While I have never had a steady job due to constant softball workouts and tournaments, I have taken away things from the odds and ends jobs I have worked. One of these jobs was an internship though a business called HSSI. I was only working there for two weeks, but I learned a lot from it. Everyday I would come in, grab a stack of papers, and scan them for hours. My first couple days I was miserable! I was so bored and the job was so tedious. I later found out how helpful my scanning had been to the people who worked there. When the company was entirely paper, the employees would spend hours searching for information for an audit or another project when their time would be spent more valuable working on that project. Knowing I helped the entire company by scanning those papers for them made me feel better about the job and gave me purpose.
Over the past couple summers (an occasionally winters) I have given softball lessons to younger female athletes. Being the only girl between my two brothers, it was an amazing experience for me to teach these girls something that I loved to do. I remember, when I was their age, having college softball players come to our practices and the instrumental impact they made on my life. I would not be here today without the work they put into my practice. While I always had an amazing time working with the younger girls, I always hope and wonder if I made an impact on their lives like the older college girls who taught me did.
The summer of 2019, I worked the Longwood University softball camp. I have never had more fun at a softball camp than I did the three days I was coaching then. I was lucky enough to work with the sub 11 year old group. I had girls who were between 5, 8, and 11 years old! I learned so much about patience and motivation for different types of people. Getting a 5 year old to stay awake and running around/practicing softball for 8 hours would take different motivating than it would for an 11 year old. I had to have the patience and creativity to keep the kids entertained when we were waiting o go to the next station. My one goal the entire week: to make sure everyone had fun! It is so important at such a young age to make sure they are having fun because we don’t want them to lose their love for the sport.