First Day on the Job

I stop outside and admire the building. Centerville Free Use, it says on the front. It's an old brick building, probably more than 100 years, with large windows and a gabled roof. A lovely bit of architecture.

I'm feeling nervous. The first day at a new job is always trying. It's hard to come into a new situation and upend everything.

Did I mention? I'm a school principal for Free Use training facilities. In particular, I'm the person they send in when something has gone wrong at a school.

Centerville didn't start out as an unusual school. It opened along with all the other training schools when the 25-plus movement come along. However, Dr Johnathan Edwards, one of the guiding lights of the training movement, had turned it into his sinecure. He hadn't wanted to work much in his twilight years, and he had let standards slip, something that was evident by the shoddy quality of education the graduates had received.

After numerous complaints, mostly from the graduates themselves, they sent me in.

Anyway, nervous. It's hard to upend everyone's settled patterns. A school's staff has a system, a camaraderie, and someone like me often has to break that apart.

It's 7:00am on a Monday. I take a deep breath to settle my nerves, then walk through the front door.