I love the smell of irony in the morning

So in the span of one week I experienced that exquisite feeling of going from the sublime to the ridiculous. I got a job offer (very very short term-- a 2 week contract) it was offered to me sight unseen, purely on the merit of a recommendation and my CV on file. It's fairly lucrative-- about $250 a day--depending on how fast I work, I guess, but with the potential to be that start of Big Things. The contract is with a Government Agency that oversees converting classroom content to packaged courses -- both print and online.

So...I happily accept the job which happens to be doing the Instructional Design on a grade 12 course. Brilliant-- I'm all excited. That's the sublime moment, followed days later by another conversation with the HRH who (just to cut to the chase) is still insisting that I cannot be considered for teaching positions at the Secondary Level. They HAVE to have experienced teachers in those halls.....


After I complete the Gov't Contract, I will know more about that course than any teacher in the province. And yet. HRH would STILL not deem me suitable to teach it....It would be laughable were it not so pathetic....

New Job, Same as the Old Job

*Ring*

"Hello?"

"Hi JOT, I had a call from HR this morning and have a job you might be interested in. Can you call the Harridan of HR post haste?"


So I call. Her voice oooozing with that special sincerity the emotionally retarded reserve for use in only the rarest of cases, she answers her phone with "Oh JOT! How ARE you?" I can just see the smoochy face. "Yeah, good, say, my Rehab Worker told me about the job at C.El, but I'm really not ready to come back yet"

And the rest of the conversation is polite "Thanks for the call" "No Thank you for letting my know" "No, thank you for thinking of me".....etc.

Everyone was a little surprised that she had just Out of the Blue offered me a position (temporary, just to the end of the year). But here was the weird part-- there were several other jobs posted that week that I would have liked.....what was going on? When I checked back with my Rehab worker, apparently, the HRH is suspicious about my credentials. Apparently, she questions whether or not I have what it takes to teach anything outside of Grade 4. I look forward to disabusing her of that notion.

It was time to go to the top......in this case, the top of a Dung Heap, but still, to the top I went.

Part B--Taking Kryptonite to SuperChin

I booked an appointment to see the Superintendent just before I left for the Retreat. In fact, she isn't the ACTUAL Superintendent, she is the ACTING Superintendent. I like to say that "Acting Super" is what she does best. In any event, the irony of talking to her about this situation was her suggesting (rather firmly) that I not revisit past *wrong doings* as she was not Running the Ship (I said ship) back then, and bore no responsibility. She did note, however, that they had made an absolute mess of my position last year, but obviously has never put 2 and 2 together to realize her role in that--because she hired one of her friends for a job that I was so patently the best and most obvious candidate--so much so the beneficiary was horrified to learn what had happened--she assumed I must have turned down the offer of the position.

In any event, sitting in the Presence of Superness, I laid out my frustrations with the lack of vision and support (and accountability) in the office of HRH (a position, incidentally, filled by a person with no experience in Education beyond her own 3 years finishing grade 8). It seemed to be getting more and more difficult to explain to her that while in her last job in the lumber industry it may have been appropriate to require certification and tickets for certain positions, a teacher with a K-12 license is actually qualified to teach (get ready for it) From Kindergarten to Grade 12.

I'm not at all sure we will make progress on that score (it seems too challenging a concept for HRH), but SuperChin and I did make some headway. She would Guarantee a Transfer for me for next year (really, not much of a gesture, since part of my Back-To-Work Durability plan includes the non-negotiable clause signed by my Doctor that I not return, ever, to H.El(l).

And I said to SuperChin: "I'm really struggling with the idea of leaving teaching altogether--I don't think it's healthy for me here anymore, but it bothers me that the best and brightest are being forced to leave Public Education"

Score 1-0, JOT.

Hugged by the pale hand of death

No, it's not greater, more hysterical drama--it's an encounter with one of the Senior Admin. I didn't coin that nickname for her, but it sure suits....

The last time I had to deal with her officially was an event I referred to here:

How much do you overlook?

That was the day, just a little more than a year before I walked away, she put one of her pale, boney fingers in my face and said "Call us tomorrow with your choice, and the choice is *crappy job #1* or *worse crappy job #2*" Well, of course, I don't really take well to pressure at the best of times, and this was no exception. So, even though I'd been working at H.El(l). for 10 years, even though I had pleaded for a transfer, even though I had a graduate degree in a new burgeoning field, EVEN though I had been at the school for so long --still, they couldn't do the right thing. So, I made it easy for them. I wrote an email to every trustee, every member of senior admin, the union, the HR woman, the Super....the pale hand of death....and I told them I would not sacrifice my health and my integrity for the sake of THEIR error. So....I made up the "excess" by taking what I called an "Involuntary voluntary reduction in time". The union, of course, begged me not to do that, but I had no choice as I saw it-- if I was forced into either of the positions, I would be miserable, and spend the year awaiting an outcome in the "grievance" process.

The question I keep coming back to in my head is how do the people making those decisions sleep?


Anyway-- yesterday, I was waiting for a veggie burger from my favourite Health Food cafe, and in walks the PHOD, talking into her Blackberry (as usual). I prayed for the arrival of my Veggie Burger-to-go before her call ended, but no such luck. Not only does she make a bee line for me, she embraces me in a Boney Hug. Asks me how I am. Looks probingly into my eyes. Murmurs a soothing platitude about how a rest will be so good for me, and how glad she is I am taking care of myself. And I had to find it within myself to chuckle at the irony, later, my god-- it was in great part HER fault that I was in the predicament I was in.....and yet...... Accountability-- BIG buzzword in our district. Sure doesn't seem to apply to those who should most be held to it....

How much do you overlook?

C.'s husband asked me the other day if I thought the prince was just trying to get rid of me. I sort of laughed and said "that's the ironic part." He has never wanted "rid" of me--he knew that he should be thanking his lucky stars that I was on staff. There was no one to take on any of the technology issues or to spark creative ideas or bring the staff together. He was smart enough to recognize my worth, but too stupid to let me run with it. His form of leadership is maintaining a strangle hold and micro-managing every piece of minutia that sifts past.

Of course, he fits in very well in the district, since blatant incompetence coupled with talented butt kissing is the key to success.

Making it worse is the knowledge in my heart that he IS a decent man, that he DOES care about the kids and about us. And yet.... he just can't help being a complete ass.

There was the time a parent was attacking me for her daughter's bad attitude....why, they couldn't even get her to do her chores around the house any more, since she'd been in my class (this is the sort of mental process that makes me often proclaim "my god, people are idiots!" ). At one point in that meeting she threw one of her daughter's exercise books at me. I knew right then that the right thing to do was to get up and walk out. What stopped me was knowing that I could not trust the prince to not say something damaging to me or in some way sell me out in my absence. I realized with clarity in that moment that I was completely alone....I work with 30 kids and a dozen adults everyday, and I am completely alone.

This dangerous solitude would be responsible for a horrific decision I had to make just a few months later...

Jinxes and Cooties

Remember the third grade? Someone could give you boy germs or someone else's cooties, and you could pass them on to someone else. If you said "No Returns!" you couldn't get them back again from someone else in the chain.

I'm in a Cootie Free zone, right now. No give backs. I'm passing on the contamination, and it can't come back-- I won't allow it.

My job used to be fun-- I remember waterfights in the staffroom at lunch. I remember one Prince who even brought us in some "fruit punch" after a late-night fun fair. I remember getting rolled down the hall on an AV cart. I remember monthly pot-luck lunches and staff parties and gift exchanges.

I remember joy.

And yet....the lip-service is all there. We hear it all the time, the need for leadership, the need to *embrace* the skills and talents of our colleagues, the need to play, but I sure don't see the follow-through.

Why did I stop being able to rise above the politics and low morale? When did I start just putting one foot in front of the other and mindlessly Zombie-ing my way through the day.

It had been coming for some years-- I had tried to transfer out of there when we got this Prince. It was bad enough our school had become the dumping ground for retiring-- or should be retired--Princes at the end of their career, but this one came with some bad baggage.

In fact, the warning bells rang loudly when one day after his imminent arrival was heralded we, the staff, received a card from the staff of the school he was leaving......a sympathy card.

His movement from one school to another in the district over a period of 10 years belied the real pre-requisite for advancement here-- complete incompetence is what is needed. That and of course, the ever present "who you know".

It's pretty hard not to be cynical when you see who does get hired and advanced and accommodated.....while you sit on the outside.....hoping your luck changes. Because skill, talent, education, attitude and ability are not enough, apparently, when you are up against frank nepotism in an army of sycophants.


Gee...do I sound bitter? I guess that's because I am...