[Miscellany]

I spent 30 minutes hiding in the staff toilets because I was avoiding my boss.

Yes, seriously.

Labels: I will do anything to avoid having to do THAT.

posted by M at 6:19 pm 8 comments

I'm determined this year that I'm not going to let the stress of teaching affect all my moods all the time. Sounds piss easy, I hear you say but actually people like me find this quite difficult.

I have two moods: On holiday mood = happy and relaxed. Working mood = grumpy bitch from hell.

MVOR says that I give way too much of myself especially when it's apparent that the situation calls for me to just back away and let it go. So basically, if you hate and reject me I'm going to go right ahead and prove to you why you should love me even though there is no winning with you. There fore all my hard work goes unnoticed and I get further disgruntled which then self-affirms my feelings of being rejected and abandoned by everybody and I'm left there like a cartoon image of myself yelling "hey, what about me? WHAT about ME? I'm useful! Heyyy, ..anybody?". I'm ace, no really, so ace.

Work is a constant source of me not feeling good enough - this is despite the fact that (...and coming from a person with zero self esteem), I'm a really good teacher and operator. I just need to stop caring so much about what I can and can't achieve with other adults and just let the rest go. But I can't...

New manager is not a doer. As in... coasts along and waits for someone else to do it. Who am I? I'm a worrier and a pleaser. What do I do if I see a gaping hole? Why, I fill it of course. You can see where this is heading can't you? On the one hand I am so glad that I came to the decision to give up this leadership role because I *am* less stressed out - on the other I'm constantly in battle with myself to not to keep doing her job for her.

I find things difficult because:
* we haven't had one team meeting since the year started despite things that are in disarray.

* The team still comes to me with their work related issues and then get all defensive when I refer them to the new leader (ie: defensive because ...hey you shouldn't put all the pressure on the new leader!)

* New leader doesn't know the ropes... or anything resembling a rope and yet refuses to come to me for help despite me saying my door is open (like a million times) - now I'm getting other people coming to me saying that new team leader (NTL) is asking all these dodgy questions ..and shouldn't she be asking me instead?

* I'm still actually doing a chunk of her work because I can see that things need to be organised and yet they are NOT!

* NTL actively is using an effigy of me to stick needles into each night.


As a consequence of all this, despite goal not to let work affect my moods and health I look like a crazy lady who has been living in the forest for 2 years and forgotten what it's like to be human.

Does work give you woe? And if not, how did you achieve that kind of bliss?

Labels: MVOR, new leader, rant, stressed teachers, teacher dramas, work

posted by M at 2:44 pm 5 comments

There is a term for people in my situation.
That is, souls who just can't figure out why they can't figure it out. Thus, to try to eleviate the status quo and find something worth blogging for (or living, I don't know) I'm... here I go... coming out of the closet.. I'm ..."in treatment".

What I'm "in treatment" for hasn't been given a name. Am I depressed? Nuts? Weird? Psychotic? Too thoughtful? Ridiculous? Yes, probably and I don't know. I've got to tell you, 11 year old me (whom I consult with quite a bit) wouldn't have believed you if you told her she'd be in treatment in 2011. Of course, 11 year old me would have thought 32 year old me would be living on the moon (true, I wrote an essay on it) instead of in an inner city suburb in Melbs but anyway.. I digress.

My err... what do we call her: My voice of reason (MVOR)? is a poised, thoughtful, intelligent, kind and insightful person who will interrupt my diatribes with highly reasonable examples of why I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I wish I was more like her, but I'm not. I'm the messy person who comes in with an overcooked imagination and disorganised handbag that spills everywhere, often in a bad mood from work and who sits on the couch and blabs, blabs, blabs in a way that is most unattrative and I'm sure highly yawnful.

I'm the opposite of what I want to be.
And what do I want to be?

...just normal... everyday...
simple really.
Not quite sure how many people actually achieve this so called simple stuff, but I'll give it a go.

Time to give someone else my kite string to anchor me for a while.
I've realised it's rather impossible to be the one holding it and flying at the same time.
You just get lost.

Labels: Crazy Nutters, in treatment, MVOR, nuts, talking cure, weird little happenings, weird things

posted by M at 7:20 pm 6 comments

This morning, on the first day back at the salt mine I was 45 minutes late.

Yes, 45 minutes. It's very lucky indeed that it wasn't a teaching day, because I would have been, pardon my French: royally fucked (fucked royale?). As it was everyone was giving me that look when I finally wandered in.. you know, the "oops you fucked up BIG time sister" look. I know it well; I was raised on that look. Some even did the slit throat sign. I was expecting the boss to really have a go at me at morning tea break because she had written this email last week explicitly stating (that is bold AND underlined) that it was strictly an 8.15am start for all staff. Well oops.

Dearest reader... I may be reaching my twilight years (team Jasper!) but I still know how to sleep in like a teen who has been going bong hits all night. I haven't seen "morning" for the past 6 weeks. My morning, summer holiday style is 1pm. My bedtime is 5-6am. I'm not sleeping that many hours here. I'm just all topsy turvy like.. I cannot simply go cold turkey back into waking up at a normal adult hour. Hell, I don't want to wake at normal adult hours. Normal adult hours are ridiculous! It was futile from the beginning.

The funny thing is that the Boss, didn't reprimand me. She looked at me and smiled and asked me how I was. There were a few people she DID reprimand (people who were on time but were ALMOST late.. ie 8.14am) - they weren't happy. Go figure. I guess you never know how things will be - sometimes you just get lucky.

I'm a little confused about my life lesson here, but I did get a little taste of what it's like to be Ferris Bueller for a minute and I gotta tell you, it's a pretty sweet existence.

Meanwhile, tonight I set my alarm extra loud because girls like me are not this lucky two days in a row.

Labels: endless summer lift the curse, ferris bueller method of living, life, stressed teachers, teacher dramas, teaching, work

posted by M at 7:53 pm 5 comments