500 to one.
Imagine that someone was outnumbered in a fight, 500 to one.
Imagine that there’s paper flying all over that fight, imagine that empty pens and eraser shavings covered the floor, and pictures of long-lost families sit in the background.
Now walk across campus and watch that fight, then open your eyes, because it’s no longer your imagination, it’s a reality.
Of course there’s no blood being spilled, nobody’s died, the worst injuries are just paper cuts and large amounts of stress.
But, and there’s always a but, it’s still 500 to one, there’s still minds lost in papers and documents, over-encumbered by the hundred upon  hundreds of meaningless requests so that you can go to Double Dave’s with your friends for lunch.
By now if you haven’t figured out that I’m talking about the counselors then here you go, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out our dear counselors and their counterparts are severely “judged by the cover”. By “the cover” of course I mean when you get angered because they deny your request no matter how cute those puppy-dog eyes are.
Many students go to the counselors with actual issues, and good on them for that, but this article is not addressed to them.
This article is directed towards the people that think our counselors aren’t doing their jobs just because they won’t switch the class you “accidentally” signed up for, or because they don’t have time to talk to you about how badly you “need” to be in that other period that’s full of your friends.
Their official terms are “Guidance Counselors” not “Schedule Changers” and if you really need to change your schedule because of an actual problem, then don’t just barge in like you’re the king of the playground.
There’s something called an appointment that the people who wear big boy and girl pants use in the real world too, and it actually matters.
All you have to do is send an e-mail or talk to the secretary, and voila it’s as simple as that.
Now some of you may be saying, “What on earth is a counselor?” because you’ve never visited one in your life, I am among the group that scarcely visits them myself, but I know what they’re there for, and I respect them for it.
Now ponder this for a while, school counselors aren’t even required by the state of Texas, imagine not having them, whatever classes you got, you kept, and the rivers of tears would flow heavily.
You may say these people are just some random guys and gals with small educations and that to become a counselor would be like taking candy from a baby. Well that’s where your again, sadly mistaken.
A master’s degree is no small feat, in fact it’s rather grand, so grand that after eight years a counselor gives up the job as a therapist that could make them hundreds of thousands a year to come here to this school for all of us.1
These people not only have your back, they have every kid in the schools back, just like all the teachers, and all the staff.
These people go to college for you, these people wake up in the morning for you, these people sit all day listening to real problems and fake ones and finding solutions for you.
And when you’re an adult too, guess whom you’re going to wake up in the morning for if you keep thinking that you can change everything at the gleam of a puppy-dog eye.
Not for your children, not for your wife, no, for you.