My coworkers are so distant – not through any fault, but because of the nature of the job. We all spend our hours with teenagers and rarely with one another. When we do meet up at faculty gatherings, it becomes strikingly clear that we are not the same. They are in their forties and fifties, comfortable, here to stay. I’m new and uncomfortably ambitious. I listen to the music my students listen to and get mistaken for them in the halls. I might last five years here before I go searching for bigger and better challenges. My coworkers are not wrong - we’re just different sorts of people.

When I got here, I realized that many of them saw me as a student. Several of my old teachers-turned-coworkers can’t help but reminisce about having me in their class. I still struggle to call some of my former instructors by their first names. Yet over the last two years, I have earned the respect of my colleagues. The courses I teach carry tremendous weight and everything hinges on test scores. I spent my first year with administrators breathing down my neck and not believing in me, but the tables were turned when my students’ pass rates came back with flying colors. It’s kind of ironic how numbers scare me, yet they legitimized me in the eyes of those who doubted me before. The administrator who hired me went from questioning my every move to becoming a strong believer in me.

Not everyone has been so supportive, though. The term “sexual harassment” brings to mind an episode of Mad Men where a receptionist is incessantly flirted with and petted. I always saw sexual harassment as something that happened to other people, not me. Until it did. It does. It froze me. Day in and day out I receive comments on what I’m wearing (too frumpy, too sexy), and what I’m eating (too healthy, too caloric.) A certain man sometimes even asks me if I’ve "gotten laid lately" as well as to "show some cleavage." While I’ve never capitulated to him, I kind of brush everything off because I’m afraid to bring him to light. He is so beloved by others at the school, I convince myself the problem is me, not him. I wish I could be more courageous.