Why do some people just have to be mean spirited? I really don't think that God put in a mean spirited gene. It can't be fun. It really gets you nowhere. I would think that the thrill of bullying (if there is one) would be very short-lived. What's the payoff?
I witness it way too much. I see students doing it to each other. I see the referrals come in for discipline. I read them and just go "Huh? You did what?" Sometimes I see the victim looking pretty demoralized. When you are 13 and 14 everything is huge. You don't have to even be particularly nice to each other. Just quit being mean.
I think we teach our kids these ways of interacting. I see it all the time from parents. They want to know something about their kid and they come storming in demanding to see someone at that very instant. Almost everyone that works there is a parent. We get that we are dealing with our most precious resources. That's why we are there. I had a woman the other day mad because an assistant principal was in meetings all day and she would have to get an appointment or wait for her to call her back. She said "Well they are suppose to be here and available to the parents." In my sweetest voice I told her "No ma'am. Actually they are suppose to be here helping these students get a good education and that's what they are doing right now."
As you can tell, something really set me off today. Nurse Ratchett and her buddy swing hot and cold like the pendulum on a clock. One day very friendly and nice and then the next.... Never turn your back. I, along with others, came in to work today to find a small personal-sized cake at our desks fixed up really prettily and a card that said Happy Secretary's Day. No name. I took some bites and just bragged on it and then tried to find out who was the cake fairy. It was the Nurse! Should I have had a food taster? That was really a very nice thing to do. Then when I got back from lunch, I got this nasty, sarcastic e-mail from her buddy. She is suppose to catch the phones when I go to lunch and was out of her office when I was leaving. I asked someone else to catch them. They said where is so-and-so and I said that she was not in her office. That's it. Just an observation, not a criticism. No big deal. I don't know what this other gal said to her, but after lunch she wrote me that she had been in her office for a full 45 minutes before (no comment)and had just left for two minutes to go to the bathroom, and why would I say that I couldn't find her? I really hadn't given it that much thought. (Can you even believe we had this conversation?) She was the same one that said I needed to take a half day of my sick time when I left and hour early to take my son to the ortho. The scary thing is that she could go ahead a turn it in that way and wouldn't know it.
I am so very tired of this childish drama and today this little, stupid e-mail just pushed me over the edge. I was just about in tears of frustration. She has pulled many silly, petty annoyances on me, but this time....she put it in writing. I had asked the principal earlier to meet with me and look at some other things so I just took a copy of the email with me. I told her that I was so tired of having to look over my shoulder to keep from having issues and that it was getting harder to deal with. Anyway, I ended up being mad at myself. I always think that when you have a "gripe" meeting like that with a superior, you ought to have a outcome in mind that you are requesting/suggesting. Why am I telling her about this? What am I asking her to do about it? I really don't know. I don't think detention will work very well although I would be amusing to see. :) I felt like I was a kid "telling" on her. In the end, I still have a problem to work out but at least someone has seen a snippet of it with her own eyes.
Anyway this is today's segment of "As the Stomach Turns"; also known as "Just because you work in a middle school doesn't mean you have to act like it." Thanks for letting me throw up just a little. Between that and the margarita I had with dinner, I feel better now.
Later.
4 comments:
And people wonder why I have one glass of red every night.... A good book for you to read this summer is A New Earth, Tolle. I read it last summer. It really explains why people act the way they act. Some people think he's a Buddhist but I think he touches on all religions in this book and how all their teachings are all pretty much the same.
When you work with people as closely as we do you become family, then you start treating each other without respect. And we all know how family members can cut your throat and look you in the eye while doing it.
As for the parents.... I'm the secretary... no matter what or who, it goes through me first. I'll decide who and when someone sees the Principal. She likes it this way. 9 times out of 10 they havent' climbed up on the first rung of that ladder of communication and spoken to the teacher... step down and talk to the teacher, then call me back. And I'll refer you to the Counselor then the Asst. Principal, then the Principal.
I hate that you didn't have a good Secretary's Day. Mine was awesome.
Read that book, you'll have a whole new outlook on other people.
Here, have some chocolate. It goes very well with red wine.
You did exactly the right thing. To have tried to deal with it personally would have simply escalated the perceived threat. Keeping it professional as you did keeps the emotional level down. This tells your colleague that you will not put up with this sort of juvenile behavior.
Middle school is hard enough without the adults acting like kids. Sheesh. (And FWIW, no one I know had a good time in middle school.) The school has to address the attitude problem with everyone: staff, faculty and student body, in order for it to change. Good luck. While you wait, be the change you want to see. :)
Jomama - All I have to say is "Amen, Sista". I think every parent ought to work for at least one week in a school to see how much is put in for the students; how hard we work and how much we truly do care.
Birdie - Chocolate makes just about anything a little better. Thanks for the back up. Sometimes it just stinks being an adult.
Um, I don't know if this is a good quality or not but if someone tries to ruin my day, I let everyone hear about it. Then if a dead body turns up, well, they'll have the back story to tell the people from Channel 2.
My friend Murphy has been having the same problems with someone she works with in a middle school too! It's a pandemic! Quick, pass the wine!
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