Here we are at the long awaited finale to my three part reflection on camp and the other things I may want to do in life… I’ve probably waited too long to write this, but better late than never!
I started feeling conflicted about my role at RSR this past spring for a number of reasons:
For starters, I was tired of the bullshit. Still am, to be fair. The volunteer and professional culture of the council I work in is probably the most toxic work environment I have ever witnessed.
Second, as mentioned previously, I’ve always been conflicted about how I want to do more with music, but I can’t seem to find the time. Simple math skills tell me that I simply cannot continue to do a million things at once and then hope to add more things on top of that. Something has to give, maybe it’s camp?
Third, my friend and Program Director, Andy, announced he was leaving after the summer of 2024, and he was heavily encouraging (pressuring) me to as well. He had good reason to, as a musician himself he was all too familiar with my first two reasons, and he believes I could go on and be much happier elsewhere.
What follows is a brief synopsis of how the summer of 2024 beat the hell out of me, how I may have been duped into returning, and some ideas on what comes next:
All things seemed to start okay this past summer, however it quickly went downhill during our staff training session the very first week of the summer. We discovered a group of staff members had an underground game going where they made bingo cards predicting things that would happen over the summer. Many of the things on these cards were highly inappropriate and targeted towards and even hazing of other staff members. As we investigated, some staff members were honest with us, and others went to great lengths to lie and attempt to cover it up. We ended up firing those who were not honest with us.
Firing a staff member is never a fun experience, and it is certainly nothing like the dramatized TV moments where someone is fired from a job. It’s basically a long, drawn out series of awkward circumstances and conversations. It rarely goes well and there is always fall out and consequences, a true lose-lose situation. In a close knit work environment such as camp, people take things extremely personally. Not only those who are fired, but also those who remain who are friends with them. I got phone calls and personal visits from these former staff members parents, and we also had to deal with their friends who remained on staff having a massive chip on their shoulder for the rest of the summer.
About a week and a half later, we had to remove four Scouts from camp on the same day for sexual harassment of our staff members, three of them from the troop that I grew up in. I won’t go into the details of what they did, but their removal was warranted. However, the leaders and parents from my home troop took it personally as well, and thus began the rest of the summer’s ordeal as they argued, fought, and dragged my character and reputation in an effort to prove their poor babies did nothing wrong… I really can’t begin to explain all the ways this carried on throughout the entire summer and beyond, long after the troop had left property. I don’t even want to recount all the events here because of how close to home this hit, this being the troop from which many of my precious childhood memories came. It will suffice to say that it was ugly, disappointing, and certainly had me questioning why we even deserve to exist as an organization.
Despite how difficult it ended up being, I regret absolutely nothing. We did exactly what needed to be done, and the safety, security, and well being of my camp staff will always be my top priority. Even if I knew what the fall out would look like prior to making these decisions, I would not change a thing. While the so called adults from this troop can say what they like, they did not see our affected staff members crying in their rooms because of the repeated comments and harassment from their Scouts. I did. I could not live with myself if I had done anything different. Being in my role is tough because I often have to make choices that are unpopular, but, at the end of the day, I have to do what is right no matter the cost.
Then came the health issues… Come July, things were not right in my body. I practically could not eat anything without experiencing severe discomfort and related GI issues. I am grateful that Andy, our Program Director, and Catherine, our Camp Commissioner, were extremely gracious in covering for me any of the times I quite simply could not function.
I’m typically a very stubborn person when it comes to seeking medical care, but my thought at first was, “I should go to the doctor sometime,” soon enough became, “I should go to the doctor after camp is over,” and then quickly snowballed to, “I need to go see the doctor as soon as possible.” Fast forward through appointments, bouncing around to different doctors, tests, and a colonoscopy— best guess is I can’t eat gluten. So far that’s solved a solid 90% of my own issues, which isn’t perfect but certainly far better than how I was at camp during that time.
I was beaten down. Tired. Frustrated with the program and ready to leave by the end of the summer. Truly what I wrote above wasn’t even the half of it, but by the end of the summer Andy and I were shocked at how it ended up beating the shit out of us more than the previous two summers combined.
Okay, here is where I saved this post as a draft because I was frustrated and said I’d finish it the next day and then didn’t touch it for months…
It’s a hard realization when something you know and love dearly also takes its toll on you… I was no stranger to the unfortunate realities of management. I’ve long said that these kinds of positions are full of no win scenarios. We can do everything right and still lose.
Following the summer, I was on the fence about wanting to leave. I thought I had my mind made up, but I also really didn’t want to leave on a bad note. Was my work at RSR finished?
I told my boss, the CEO of our council, that I wanted to revisit my contract prior to officially beginning work on the summer of 2025 so that I could address my own concerns with the workplace and make sure there was sufficient action prior to signing on for another year. Now, hindsight is 20-20, but I should have officially submitted a letter of resignation and opened the door to signing a new contract. My contract did not have an expiration date, and I am paid monthly throughout the year. So, while my boss told me, “yes, yes, we can do that,” he was also delaying that conversation while simultaneously telling many others in the council that I was already employed for 2025. By the time he delayed it to October, I looked like the asshole to anyone else in the council by not performing my duties I had technically agreed to by not resigning immediately after the summer.
Shortly after the summer, I went to an Eagle Court of Honor for one of our camp staff members. For anyone not involved in Scouting, this is essentially a party/recognition ceremony for Scouts who attain the rank of Eagle Scout. At the ceremony, the camp staff member’s father had a conversation with me where he expressed his gratitude and perspective on how much good working at camp did for his daughter. With tears in his eyes, he told me of how proud he was of how much she had grown as a leader and as a person since working with us.
That was the first moment I began to feel okay about returning in 2025, because that is why I do what I do. I know from my own personal experience how much good working on camp staff does for kids and young adults, and I want to provide that experience to people as best as possible.
Also, this may be prideful to say, but despite all the awful situations from 2024, I feared how another Camp Director may have handled the same circumstances. We are a small council after all, and unfortunately it is not a stretch to say that I may be the best and only suited person for this job at this time. Who else would stand up for their staff members even when it comes at great personal cost? I hope someone else would, but you never know.
I had the meeting with my boss and two of our Executive Board members where I voiced my own concerns with returning, and stated that I needed these things to be addressed for me to return. Six months later, I can confidently say I was ignored on all counts. I am certainly the boy who cried wolf at this point, because, here I am, still preparing to be at camp in 2025.
I won’t go into all the other issues that have popped up since then, but, still, this role is taking its toll. It has always been hard to see the benefits while in the thick of it: the great camp, the happy Scouts, and the changed lives. But where is the breaking point?
Here I stand at a fork in the forest, two paths in front of me. I wish these decisions came easy without leaving me with more questions than answers, but that is simply not the life we live in. Is it not?
[title pending] 