Fading Memory

By Sadie Hess

I was thinking about the future, but through the lens of the past. I remember when I was a sophomore in high school; I rode the bench for volleyball. It was really tough for me because I loved volleyball and was very competitive. While I rode the pine, I can clearly remember thinking, “I won’t remember this happened when I am older. It also will not be important to me when I am older.” Perhaps you have caught the irony of this thought as I am now forever memorializing it in a blog. Deeper irony, of course, is that I clearly do remember it, shall we say, “when I am older”.

Here is the interesting thing: though I never forgot, it also lost its power over me. I no longer care that I rode the bench my sophomore year. For one reason, when I went to college, I played four years and started every year. I loved that opportunity. I also have had far greater successes and failures since I was fifteen.

I personally hope the overtime fiasco falls into this category: a bad experience I do remember, but it isn’t painful. December and January were especially trying and difficult for all of us. For those of you somehow unaware of what happened, let me recap in rapid fashion: Department of Labor (DOL) said they could change a 40 year old law if they felt like it, and California prepared for the change by passing a 5.82% increase to employers. On December 31^st, a judge ruled DOL could not change a law without congress, and on January 6^th CA pulled the extra funding, forcing every SLS agency to go back to its previous model. The DOL has appealed the judge’s ruling, so it is still in the courts, and we won’t know anything more until the spring. Confused? Yes, we all are a little perturbed and confused by this wonky process.

But bottom line is that this process really hurt all of us. I despise how the office team invested so much time and energy for nothing. My CFAs were especially impacted—some invested over 70 hours in just trying to avoid as much disruption to clients and staff as possible. I hate how much we had to move people around and change schedules for nothing. I detest that we upset parents and clients and staff for nothing.

I am sorry this last season stung every person in the Compass family (ILS because they had to listen to everyone moan and complain) for nothing.

I won’t naively tell myself I won’t remember this painful event like I did when I was fifteen. But being wiser and older now, I realize a valuable lesson. Although I will remember, it does not have to be a painful memory filled with regret and sadness. It can be a memory in just a part of the story…a story we will all continue to write together. We will move past this, go on to do amazing things as a team, and although we will not forget this wretched season, it does not have to define us. It does not have the right to dictate our destiny. Let’s make 2015 the best yet.