Ongoing Yearbook Staff Controversy: To Work Over Break or Not?

When I started advising 14 years ago, I was exhausted from the extra work hours that seemed to accompany every deadline. We worked after school. We worked on weekends. We worked during breaks. We worked whenever the kids said, “Please, Faust! We just need a couple more hours!”

 

Ongoing Yearbook Staff Controversy: To Work Over Break or Not?

As a seasoned, third-year adviser, I vowed we would never work outside of scheduled hours again.

Fast forward 11 years and we ALWAYS work during breaks. But it has nothing to do with deadlines.

Riley, 2015 EIC: “Explain to me how, exactly, we’re supposed to go a full 18 days without seeing each other!”

Faust: “But don’t you want to spend time with your families?”

Riley, 2015 EIC: “Yearbook is the only family that counts!”

So, here’s what happens in room I-219 these days: We work every Wednesday after school; Wednesday Work Nights have been a tradition since 2004. Parents sign up to bring dinner for everyone and we work whether we are on deadline or not. Our staff knows that we don’t stay after on Monday nights to make the upload. That happens Wednesdays or during class.

During breaks, though, is another story. We work on breaks because we HAVE to be together. We bring food, we run to Starbucks, we watch movies, we sing, we act goofy, we rearrange the classroom and sometimes we get some yearbooking done.

It doesn’t matter if the break is one week, two, or all of summer vacation. We find ways to be together. We’ve met at Starbucks, we’ve gone bowling and we’ve even hung out at the bookstore together. But, more often than not, we find ourselves back in I-219, like aliens drawn to their mothership, unable to function without a little yearbook family in our breaks.

cf_authors

Carrie Faust (adviser): To know me is to love me; to love me is to bring me Starbucks. I believe all things can be accomplished with the assistance of a venti, non-fat, no-water, extra-hot chai and a Pandora station set to Joshua Radin. And, “Pitch Perfect.” There must be “Pitch Perfect.”

Riley Waller (EIC): When I’m not curled up in the fetal position on the floor of the yearbook room stressing over deadlines and college acceptance, I can be found at Starbucks buying a venti, non-fat, no-water, extra-hot chai for my adviser and a tall, soy, white mocha for me to consume in the yearbook room during my off period — and every other hour of the day.

Smoky Hill Yearbook
Latest posts by Smoky Hill Yearbook (see all)
1 reply

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.