Adventures in Job Shadowing

My dad is a member of Rotary and as such commits a certain amount of time with community service projects that they have going on. Today, we are havin a student from Sunnyside High School coming to job shadow for the day. I get to go pick them up and most likely have an awkward drive back (I like to let other people do the talking but I think this person will probably be a little quiet) and then they will sit with me for about an hour as I go through and tell and show them what I do.

I hope that I have enough work at one time to take up a solid hour without boring them to death. It cant be fun to watch someone entering data, updating logs and sending correspondance for any length of time, and exactly how realistic should I be? Do I show them the blogs and websites I frequent while I work? These are students from disadvantaged backgrounds whose parents likely work as manual laborers so it is cool that they get to see what an office enviornment is like so should I pretend that my job is awesome and I love every second of it? Ha, not likely I will be able to paint that rosy a picture.

Also, being somewhat down again about my job situation I am probably not the most encouraging person to be talking about jobs at the moment. I am afraid I might say something like, "Dream big kid, but realize that nothing will probably work out the way you think it will and in 10 years you will still be trying to figure out your life and 10 years after that as well so, but you should totally go for your dream if you have one" and thus I scar them for life. I probably wouldnt say kid though, it just felt appropriate in that context.

I am sure it will all be fine and an hour of my day isn't that long. I will update and how it goes later this morning.