My boss I loved at my job I hated
Article by Kannita Cheah Art by Jake Greenblatt
In the summer of 2023, I made the absolutely ridiculous decision to not work at the summer camp at which I’d grown up and instead decided to take on a film internship at a different summer camp in Mt. Ida, Arkansas.
Truly, it was not that ridiculous of a decision. I don’t know. My mom asked me to do something related to my major, and she was already relatively cool with me studying film. So I said, okay, I’ll look. And this camp I found seemed like I’d get real experience: I would be shooting every day, editing every day, and walking around all the time. Seemed like a good job. A reasonable job. Much more interesting than any big corporation coffee-fetching, paper-sorting internship. So I interviewed. And I made it to the second round.
(“Oh, she’s got a Lord of the Rings poster in the background, she’s probably cool.”)
I was hired within two weeks. Everyone was proud of me. My parents drove me from Colorado to Arkansas with my dog. It was a 17-hour drive. They weren’t allowed past the gates of the camp, which I thought was insane. I was dropped off in a parking lot, and my things were loaded onto a mule; most of the higher-ups had little carts to drive around the camp because it was hot and took a long time to walk, and they were important. I hugged my parents goodbye and the lead of the HR department drove me into the “campus," giving me the small-talk-plus-tour-spiel as we went. I felt like I was in an amusement park. The people at my camp, the one I grew up at, couldn’t even imagine the scale of this place when I explained to them the three areas of camp, how there were two separate dining halls, 11 waterslides, at least three different football fields, three basketball courts, four tennis courts, an “arts and crafts palace,” two camp stores for merch and toys and ice cream, and that there were bathrooms with plumbing in the kids’ cabins.
I met my boss at the Lodge, where our computers for editing and the gear room with cameras, GoPros, and lights were. I met the team. My name tag was printed out and slipped into a plastic sleeve with a clip so that I could wear it on my shirt. It said “K”. When I put it on during opening day, one of my coworkers said,
“Wait, your name is just the letter K?”
“Well, it’s not really my name,” I told him. He had a biblical name. “It’s just what I put under the preferred nickname tag in the online form.”
“I thought it was K-E-I,” another said. I wrote to my girlfriend about that later: he probably just thought that because I’m Asian.
“Nope. Just K.”
(“K, let me know if you need anything. I’m going to be shooting tonight for our staff video, so I’ll be running around, but if you see me, come say hello. Jackie can show you the ropes if the event’s not too overwhelming for you.”)
I went through four weeks of genuine existential crisis. It’s hard to explain why. I can lay out my reasoning but I still have people asking, why was it that deep? Let me make an attempt:
The camp I grew up at taught kids values I believe in. It taught me how to hold myself accountable, to be a participant in a community bigger than myself, to slow down and appreciate nature, and how different people are compatible in different ways. Aside from the fact that it’s small and friendly and everyone makes themselves approachable and inclusive especially when you’re new; aside from the signed walls of the cabins full of love, names from years past all the way back to 1929; aside from the fact that the people there know me better than I ever thought I could be known, that they’re definitely invited to my wedding no matter how long it’s been since I’ve seen them.
(“You’ve taught me that a summer camp can really be formative for kids. It’s not just a place their parents dump them when they want to go on vacation.”)
The camp I decided to work at in the summer of 2023 taught kids values I did not agree with. It taught them to put their all into everything, to look for the next adventure even while they were in the middle of learning a skill or task, and to never stop giving more than one hundred percent. There was no part of the day in which they were ever held accountable for their actions. I watched kids sprint to activities, cutting each other off. I watched kids not pick up their trash. They didn’t do their dishes. They didn’t help each other improve their skills. Counselors barely helped campers improve their skills. It was rare that they cheered for each other on high ropes courses when kids overcame fears. They were more often impatient in line behind a kid struggling than encouraging them to move forward.
(“This place will really suck the life out of you sometimes. You just can’t take it to heart. Trust me, I’ve been here for seven years.”)
Why would I want to work for a place I don’t believe in when I know that there’s a place I could work and be happier? Why would I put myself through a job that makes me sad, defeated, upset? Why would I support and work for the marketing department of a place I actively don’t want people to attend? On the other hand, why would I not put my all into something I know I’ll learn something from? Why wouldn’t I put effort into something I agreed to? Why would I back out of helping people I want to help? Why would I give up when everything I’ve learned has taught me to push through and make meaning out of a tough situation?
(“I’m your boss and I’m telling you to come take a break with me. Come talk to me about what’s going on.”)
(“I trust you’ll do a good job, you know, you’re a hard worker. You’ve improved a lot even since last week.”)
(“K’s in charge while I’m gone. Walkie me if Carter gets into trouble.” / “WHY WOULD I BE THE ONE TO GET IN TROUBLE, TODD?”)
My boss, Todd, was incredibly supportive of me during my crisis. For some reason, he really understood what I was going through. For that, I’m eternally grateful and eternally confused. I know he didn’t like the place, and yet he was grateful for his whole experience there. My coworkers, bless them, were all around my age, and they also seemed to understand what I was going through. They told me to do whatever felt right to me. Apparently, the media team is always a little bit “weird”, relative to the other summer staff. Thank God.
(“I’m really glad you decided to stay. I know it’s not where you want to be, but I’m still grateful. We’ll still have fun here.”)
Our first shoot was always at 8:55 AM. Sometimes, my teammates and I would show up so tired that we would brush our teeth in the office bathroom. If I arrived with enough time to make a cup of coffee in the complimentary Keurig machine – benefits of working for a rich institution – Todd and I would play the Wordle, the Quordle, and the Octordle while I waited for the coffee to drip.
Late at night, when I was done editing but still wanted to hang out, I would put on a sweatshirt and play the Semantle or the Blossom Sequence. Word games were very popular. We would also take online quizzes on Sporcle and play Scribbl.io while trying not to look at each other’s computer screens. We even watched the last game of the Stanley Cup Final on the office TV. JC would put Oz, the weighted stuffed animal, around my neck and ask me how work was going. I cried once a week. I laughed every day.
(“No! Do the 90s quiz! I don’t know any new bands!”)
(“Stop looking at my computer, you’re trying to cheat the Octordle!”)
(“I feel so dorky wearing two walkies. I’ve got the all-top-staff one and the baby one for y’all. But you guys have way more fun conversations.”)
I decided to stay. I didn’t want to back out of something I’d agreed to; I was upholding my personal values by staying. To some extent, I argued to myself that I would be upholding my personal values by leaving, too, but my teammates made me want to stay. It even made me find fun. When I made the choice to stay, my boss assigned me the biggest project of any given session: a twenty-minute long, two-week coverage recap of the session. It involved getting extremely specific shots at extremely specific locations, making sure we had enough shots of boys and girls, and getting lots of younger kids waving at the camera and acting like they were having fun.
These session videos were mildly scripted. Specific special events had to go along with specific parts of a specific song. We had to alternate our clips boy-girl-boy-girl. Certain activities needed to be shown in a certain order. I didn’t quite understand why, beyond the fact that it streamlined the process. It made me sad that the marketing was so disingenuous. But the work that was required of me still let me have a good time with my team – ultimately, even though I didn’t believe in the job, I believed in myself and my choice to stay. I told myself, I’m here for Todd, for the media team, to make their lives easier, and to make myself proud.
I started getting excited about certain events. I made a couple of non-media-team friends—one of them, I’m still in close contact with to this day. We try to call every weekend. Sometimes we don’t make it happen, but we’ll text each other a random question about the past week so that we know what the other is up to. I started a couple of projects I didn’t have to do but that I knew would make Todd happy and his job easier for the next summer. And I was really proud of my session video. I even helped a teammate that was struggling with his deadline. We stayed up late in the office together one night when the power went out. We waited for the computers to boot back up and gave up after twenty minutes, around 4:30 AM. On our walk back to the staff house, we saw an incredible shooting star: a cherished, delirious memory.
The co-director of the camp drove up to us as we were walking back as a part of her after staff-time patrol to make sure there were no counselors up to no good in the dark.
“Hi,” she said, sickly sweet, “what are you guys doing out here?”
“We’re on our way back from work,” Thomas said bluntly. “We’re on the media team.”
That was not the answer she was expecting, of course. But she told us we were working hard, and that she was proud of us and sent us on our way. We told her goodnight.
(“Hello, this is King Goose, checking in on things back at the…. nest. How’s it going?”
– “Um. Hello. This is – the nest. Thomas is working on the session video, and Carter and I
just got back from mish-mash. Taylor’s still out.”
“Okay. Thanks for the update…. Mother Goose.”
– “Uh, anytime. King Goose.”)
Todd made a squawking noise into the walkie. Somehow, we all understood the bit and ran with it for the rest of the summer.
By the time the end of the summer came around, I had completed four projects of which I was extremely proud including a funny compilation of the media team’s cutest moments. I’d genuinely made meaning out of a crisis of a summer. I made relationships that I still hold on to. I made projects that still make me happy to this day. I learned that as long as I am in a place for a good reason, I can have fun and it’ll help me survive. I remembered how important showing up for people is.
On Todd’s days off, I would write him little Post-it notes with updates from the day. For the last couple of weeks of the summer, I would write, Hi King Goose instead of Hi Todd at the top of my pink squares.
Right after I decided to stay, I wrote him: Todd – THANK YOU for having faith in me. He taped it to his desk, right next to his keyboard, and kept it there all summer.