Coffee with Tina Roberts

Fifty Cups of Coffee, Cup #1: Tina Roberts

Fifty Cups of Coffee #4: Tina Roberts
Date: January 26, 2024
Location: Zoom

How we know each other

Tina and I went to middle school and high school together. We were both on the high school Speech & Debate Team, and wrote for the school newspaper. She’s always been a gifted writer, and a kind and caring soul. We reconnected through Facebook a few years ago, and I was thrilled to have the chance to reconnect with her over Zoom for this coffee chat!

What Tina is doing now

Tina currently lives in Grand Ronde, Oregon and has spent the past five-and-a-half years working as the Language Arts Education Specialist for the Standards and Instructional Supports team for the Oregon Department of Education. Before that, she worked as a teacher and instructional coach in Gresham/Barlow School District, which is the same district we both attended middle and high school.

Three questions

During these Fifty Cups of Coffee chats, I ask each person the same three questions. The reasoning behind each is as follows:

Question 1 – Social media makes it easy for other people to think that they know us, when truthfully, we all only see a small sliver of someone’s life and who they really are. This is the interviewee’s chance to share something that is important to them that, for whatever reason, other people may not know.

Question 2 – We all have fears, no matter who are are or where we are in life. This helps connect us and show we are all more alike than we are different.

Question 3 – I believe the answer to this question helps show each person’s true values, passions, and their why in life.

There are no right or wrong answers to any of these. I’m including each person’s answers in first person. Their answers have been edited from my notes for length and clarity, but these are their words.

What is one thing you wish more people knew about you?

“On my team we have a meeting structure and cadence that really has evolved over time, but it’s really been pronounced since Covid, which drove us all to work from home. We all still work from home – well, most of us are working from home – and one of the things we had to do is to help schools transition to online learning. The focus then was on care and connection. And now, my team is required to participate in care and connection activities even if we don’t want to.”

“I am an extreme introvert and only like to share under my own circumstances. I don’t want to be told to share with someone I don’t know. At an in-person team retreat where we met in the office, the boss decided we would have accountability partners at work and that makes me uncomfortable. Now I’m put in a position where I have to fake it and I don’t like that either. I wish she understood these are artificial, performative, and meaningless, and they’re a waste of my time.” 

What is your deepest fear?

“Something happening to my family – that’s really the biggest fear I have. For something to happen to them. And then beyond that, my fear is not living who I really am.”

If you had unlimited funds, what would you do with your life?

“I would retire from this job. I was a classroom teacher and mentor to new teachers for 18 years before moving to the State, and in a lot of ways it’s awesome, but it is oftentimes it’s a soul sucking job. I didn’t understand what being a beaurocrat really meant, and it’s really frustrating and unfulfilling. We would live at the beach and I would drink coffee on my deck overlooking the ocean, and I would focus on the things that I love most: reading and writing.” 

Lessons learned

My biggest takeaways from this coffee chat:

• Making time for the things that give you joy is so important. Tina loves reading and writing, and I see how much joy both activities bring to her life.
• Being honest with your boss is important. When I double checked with Tina that it was okay to share all of her responses, she said that her boss knows all of this. I think that’s one of the characteristics of today’s working world that I appreciate: that there is more acceptance of being honest with co-workers and bosses. Because in the end, businesses can only grow from honesty within the team. It behooves no one to hold back and pretend; but when dissatisfactions are aired out, only then can the real work toward positive progress can begin.
• Re-connecting with friends from your past is important. I honestly cannot remember how Tina and I left our friendship decades ago when we finished high school. Did we part as friends or did our friendship already start to wane before I left for the opposite coast? As I prepped for our call, I really couldn’t remember. And honestly, in the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the now, and if you have the chance to reconnect with someone from high school, I think you should take it. Reconnecting with Tina after all these years has been wonderful, and I’m so glad she signed up for a coffee chat.

Thank you for taking the time to be one of my 50 Cups of Coffee, Tina!

Learn more about Tina

You can read Tina’s personal writings on Medium.

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Learn more about me at MarlynnSchotland.com.