I only work Mondays and Wednesdays, so on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and actual Saturday I wake up thinking "Oh, yay! It's Saturday!"

(That schedule is theoretical. I'm job-sharing with a lovely retired friend, so this week when she and her husband jetted off to Hilton Head, I also worked Tuesday. Next week, when she's back Tuesday night, I'll work Monday and Tuesday, and she'll work Wednesday and Thursday because I have the spelling bee on Wednesday. Fridays the real teacher is on her own. Fortunately, I am still at the point where this higher-level schedule-keeping is exciting.)

It's also unlike a job because when I walk out the middle school doors at mid-afternoon I am DONE. D-O-N-E. No lesson planning, no test grading, no rehashing of what worked or didn't work, no parent-teacher conferences, no calls. This leaves me time to concentrate on my other half-time job that is an actual job even if the hours are flexible, and on the half dozen other job-like things that I do on a freelance basis.

Also, because I am not an actual teacher, I can fully enjoy these middle schoolers. I have always been told that a person either loves or hates teaching middle school, and to my great surprise, I'm finding these students delightful. They make me laugh, except when they make me want to roll my eyes, and because someone else is responsible for their discipline and class comportment, I'm free to enjoy their wardrobe choices and the huggy-huggy-huggy nature of these creatures. (OH my GOSH! When did middle school become so huggy? I don't remember hugging a single person who was not related to me when I was that age.) (Sadly, they are hugging each other and not their teachers, or at least not this teacher-adjacent person. I love hugs.)

So, to sum up: I have to show up when I'm supposed to show up, I support the teacher but I don't have any real responsibilities beyond that, and in theory, they are going to send me a paycheck.

Is this a job? Next February, when it's finger-freezingly cold and I have to be on the road by 7:15 it will be a job, but so far, not so much.


(This post brought to you by the Society for Promotion and Propagation of Parentheses. In re-reading, I realize I had a lot of asides to share.)