Corps Training Institute Cometh

It’s been a while since I found the time to write anything here. It’s not that I’ve forgotten, it’s just that a group of about 285 house guests arrived last Thursday and I’ve been so busy entertaining that I’ve neglected to share any of my experiences.

Last Thursday (October 7^th) almost the entire Corps arrived on campus for inprocessing and the beginning of CTI. The TLs and staff divided up the responsibilities involved with getting everyone to campus and settling them in, which included running shuttles to and from the airport, getting ID cards made, rooms assigned, and baggage moved, as well as collected and photocopying paperwork… for 285 people. My role, which I had a great time doing, was to gather group of people at the airport, organize them, and get them onto shuttles as they arrived. Two staff members helped to direct people to the baggage claim area and our group while I communicated with the shuttles waiting in the cell phone lot, check names off of a roster, and organized the loading of bags and managing NCCC-airport security relations. This consumed much of my time. We were granted a “special event” permit that allowed us to park near the airport shuttle stop, but there was only enough room for a passenger van and a cargo van. So when multiple shuttle arrived simultaneously and were forced to wait while more people collected their bags, the airport security guard started complaining to me and telling me that we were going to be kicked out. Long story short, we managed to get everyone to campus without burning any bridges with the airport.

That evening, after our community meeting and dinner, Vaya (another TL) and I drove to the Oakland Airport to pick up a group of people who had missed their connection to Sacramento. They had already waited at the Phoenix airport for about 8 hours, so when they got into the van they were ready to just get to campus and pass out. So was I, now that I think of it – I was going from 6 AM until 1:30 AM.

The next few days flew by. We were assigned Pods (temporary teams) or 8 or 9 people which whom we attended training, went grocery shopping, and shared information. On eof the most challenging aspects of this job that I’ve encountered over the last week and a half is information dessimination. The model works like this: staff members send us emails/texts/memos and we tell the CMs. Sounds simple on its face. But when you have 19 staff members, 3 modes of communication, and 8 (now 11) people who have no other source of information but you and rely upon your experience and knowledge, it can be a little trying. I’ve already learned a lot about myself and have developed some ideas of how not to share information. For example, don’t have a meeting to discuss dinners for the week in Building 943. It was empty when we started, but as more people began to arrive for dinner it filled up with about 200 people. As you might imagine, that didn’t create the most conducive environment for 12 people to come up with a shopping list and figure out who was responsible for what ingredients. Experience had, lesson learned.

One more story before I wrap this up: Team Reveal. As I mentioned earlier, CMs were placed in Pods to begin CTI. For them and for the TLs it is an opportunity to meet people and form bonds with members who are not on your permanent team. On Wednesday we had a super-secret community meeting in which the CMs were split into 4 units (Green, Blue, Gold and Silver) and then handed envelopes that TLs had prepared to lead the CMs to them. I had prepared an epic scavenger hunt based on activities that we will be doing as a team this year (e.g. PT, cooking, playing games, traveling, etc). During the Unit reveal portion, the TLs dispersed to hide their clues. My first clue led my team to the weight room on campus, which I discovered was also home to two other teams’ clues. At the time I hoped that my clue was so obviously theirs that I didn’t worry about it and ran off to place more clues. As it turns out, by team found the balloons that belonged to Vaya’s team (Green 1) irresistible and began popping them. They took the clues, which that yielded and ran with all of Vaya’s clues. Eventually they reached her and she drove them to get frozen yogurt. Meanwhile, I was pacing back and forth along the field, wondering how dumb my team had to be in order to take an hour and a half to figure out my clues. We eventually straightened out what happened and my team was returned to campus, set on the right course, and found me.

While I was incredibly frustrated by this turn of events, I think that I learned a valuable lesson. I was able to choose the attitude that I had about the situation – something that was largely out of my hands – and tried to make the best out of it. I’m going to have to do that a lot this year, because my attitude and behavior strongly influence that of my team.