#1—What brought you to Emma Willard School?

Lindsay Slaughter [Visual Arts Instructor], my sister-in-Law has been here for about 15 years, so I was very familiar with Emma and would come and visit a lot. And then my brother, Matthew, started working here, and they both thought that this would be a good fit for me! When the position opened up they both said, get your resume in here! 

 

#2—What is a typical day-in-the-life at Emma like for you?

I usually get breakfast in the morning and then I go through my emails before restocking shelves, look at what is running low and needs to be reordered. The school store opens at 10 and I'll get a little flow of people coming in and out until the lunch period, which is the busiest time!

After the last lunch period is over and the students head back to their classes I’ll get lunch, come back and  I'll process any orders and update inventory. I'll reorder things that need to be reordered, clean up a little bit, and then I get another wave of really heavy traffic after school. There's a lot of restocking throughout the day, since there isn’t a lot of room to keep things out on the floor. 

During the summer I organize the mailroom, but I also spend time ordering new items to have during the year, giftware and school-branded items. In August I start ordering new snacks and drinks for when the students come back. 

 

#3—What is one thing about working at Emma that would surprise people?

How accepting and diverse we really are. I think people would look at it and think, oh this is a very isolated prep school, but I find there are so many different personalities and so many different characters, and everybody's accepting of it. I see friend groups crossing paths and accept everybody for who they are, or learning how to do that, which is really important. 

 

 

#4—What were you like in high school? 

I was very preppy! We're talking kilts, monogram sweaters, and penny loafers. I spent most of my time in my school library. We moved around a lot when I was younger, and I was very shy so when I started at a new high school (in the middle of 9th grade) that was really hard. But two of my closest friends to this day are from that time period. 

I was painfully shy, but I loved adrenaline rushes! I could be really daring, going really fast downhill on my bike, or when we’d get go-karts and I'd be the fastest one. I liked excitement and that kind of stuff! I suppose I was very different with my closest friends than I was with other people. I was very serious about my schoolwork and making sure that I did everything properly so my outlet was doing daredevil activities!