To Whom it May Concern

You should BE so lucky.

To Whom it May Concern:

Please consider hiring my friend and colleague. She is brilliant and funny and positive and will whip your organization into shape and make you wonder how you ever survived without her.

Yes, I know she’s a teacher. Yes, I know you’re not a school. Schools don’t have any money right now, because they got a whole bunch of it while we were being “Heroes” during the pandemic and now it’s gone and so are some of the children because now online school is a thing and so now we get even less money (but don’t ask teachers about that because talking about “per-pupil funding” makes us sick to our stomachs).

At any rate, she’s a teacher but she didn’t have tenure yet so she lost her job along with three other wonderful, funny, compassionate, creative women in my building. It isn’t fair but it was done fairly. It isn’t right but it is the only choice. It isn’t good for kids but… it isn’t good for us either.

I know you aren’t a school but you should hire my friend. She will learn your name and the names of all her coworkers the first day. She will appear to be casually browsing through your resources to “familiarize herself” with your purpose and then she will ask questions that make you think about your practices and then you will ask her to help you improve. She will ask more questions that make you feel knowledgable and that you have something to teach her while all along she is making you better. She will be excited about your mutual success and you will feel good while at the same time wondering what you can do next.

My friend will encourage your employees to communicate, to collaborate. She will bring people together, personally and professionally. Eventually you will have to gently tell her to stop texting you about work at 10pm or on weekends, and she will roll her eyes and laugh because her enthusiasm for her work knows no bounds.

I hope that you will hire my friend but then I hope she quits. I hope that the opportunities to teach come back and she can remember that she loved it. I hope that time gives her the ability to forget the bitterness and ugliness of feeling that she failed at a job she loved (which she absolutely didn’t because this catastrophe is not based on her performance but by timing and horrible, horrible circumstances) and reminds her of her students and how much they counted on her.

If you hire my friend and she is able to use her talent to thrive in your environment, maybe I can stop being so angry. Because I am so angry. And sad. Furious and bereft. Full of rage and grief. You see, we survived this year. We got the teacher contract. Relationships are healing and we were beginning to think about the future. Then we found out our future will not include these four magnificent educators and I am incensed.

Thanks for reading.

Love, Susie