TEEN STORY

Mediocre Me

It’s that time of year: everyone just got their jobs. Rivky is G.O. head. Chana is yearbook editor. Lila is art director and   in charge of bulletin board.  Rachel is head of dance.

Yep, that there is my group of friends, a tight-knit circle I’ve been part of since our desks were placed together in first grade. As you can see, each one of them is talented in some way, the type to be a leader or organizer.

And then there’s me. Mediocre Miri. Or at least that’s the nickname I gave myself last Monday when we all got our jobs.

Until then, I thought of myself as the all-around type, not shining in any particular way, but good-enough in lots of areas. I’m not a Picasso like Lila, but I can draw a straight line. I’m not a graceful ballerina like Rachel, but I can keep a circle going. I can’t churn out a stream of flawless papers like Chana, but I can produce a passable essay. And I may not be life-of-the-party Rivky, but I can hold my own in a crowd.

So why the sudden melancholy?

Here’s my job: hallway monitor.

Seriously.

Now, I understand that not everyone can get a glamorous job and that someone has to get this, the least desirable of all the jobs on the list, but why does it have to be me? Me, whose close circle of friends is made up of girls who are so obviously talented that of course they got the best jobs; of course they got the opportunity to shine. That, of course, is precisely why my job bothers me so much. It feels like a message from the school: sorry, you are too mediocre for anything else.

The worst part is, I keep having to hear all about these exciting jobs. All day long.

“Sorry, I’m not able to walk to school with you,” Rivky says in the morning when I call to ask her to bring an extra water bottle for me. “I have to go in early for our first G.O. meeting.”

“So, I can’t walk with you guys during lunch,” says Chana. “Batsheva and I are meeting with Mrs. Weiss to brainstorm about possible themes.”

Lila tries keeping up a conversation with me as I follow her around the hall during recess. She keeps trying to balance her box of thumbtacks with the paper rainclouds she made last night and is trying to hang up. She finally gives up and hands me the box, too intent on her work to really listen to my dialogue about my older sister’s seminary woes.

Rachel should be available since there is no dance at all in the works for a while, but oh right, she’s helping out with the fourth-grade performance.

At least I have the hallway to keep me busy. Come to think of it, I’m not even entirely sure about what I’m supposed to do.

So I march over to Mrs. Baum’s office and plop myself into a chair when she waves me in and motions to it.  Mrs. Baum is our assistant principal. She’s always smiling, and I when I have a complaint, she is the one I seek.

“What can I do for you, Miri?” she asks, smiling, of course.

“So I got this jooob,” I say, rolling out the word dramatically. “And no one even bothered explaining to me what I need to do.”

“Let’s see.” Mrs. Baum puts on her reading glasses and squints at a list she’s pulled from a stack on her desk. “Hallway director.  Oh, right, yes, now I remember. That’s a nice job.”

Nice? I want to roll my eyes, but don’t. After all, she is a principal.

“So, uh, what do I do for this special monitor thing?” I ask. “I mean, when you’re G.O. head like Rivky, you pretty much know what you’re in for. And when you’re editor like Chana, you also-“

Mrs. Baum cuts me off with a chuckle. “Well, for starters, you need to be in the hallways during the longer morning and afternoon recess. Not the whole time, but just for the last couple of minutes to make sure everyone is headed in the right direction and that they’re not making a mess or being rowdy.”

Seriously? The truth, the one that she doesn’t know, the one I pretended not to know, is that I knew that already. Everyone knows this already. I just wanted to hear her say it. That this is a boring, dull job, with nothing to it. Everyone ignores the hall monitor, who usually chews gum and stares at her watch, then flees to her classroom when the bell rings.

“But Miri, we were sure you could bring something else to this job,” Mrs. Baum continues after a beat.

Wait, what?

“You mean like cookies?” I joke lamely, trying to act like I’m good with this position. “Should I give them out in the hall?”

“Usually, the hall monitor is very much ignored,” she says. “And the monitor herself, as we’ve seen in the past, has very little interest in keeping an eye on things. But we thought that you, with your enthusiasm and energy, the way you manage to make conversation with everyone and befriend even the quietest girls, could add a little sparkle to the school. We thought that maybe if your job keeps you out in the hall for a few minutes, you’ll make it a fun place to be. So even girls who feel awkward or don’t know who to talk to can find a friend.”

Huh.

Mrs. Baum hands me a sheet that says HALLWAY RULES at the top. I am dismissed.

It could be that Mrs. Baum sensed how upset I was (well, it wouldn’t take a genius). It could be she was just trying to make me feel better, glamorizing the worst job in the grade and playing up my strengths.

But maybe, just maybe, she was onto something. Maybe it was all true.

Because here I am now in the hallway, surrounded by girls who are laughing at the rule list I jokingly showed them, girls who usually shuffle around pretty much unnoticed. Here I am showing that new girl, the one who joined our school just last week, the way to the library.

Here I am, having a ball.

There is energy in the air, the right kind of energy that makes everyone feel like they belong.

So maybe it’s true.

Maybe I’m more than mediocre.