Thank Ja'Nelle Simpson

Article by: Amber Palmer, M&M TIPster
Photo by: Geoffrey Graybeal, M&M Instructor

ATTENTION ALL TIPSTERS!

Did you know that every time you walk to breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you have Ja'Nelle Simpson to thank for it? Do you even know who Ja'Nelle Simpson is? Well, you should. She works in the office, and helps to coordinate just about everything at camp.

Originally from Durham, North Carolina, Ja'Nelle spent most of her childhood in Durham. For college, she went to school at the University of Florida before going to work for a manufacturing company. She worked there until this year. Ja'Nelle was at Duke TIP at UGA last year, as well. Starting in August of this year, she will be a grad student at the University of Southern California, to study higher education administration. When she is finished with this, she says, she doesn't want to run a school, just help with the administration process. She said she chose the school because it is in a big city and she had never lived in one. Also, she likes the warm weather in addition to the campus atmosphere.

Here at TIP, Ja'Nelle is the operations coordinator. "Basically, that just means office manager," she tells the Media and Message class. She worked here last year in a successful attempt to "beat the system," since she was invited to TIP as a teenager, but didn't come. This is Ja'Nelle's second year as operations coordinator, and she came back for experience, which she believes will help her immensely in the coming years of school. She likes the UGA campus and thinks it’s a really good place for a program like TIP, due to a large amount of activities available on or around the campus.

Ja’Nelle’s main job is office work, but she also organizes field trips, evening activities, and routes to and from meals. She deals with sick kids and anxious parents who don’t accept generic answers about their children (i.e. “I’m sure your child is perfectly alright”). About ten to fifteen parents call the office per day, and about seven or eight kids get sick and go to the clinic each week.
Added to all her other responsibilities, Ja’Nelle drives and names the TIPcars. Last year, her assistant named the cars after the kids from Jon and Kate plus Eight, and Ja’Nelle was not very happy. This year, they are sidekicks. The names include Woodstock, Watson, Diddy Kong, and Scrappy Doo. “I just wanted to name a car Diddy Kong,” said Ja’Nelle.

Every day is extremely busy for the office workers. The morning usually include tracking down students who are sick or may have overslept, getting medication to students, and transporting hurt students to their classes. Afternoons are filled with finishing projects from previous days and getting ready for evening activities. After that, Ja’Nelle is free to do pretty much whatever she wants.

The office staff shows up two weeks before the campers. That’s a week before even the RCs, TAs, and instructors have to be here! That time is spent setting up the camp and office, training RCs, and getting ready for the campers. Then, after Term 1, they get just five days off before coming back to set up for Term 2. They retrain returning RCs, train new ones, and brace themselves for the next round of campers. Term 2 is supposed to be easier, since the staff knows what to do, but “things just pop up” when you work in the office.

Since Ja’Nelle is the main person in the office, she has a lot of people under her, mostly inexperienced RCs. When things aren’t done right, Ja’Nelle never gets mad at them. “I get more frustrated at myself for not explaining things well enough,” Ja’Nelle said. And things do get frustrating, especially with departure flights and changing things in the middle of camp.

The easiest and most fun part of the day, according to Ja’Nelle, is the evening activities, which she loves to be a part of. She drives groups of students to their destination, and gets to participate in the activity. Ja’Nelle’s best memory of evening activities was an RC group night, when they went to a park. There was a tire swing that Ja’Nelle was thrilled to play on. “I love tire swings,” she told our class, “It was just a really happy moment in time.”