Queen of Rambles

How pathetic is this. I’ve worked a total of 12 days and I’m already ready to quit. I guess I won’t since I’m a responsible person and know a lot of the frustration of the day has been amplified by that wonderful thing called PMS. I just hope tomorrow is better.

There wasn’t actually anything specifically wrong with the day. It was just the same old back biting and bitching from the staff, compounded with the constant whining, tattling, do nothing attitude of the students. I can’t handle the stress. My head may just explode. Or else I may go retro and start beating people (adults and children alike) with a handful of rulers.

Even the cafeteria ladies are in on it. The lady who runs the cafeteria is really super sweet and a great cook. I didn’t know a school cafeteria could have such good food, but she really puts out a nice spread. She even makes separate meals for the staff, including really nummy breakfast food in the mornings. I’m going to gain so much weight working there! This morning she said something cryptic about one of the ladies in the kitchen being worthless, but I had never really paid attention so had no idea who she meant.

Fast forward to lunch time. Part of my job is making sure all the kids take an appropriate amount of food. They have to have so many things on their plate in a certain combination or I have to take them back through the line or back to the salad bar. One little guy came out with a bag of potato chips. That was it. I told him to go back and he refused, then he started crying when I grabbed his try and marched him through the line, saying the lunch lady said he couldn’t go back. I found that hard to believe since it is policy that they must go back. So I drag his butt back in there and try to figure out what he wants (mac & cheese, Pb&j sandwiches, or soup). He finally says he’ll take the mac and cheese, but the lunch lady refused to give him any! She told me he could go to the salad bar but she wasn’t going to give him any food! I was astonished. Utterly astonished. While I was standing there with my mouth gaping open, the lady in the other line (there’s two) winked at me and waved me over with her big ladle and gave the boy some food. Then she winked at me again and sent us off on our way. Can you believe that? Of course, all my work was for naught because the boy refused to eat anything but the potato chips. When I was a kid you couldn’t leave for lunch recess until you finished all your food. Apparently that’s out of vogue these days, if not plain illegal.

You want do know the hilarious thing about all this? The only person that I really even like there is the one I’ve previously labelled Lazy Ass. She’s still lazy, but she’s easy to talk to and doesn’t back bite. I’ve just been treating her like an adult and making suggestions about what she should be doing (instead of giving her orders and running and tattling when she doesn’t follow them to the letter). At this point she’ll do just about anything I ask her to do and do it without any drama. Amazing how treating a person like an adult forces them to act like an adult.

I’m really getting sick and tired of Rachel, the gossip. She is constantly complaining that teachers today are “spoiled” because they have aids and in her day teachers didn’t have aids. Today I finally told her that she should be glad they are spoiled or none of us would have jobs. She also tries to get away with the minimal amount of work, but is just better at hiding that fact. Tomorrow we are having a late start day so I asked her what time the aids came in. She said normal time, and I was flabbergasted and asked what we should do for the extra 90 minutes without students. Her response? Hide and look busy! She started bitching that the teachers would come into the room and try to get us to do stuff for them during this time and she can’t do that since she has lesson plans to write. Lesson plans???? We don’t have lesson plans to write. She does something a little bit different than me, but I’ve already listened to three meetings between her and her superiors (I can’t believe they have them with me sitting there!) and lesson plans are not something she does. Then later I walked in and mentioned my hand hurting because one of the teachers has me cutting out little books shaped like feet. She got this really disgusted look on her face and told me I should just tell her no since that isn’t in my job description. I’ve read my job description pretty carefully and it says I am to assist teachers. Cutting out feet qualifies if it’s for class. Frankly, I’d rather sit and grade papers or cut out feet than work first grade math, so I always count those moments as great blessings. I guess she’s just totally burnt out on her job, which I can totally understand. Instead of complaining and being so bitter she just needs to quit. That would make everyone concerned a lot happier, her the most!

Speaking of burn out. . .

My mom sold her house a couple of days ago and so her move to New Mexico is imminent! I’m scared for her since she will have no support system down there and doesn’t even have a financial cushion to help her out. It seems like there are a ton of jobs available so I hope once she’s down there she can get something quickly, but you never know. It will be so strange to have her down there. I’m really happy that she’s finally leaving her current job because she hates it there and has for several years. She needs change. I just hope she’s not making a huge mistake since her main reason for moving to NM is my dear preggo sister. Last week dear sister’s man apparently went out on a bender and slept with another woman. This does not bode well for the relationship. But it’s all ok because he can’t remember any of it. Go ahead and blink then shake your head. I certainly did.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2004 at 6:19 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.