Lying to Children

When I was in high school, I literally only knew one thing about our principal. Palos Verdes Peninsula High School had something like 3,200 students, so suffice it to say my principal and I did not have a Mr. Belding-Zack Morris relationship. The only thing I knew about him (and I'm pretty sure at least 2,000 other people only knew this one "fact") was that, believe it or not, he was once a janitor of the very same school! Check it out kids! Hold fast to your dreams. He was a janitor, and now he's principal!
-
This always rang a little false to me at the time, but I never pondered it too much. I guess I was too busy playing brickbreaker on my TI-83 to worry about it (which sadly, I still do now, only on my Blackberry). But think about it for a second - seriously? "Janitor" isn't an entry-level job for "Principal". When you show up on your first day as janitor, no one tells you, hey if you scrub the cafeteria well, you might get promoted to French teacher. It doesn't work like that. They're just totally separate job tracks. If you're a really good night janitor, you get promoted to day janitor, and then building supervisor.
-
Plus, being a principal is one of those jobs where performance is hard to ascertain before the fact. So principals inevitably get chosen from the ranks of teachers, typically some pillar of the community who the school board and town are comfortable with. It's unfortunate, but if everyone thinks of you as a janitor, it's hard to change the accompanying perceptions.
-
I think I'll buy that this guy was once a janitor somewhere, like he cleaned the dining hall floor as a student in college. Then he decided to use it as his universal story of inspiration. The more I think about this, the more confident I am that this can't possibly be true.
-
I feel deceived. Belding would never have done this.