Wascally Wabbits

Wascally Wabbits

There was a point in time when I absolutely abhorred being a Speech and Language Pathologist. I remember wondering why I chose such an undervalued and underpaid career. To add to my workplace malaise I was hit with, “Special Education burnout” from having cared for those with special needs during my 6 years in college only to enter a profession tasked with assessing and treating communication disorders of those with disabilities.  I would drag myself to work and will myself to find some sort of light in the darkness of one impairment, after another.

To make matters worse Rob and I would attend parties that included other 20 somethings only to be met with patronizing smiles and comments about my “nice” profession. “I used to sttttuter!” or “Are you talking wascally wabbits?” I suppose these “jokes” were intended to be light hearted and they didn’t sting as badly as the, “You’re a Speech Therapist? Oh, how nice. That must be so rewarding.” I usually wanted to hide as these Assistant Project Managers, Level 2 Engineers and H.R. Department secretaries participated in what I viewed as self-important, entry level corporate pissing matches. My inquires about people’s work usually netted something that sounded like this, “Well, I am a project coordinator 2 for sector 4.” Huh? Whatever that was seemed much more happiness inducing and exciting than being a lowly SLP.

I finally got so fed up I thought it would be best to look at other ventures. So, Rob and I opened a cupcake shop! Sounded fun and exciting like that sector 4 person but better! The thing is cupcake shops aren’t fun. Yes the TV and radio personalities who would show up to talk with me and put me on the air made it sound awesome, like all good advertising does.  At parties people wanted to hear all about the cupcakes. I felt respected and interesting like that H.R. person.

The truth is the food business is incredibly difficult and soul sucking. There are generally 50 negative comments to 1 positive. Nothing ever seemed right and everyone knew how to bake better, run a business better or frost the better. Speech Therapy started looking really good.

I had to reassess everything and that I did.

Now as I take kids from their classrooms and they look at me and talk about their lives and laugh I wonder how I could have ever felt that my profession was anything but the best thing ever. I am often times the only adult who pays any real one-on-one attention to these students and I can feel in my soul that my presence makes a difference to those children and their presence makes a difference to me too.

What makes my job even better is that I am blessed to be able to share my knowledge with the next generation of therapists. I love training and mentoring these wonderful people and I always remind them that they have one of the most important jobs ever….Sector 4 be damned!