Jamie (0:00)

Hey guys, welcome back to the authentic society. I'm Jamie and thank you so much for being here. We are finally out of January and for that thank God because I don't know about you, but January was such a long, cold, dragging month and I'm finally starting to see the light of things. It's been a few days where we've had 60 degree weather where I'm at and I can tell the days are getting longer and for that it gives me hope. I have started some things. Last time you saw me, I had just rolled out of bed at like one in the morning and now you're seeing me, it is daylight. I have got a walking pad and I've been walking on that walking pad. I'm trying to walk at least three miles a day on the walking pad. If I'm watching tv, I want to walk on the walking pad. I also got some greens to supplement and I'm started taking some vitamin D. Vitamin D vitamins. So things are looking up over here. I knew I would get there and I know it's not going to be like this every week obviously but for right now I feel good and it really contribute that with just January I'm, I'm over it. February is supposed to be like a month full love. Um, we have Valentine's Day and you know, if you are single and you dried Valentine's Day, just know that this month can really be dedicated to loving yourself because I think, you know, if you don't have a significant other, February can really just be dedicated to doing things that you love and loving yourself. And I think being single gives you a lot of freedom to do that. So try to look at that in a positive way. My anniversary is coming up in February. I'll be three years married February 19th to my husband obviously, but which is like wild to think because I obviously got married at 17 years old. No way. I'm old enough to be married for three years. But yeah, February in my head is like a pink month and pink's my favorite color. So I'm glad to be out with January into February. It's also a short month. So if February doesn't go good for you, at least it's not 31 days. Okay, so a lot of positive things. And also in March is I think when we spring forward. So we're really almost a month away before we spring forward and we get more daylight back. So all positive things coming. I'm out of my dark tunnel it feels like and trying to just get motivated and stay positive. I can thank so many of you guys for that. You guys have sent me so much messages saying that you feel the exact same way as me. And that's really again why I wanted this community because it just makes me feel less alone. And I hope that when you listen to me, that's how you feel and that's what we can give each other. So yeah, just know that we're going to do this. Summer is coming and they're bright days ahead. With that being said, on today's episode, I'm going to talk about something, something I kind of been dreading talking about. But it's definitely my highest requested podcast episode to do and I didn't write anything down. I really want to go off the cuff on here. I have some things I want to say, but I obviously could make this podcast episode three, four hours long if I wanted to talk about this topic. And I don't, I don't think it's going to be my last time to talk about this topic. But I do want to talk about why I left teaching. I think so many people are shocked to know that I was a teacher for three years. And to me it's shocking to know that was took part of my life for three years. And I want to talk about it today for all the people that are watching that were in my past teaching life. And we didn't leave on good terms, but still watch me. Hello. You're welcome here as well. I do want to give a disclaimer on a lot of things. This is my story and in no way, shape or form. I'm saying that I handled everything right with teaching. I was not a good teacher. I struggled with teaching a ton. It was not my passion. I was not built to be a teacher. I think you have to be built for it. I think it's one of the hardest jobs in the entire world. And I was not the best version of who I could be while teaching because I was so miserable, because I was so depressed. Teaching stripped everything I loved about who I was and I absolutely hated, hated everything about it. Honestly, besides the kids, I went into teaching for kids. I love kids. I love being around kids. I love seeing a moment where a child has a light bulb moment. I love kids and that's why I went into teaching. And it's not why I left. I didn't leave because of the kids. Actually leaving kids was the hardest part about leaving. The adults in teaching was the reason I left. And just to say that I'm not perfect, you know, I made a lot of mistakes and I've definitely done things I'm not proud of. But for all that to say, I know there's a lot of people from my past probably keeping tabs on me and to say, you know, I think when you're in a job that makes you so miserable and so unhappy, it's hard to be the best version of yourself. And that's when I knew I needed to get out. I didn't like who I was anymore. And you know, I think so many people can relate. Even if you have never been a teacher or you're in a job where you're miserable, it really changes you. You know, we spend 40 hours a week working a job which is, you know, over half our week. And it becomes our makeup. You know, we, we end up spending time with the people we work with more than our significant others, more than our family, our moms, our siblings, our chill, our own children. And if you're miserable, it overflows into every aspect of your life and you can't even see it because you're so in this job and you know you have to be making money and you feel like there's no way out or you feel like there's nothing better. And I'm here to tell you that a job and money isn't everything. And that's not to say that I know people don't have the luxury to leave. And so I want to make a disclaimer on that. I'm not telling you to leave your job. I'm just telling you that for my mental sanity, I was willing to leave and work three jobs, three part time jobs, in order to not teach anymore because that's how miserable I was. And I just think for anybody that's struggling with their workplace, having a good workplace and finding a job that suits you and makes you, you're not going to always be happy at every job. Right? I work a full time job now and there's sometimes where I get frustrated or there's sometimes I have bad day and you know, I wake up on Monday mornings and don't always want to go to my work. But I'm not it, it's not chipping away at who I am. And that's what teaching was. And so I think there's a difference. And if you are in a career or a job that it is chipping away at who you are. Know that it's never too old, you're never too old to start over and that starting over isn't easy. But also staying in a job where you're miserable isn't easy either. So you need to pick. You need to pick your heart. Basically, you know that. Pick your heart. Pick the heart of starting over, but the potential of being happy. Or pick the hard choice of staying in your job when you know you're never going to be happy. And that's the advice I hope I can give you today. If you're listening and you're in a spot where you're working and you're miserable because it wasn't easy getting out, but looking where it's almost been two years since I've left, it's the best thing I ever did. So to go back to the beginning, because everybody needs a beginning. Every story needs a beginning. And again, every story needs a villain. And sometimes I'm somebody's villain in that story and that's okay. But. I graduated with a communication and media studies degree from East Carolina University back in 2019. And you know, I was fresh out of college, didn't really have a clue what I wanted to do. I went into marketing. I was working for an Internet company doing marketing and it was around December and I got laid off, which was devastating obviously. But times were tough and usually when you're working in a marketing job, marketing's the first to go. I started working in a flower shop full time and just to be able to stand on my like on two feet and figure out what I was going to do. I had moved from, to Raleigh for this marketing job. I it was the first time I was paying all my own bills. I was a full fledged adult and in deep because I didn't have a job. And so I started working part time for a florist, one of the biggest florists in Raleigh, North Carolina. So it was a full time gig. Wasn't making a lot, but I actually kind of liked that job. But you know, Covid hit and Covid I'm sure as many of you know, was not good for any kind of business and it definitely wasn't good for the floral business. So again I got laid off and I decided, you know, it's time, it's time to move home. So I ended up moving home and being a full time nanny for someone who, you know, they were out of school, the kids were out of school because of COVID and they needed somebody to stay. So I started doing that and helping them with their homework and realized, you know, I do like being around kids. I always have. I used to nanny and babysit during the summers and build up all my money. So I Could, you know, not really necessarily work during the school years in college. And I really, truly loved babysitting and nannying. And so I realized, you know, when Covid started to come back, you know, not to normal, but people were allowed to work again. What do I want to do? And so I started working in a daycare, teaching preschool. And, you know, I was at home and I was like, you know, let's give this a whirlwind. So I taught there for a while. And in the state of North Carolina, you can teach for three years while obtaining your license. I know that each state is different, but in North Carolina that's just what it was. And so I started, you know, looking for teaching positions. You know, I got to get off your parents insurance at some time. Started to need more of like a salary gig. So obviously teaching was the right answer. And I had the pre K and the daycare to, you know, be my references and to show that I, like, could handle kids and whatnot. So I started working at my very first teaching job in fifth grade. Four fifth grade. And a lower city school. Not the best. It was a charter school. And I know in some cases charter schools are fantastic. In the town I'm in, charter schools are very. They don't go by the book, basically. They. They can get away with a lot of shady shit. And I'll get to that. So I started working there fifth grade. And it was terrible, terrible. Fifth grade was not my cup of tea. Most of the children I taught came from very bad home experiences and, you know, were very mean. And, you know, I was a new teacher coming in middle of the year, and kids don't like change. And so it was tough. And they just threw me in there. I remember my very first day, they basically said, good luck and threw me in there. Didn't even tell the kids I was coming. And I mean, they used to make bird noises at me because my last name's Bird. Um, they used to write, you know, bitch on my board, you know, stuff like that. And that's not to say that they're bad kids. It was just to say that they were tough and the school was a tough place for everybody, so. And I didn't have a lot of support. Administration did not support me. Um, and you know, it was just not the greatest place. But again, I needed to stick it out, right? So summer came and I stayed at that school and I just thought, okay, I'll teach a younger grade. I do better with younger kids anyway. And I taught second grade and I really loved Those kids, that was my first full year with a class. And there were some good kids in second grade. I feel like is such a sweet spot where they're still, they still want, you know, your approval and they still love you, but they're old enough to go to the bathroom and tie their shoes and do all those things on their own. And I really love second grade. And I was, I hated when I left those kids. But again, problem was never with the kids. It was always when the administration, and this is how deeply screwed up that administration was. So basically, if you're not familiar with the charter school, every charter school has, or at least the one I was working at, had its own superintendent. So she was like head of the school. And our charter school was from kindergarten all the way to high school. And she was basically the most really evil woman. She was just a fraud. She could turn it on and turn it off for the public. I mean, I have never seen such a, like, evil woman running a school, but it was almost like a TV show. She basically ended up getting charged a couple years after I left for laundering money. Like, she was laundered. She had. She had laundered almost $400,000 from the entire school and which we all know she was doing. She was showing up in like Gucci, like pantsuits. Honey, you're a superintendent to a low income school. What the are you doing? I don't know where she is now. I need to do a deep div on this. But she did not care. Everything was a blind eye. You know, she would just throw money at the situation and she would hire anybody, anybody. Also like our subbing system. Anybody, anybody could be like, pulled off the street and be a sub. So in second grade, I started working with a team. How do I word this? Just not nice to me. And we had a sub that was a permanent sub in there. And she was. Had no idea what she was doing in a classroom. And she was horrible to me. I got called Vanilla Bean when I was there. They used to call me Vanilla Bean and think it was cute and endearing, even though it was racist. I got called white trash by the librarian there, who wasn't even a licensed librarian. She was also somebody they pulled off the street, but she was the librarian because she was fostering a child in the school system that had been raped by her parents and sold for drugs and money. And she came out as gay. And that librarian didn't want to foster her anymore because she didn't want to foster a gay child. And I spoke up about it to her. And she called me white trash. So I was not liked there. I was very. No one liked me. I spoke my mind. I always tried to do what was best in the right of my students. And it was, it was hard. Like it was hard. And I had no back support from our administration. Our assistant principal for elementary education, because they had already fired our main principal, who's one that hired me, who I actually did like. Our assistant principal was. Didn't even have her bachelor's degree. She was going to get her bachelor's degree and she had ran a daycare before but had not had her bachelor's degree. Or maybe she did have her bachelor's, she did not have her master's and they basically put her in charge. And again, she hated my guts. She hated my guts. When I told her about some of the things that happened with the sub, like coming into my classroom one day and like screaming at me in front of all my kids. She basically asked what I did to like, what I did to provoke her. They did not like me there. And it was tough. Parents were tough. The, the school, it. There were so many hanky jobs going on. Like, I can't even tell you how horrible it was. They were working with United. Let me make sure I get this right, because it's been so long. But they were basically that school was working for like a company where with other teachers so they can like travel all over the world. So basically what that company would do is hire teachers that had just graduated college or were young professionals and actually had their teachings degree and they would. It was almost like flight attendants. Okay, so you know, as a flight attendant, you sign up to go like work in Chicago or Los Angeles or New York and you get placed somewhere. So basically what teachers would do for this company is they would sign up to work in like Charlotte, North Carolina or New York or Chicago and then they would get placed and they unfortunately got placed at the charter school and we screwed them up so bad, all those teachers with that company, that the company basically stopped working with us and would not put any more teachers in their school. This is how bad the school was. But everything was thrown at money. You know, we had new laptops. You, all these kids had brand new supplies. They didn't have to buy any supplies. I mean, I had state of the art technology. And when I decided finally to quit and leave, I got a call from that same headmaster that was laundering money. Basically told me that she would give me a $10,000 raise. She didn't want to Lose me. Because she was. Those teachers are dropping like flies. I can't make this up, guys. Can't make this up. So I ended up leaving there because obviously it was horrible. It was traumatizing. Horrible. I love that. I loved my class, though. I had a really good class that year. I had some sweet babies in that class. And when I told them I was leaving, I was devastated. But I ended up getting a job with the. The county at a school for the county. I was really hoping to see a difference with the county and charter school because, you know, I was hoping they were going to abide by the law. You know, you don't want to work for a school that's breaking the law every day. It was just crazy. So I ended up getting a job with the county and teaching first grade. And I loved first grade again. Second and first grade were like my sweet spots. They were sweet and they wanted your attention and they wanted you to, like, you know, approve of them. And, you know, I love the kids. It was never the kids. I got attached to so many sweet kids. And I started working there, and for the first few months, it was great. Our principal that I liked a lot, who ended up that. Who he was, the one that hired me was actually my high school principal, and I really liked him. He ended up getting another job and leaving. And that's when it hit the fan. And I will tell you, if you are a teacher, you will know this. Administration makes or breaks where you work. It is. It just. It makes or breaks everything. And I'm not saying all administration is bad. I'm not saying there aren't good principles out there. I've just never had that experience. I had. I've had a lot of experiences with a lot of different people in power that forget what it's like to be in the classroom, and they're on a journey to climb the tallest loud ladder to get the most money. And unfortunately, almost all of my administration was like that. It was like any other corporate job. You want to get on top of the ladder. You want to work. It's like you. First, you want to get your masters in administration so you can become an assistant principal, Then you become assistant principal, and it's like, I want to become a prince principal. Then you want to become a principal and become a principal at the best school in the county, Then you get to be the principal at the best school in the county. And then it's like, I want to be rewarded for that, and I want to start working for the district. And then you get into the district. And those people and those headhunters in the district don't give a what is happening in your classroom. They do not care. You are a warm body to them. You are supposed to sit down, shut up, do your job, not ask questions, not fight back for $40,000 a year. Now, do I think this is the case for every county? No. Was this the case for my county and my school? Yes. And so I was working there and there were just so many things happened. I will say working with women is not my thing. And I know I say I'm a girls girl, but I think I worked with a lot of women that were just as unhappy as I was. And so when you get put into an environment where you're working with a ton of women who aren't happy, they're trying to save their own ass from administration, you're trying to save your own ass from administration. You don't trust anybody. It leads to a lot of friction with everybody. And I'm not saying men can't have the same problems too. But you know, teaching is a dominated women field. And in my experience, I. There were so many times that I would get in squirrels with other teachers or. Or this or that. Because for one, we all were miserable. We were all miserable. And two, we were always trying to fight to stay above water. And again, like I've said, I wasn't the best version of myself in this time in my life. And, you know, there's a lot of things I could get done differently. But I worked with a lot of women that just didn't have each other's backs, and that's not who I was. I am the type of person that I will have your back thick and through, even if I am the one. I'm gonna go down. And I went down. I went down a lot. Administration. I was always the one to speak up in meetings. You know, when we were forced to do things that I didn't think were right, or we were forced to spin a narrative with parents or to not tell them the truth or this or that, I'm the always one that spoke up in meetings and it put a target on my back. They didn't like that I asked questions or that. I fought back. And I always fought back. Because if I didn't think what they wanted me to do was in the best interest of my kids in my class, I didn't really care because my kids in my class were going to come first and so were their parents. I didn't care about other kids in Other classes, no offense. I heard about my kids in my class and how I was going to get them to the end of the year with better, better than they had walked in my classroom. And like for one example, you know when this was also another low income school, when you're in a low income school, you're only allotted to so many teachers. The county will only give you so many teachers for that school. So we were forced to do a combo class. And if you're not sure what a combo class is, it's basically where you do like a second first grade combo or a kindergarten first grade combo. And you take your lower students in your first grade class and put them in a kindergarten class for half the day. And that way you don't have to get another teacher. Because for first grade, I think the state count was like 23. I could only have 23 bodies. Maybe that's 19. Maybe in first grade I think I can only have 19 students in my class. So when I end up with 25, the district's not gonna say, you get another teacher. They're gonna say, okay, we're gonna take your extra 6 lowest kids and put them in a kindergarten class that has a bigger allotment and just call it a combo class. And that's how that was the instance that they wanted us to do. And I didn't believe in that. I thought it was really messed up that we were spinning this in a way that parents were going to think that their child was getting the best education. And really it was like they were retaking kindergarten. And all of this is legal in so many words. And what really ended up happening is that they went to that kindergarten class for three hours of the day. I got them for the. And this was all of first grade in kindergarten. I got them for the other five hours of the day. And so I was technically only supposed to have 19 kids in my class, but I had 25 every day. And they could get away with it because they weren't technically on my roster. And it was things like that that were always happening. And administration did not care if we were upset. Administration did not care if we asked questions. They basically were telling us this is, this is what you have to do. And you have to smile and you have to act like you like it. And if you don't smile and you don't act like you're like, like it, then we're going to PA out to be not a team player. And God, if you get painted out to be not a team player in the eyes of administration in the school. It's not good. And so I would always speak up, and I always was like, you know, I don't feel like I can give the attention to 25 kids. I shouldn't have to. And they're like, well, you have to. And so I was always speaking up. I was always worried about my kids in my class. I was always worried that I was going to fall through. And I vented about it a lot. I vented about it with my other teachers. I was very vocal when I was unhappy, when they would make me do something. And so the smear campaign came, and my administration started to pull me into their offices by myself, telling me that other people in the school thought I was negative, that I needed to change my tune, and that no one wanted to work with me. Specifically my assistant principal, who was also a female. And she would say things to me like she would throw other teachers under the bus. And she was like, this other teacher said this about you, and you need to be careful because no one in the school likes you and no one wants to work with you, and you just don't want that. You want to be a team player. So administration, anytime you would try to speak up or verbalize that you didn't believe in something, they would find a way to put you back in your box because they wanted. All they wanted was you to teach. Give them good scores so they could take all the credit to the county. Because when you are a low district school or low income and in a low part of the county school, your county, your grades aren't as good. And, you know, so they. They only cared about that. They only cared about the numbers. Because numbers move up. Then they move up. The assistant principal there or the principal there, they get rewarded for the teacher's numbers. It's all a psychological, really crazy corporate world. Like I was working as a teacher in a corporate company. It felt like where they only cared about numbers and they only cared about their own agenda and climbing the ladder, and they didn't care about the teachers. You know, along with never getting a bathroom break, I used to have to go and get my colleague. We shared like a hallway with the kids bathrooms. I used to have to get a colleague to come stand in the middle of the hallway to watch both of our classes so I could go to the bathroom in a kid's bathroom. That was nasty. Never cleaned. And just to use the bathroom like once or twice a day. We. We didn't get bathroom breaks, you know, we didn't get, you know, anything and if you're a teacher, you know, this. We. What really I struggled with, I think the most was just not being heard. And when they would ask you about your students or, you know, something that came to a student and you were like, I spend 40 hours a week with a student. I know them better than you do. This is what I recommend. They. They wouldn't care. They would do what they wanted to do or what was easiest. We didn't have the proper services for autistic children. And we had services, but again, our services, because we just didn't have the bandwidth. It's not that we didn't have EC services. We just didn't have enough people in EC in our department. You know, there was one person for K through 2, and she was overworked as well. And, you know, when I would have problems or difficulties with some of my EC students because of, like, behavioral stuff, it was never. It was never addressed. They put a band aid on it. You know, the sending a kid to the office to get a lollipop to come back after, you know, being. I would. I would get shoved into filing cabinets. I would have to evacuate my classroom, all this stuff. And it wasn't any child's fault. It was because we lacked people, and we lacked people caring about the students in our classroom. And, I mean, I had one time where I had a student hiding under the desk. It was time to go to lunch. I had another teacher take that mind to lunch, and it was because I had blocked something on his computer, and he was so smart that he read that I had blocked YouTube because it says Jamie Bird had blocked YouTube and he was high. Nothing on their desk after, like, throwing a chair and getting upset. So I called the assistant principal, who hated me and to help me. And the first thing she asked, she goes, well, why did you tell him you blocked it? I said, I didn't tell him. You read it on the computer. And she goes, oh, well, next time we just probably shouldn't tell him. And I'm like, no, you don't think it was. I was always to blame. And I know I wasn't the only teacher that felt like this in that school, you know? And when that all happens, when that all starts to happen, you don't trust your colleagues because your colleagues start to throw you under the bus to save their own ass. My colleagues, we get called in there to be asked about me or me vi. Vice versa. I. I didn't throw any. I never would throw anybody under the bus. And it was such a toxic cycle of people just gossiping. The gossip that goes on between teachers is horrific. Gossiping, always putting people down, never. No one was ever doing anything right. Nothing was ever good enough. We all felt like we were bad teachers, so we would look at another teacher and call her bad too. And it was terrible. And I ended up, ended up getting into fights with almost all of my colleagues because I just couldn't take the drama. I couldn't take the. I couldn't take the narrative of just no women having any women's back in that school. And it's funny because it was all ran by a man. My principal was a man. And I think that should tell us all we need to know. But with that being said, I was a shell of a human. Those are just few instances of why I wanted to leave teaching. I. There was a lot of women that I worked in that school that portrayed my trust and you know, there's just so many reasons. But at the end of teaching, you know, it had been three years and I remember looking at my life and feeling trapped in my own life. And if you've ever felt that feeling, it's probably one of the worst. And what I mean by feeling trapped in my own life is that I remember looking around and thinking, this is it. This is as good as it gets. If this is as good as my life gets, I don't want to live it anymore. Like I don't want this. And I had some deep, horrible thoughts during that time. I was a shell of a human being. I started, you know, I was not happy, I was miserable. I was not being a good enough teacher. I was just going every, every day to work, trying to get through the day. The kids didn't deserve that. My husband didn't deserve that. The people that I love and care about didn't deserve that. And, and it just. I'm so thankful I didn't let those deep dark thoughts win. Because you're never truly trapped in your own life if you know you can change it. And instead of letting my deep dark thoughts win, I decided that my life deserve a reboot in so many ways and that I deserved, I deserved not to feel trapped. And by feeling trapped, I. It pushed me to get out. Was like all the walls were closing in on me. And instead of staying until they squished me, I broke down a wall. I started using a sledgehammer to break down a wall to find a hole to get out. And as soon as I, that I started slinging that sledgehammer, I felt like I could breathe again. And I saw the light. And once I knew I was going to leave teaching, that was the hardest choice to make. But once I knew I wasn't going to do it again for another year, leaving felt like breathing in the quote of Taylor Swift. And that was it. Once I made that decision, there was no turning back. I didn't renew my contract for the end of that year. I didn't even care to do like an exit speech. I didn't even care to tell people in central office what had went on. I didn't even care. Just wanted to get out and they wanted me out too. I think with somebody like me who sticks up for what's right, sticks up with what she believes in, I scared them. I scare people in charge because I threaten everything that they try to cover up or try to keep hidden or I threaten their power. And people don't like when you threaten their power. But if you are listening right now and I encourage you that if you ever know something is wrong in a workplace, I don't care if that challenges the person in power. Stick to your morals, stick to what you feel is right. Because at the end of the day, jobs come and go. Who you are as a person, your morals, your rights, standing up for what is hard is what makes you who you are. And that's who you have to deal with at the end of the day. So I don't regret ever standing up to administration when I felt like something was wrong, especially when it came to my kids. And I don't regret any of that. Do I regret some of the ways I approached it? Yes. I always approach things headstrong. I always like to pick the battle right then and now. I didn't care who was around. I didn't care who was listening. I was like a fierce mama bear. And sometimes that's not always the best approach. Sometimes you have to sit back, collect your thoughts and take a quieter approach. But at the end of it, like, I didn't care. I didn't care who was going to swing at me. I was going to swing back at them and I was come back harder. When you get to the point when you're in a job that you don't give a damn anymore, it is scary. And that's where I was because there had been so many situations that were just so screwed up and it was really. Administration was always the head of it. And yeah, I. I hope this episode doesn't feel very chaotic, but if it does, I. It was because that time in my life was very chaotic. There was so much drama. There were so many. And I could get into details about co workers or this or that, but I don't care anymore. Anybody that was a part of my life in that moment in time, I wish them well. If they're still teaching, wish them well. When I was at that, my last school that I left, I met one of my best friends of my entire life who still teach. She still loves teaching. She's no longer at that school either, but she still loves teaching. She has a passion for it. And I'm so proud of her daily because I see her and I'm like, you were meant to do this. You were meant to be a teacher. And she's a great one. I always idolized her because I knew she is a teacher I could never be. But I got one of my best friends out of it, and for that, I am thankful. I. It made me stronger, you know, and it also made me figure out what I want out of life. I know that I'm never going to be able to be at a job that makes me a shell of a human. You know, life's too short and it's scary to start over, especially in the work field. And it's exhausting, you know, to start looking for jobs, to. To put yourself out there. And I can do a whole podcast on, like, how I look for jobs. It took me a long time. I started looking for jobs when I decided to leave teaching. I started looking for jobs in February, and I didn't get a job until May. And then June, school let out and I just didn't renew my contract, so I started in June. So it took me a couple months. And there's a whole story on that and stuff. And, you know, I'm 28, and for the first time in life, I feel like I'm working a career job that I actually really am truly love and am passionate about. And, you know, it took me all these years, but I would do it all again to get where I am, where I work, because I'm finally happy with that. And, you know, this applies to anybody, even not teaching. But, yeah, I truly am proud of the journey. If you would have asked me that three years ago, I would have just said, get me the hell out. I don't care. I was willing to work anywhere, you know, and I just encourage anybody listening that's going through a hard time where they work and they're not happy to really just don't let it win. Pick your hard. You know, it's hard to stay in a job that you're miserable and it's hard to leave a job where you're miserable because you're scared. It's two times. It's two types of hard. And pick your hard. And yeah, for all my girlies watching, I just, I pray and hope that you guys are in careers that you love and you feel fulfilled and you know your worth and you know your value. And if you're in a job where you feel like you're pitted against other women or you feel like you're not worthy, then that is not the correct job for you. And if it's trickling over into every aspect of who you are and you're looking in the mirror and you don't even recognize yourself because the 40 hours a week you spend at that job is taking every single last good thing out of you, then it's time to leave. It's time to get out. And you know, I, I hope you do. But yeah, that's a little bit of my why I love teaching story. I think the system in teaching in a lot of school districts, not all of them is severely messed up. I don't think the best interest is in kids half the time. I think everyone likes to boost their own agenda. I think that's a lot of people that are in higher up situations. And yeah, I, if you're a parent listening, I take, I also challenge you to take a really fine look at your school system and also to always be on your tens and twos when it comes to who your kids teachers are. It's really actually I take that back because it's never the teachers just really who is running your school. And yeah, before me being a teacher for public school systems, I literally never questioned public school. But now I understand private school and I completely understand homeschooling. It's a scary world out there. If you have children and you're having to make the decision between homeschooling and private school and public school, I completely understand. It's a scary. I, I never thought I would be because I always grew up being like, I went to public school, I was fine. My kids are gonna go to public school, I'm a public school teacher, they're gonna be fine. And then going, knowing what I know now on the other side, it scares me to send my kids to public school and it makes me really about reevaluate, homeschooling and private school. Yeah. Again, this was just my story. You know, you can disagree all you want, but this is just what, this is exactly what I went through and I said nothing on here that is not indicative to really exactly what I went through, better or for worse. And if you are an administration in a school system and you're listening to this again, not every administration is bad. There's bad doctors, there's bad nurses, there's bad cops, there's, there's, you know, bad people administration. But that doesn't mean they're all bad, you know, there's also good ones too. But thank you so much for watching. If you want to know more about my after teaching journey, as well as like what I did to Job Hunt and kind of what I do now, I would love to make a podcast on that. Let me know below what you think, and I will be chatting with you guys soon. Bye.