Oh bugger

Just when everything was going fine, I get the bad news. Pompous Ponce will be returning in July. Newest Girl is leaving and he'll be replacing her (because she replaced him when he left). I'm more than disappointed by this news.

Hooray!

After tolerating him for 2 1/2 years, Pompous Ponce is finally leaving at the end of April.

I'm overjoyed!

Poor lad

Blonde Bloke remarked as to what he saw was a lack of hours on my part on the schedule. He didn't realise that in the years since I was hired, contracts have changed and he was hired at the same rate of pay as me, but contracted for more hours.

Pompous Ponce's contract is much closer to mine hourwise and he looked at me and smiled when BB was prattling on. He then said, 'Teachers at this school are not allowed to discuss their contracts,' which seemed to satisfy BB.

If only he knew.

Proof

that a higher power does exist.

Pompous Ponce has lost his voice.

We're now not able hear him babble on incessantly about how great he is.

It was inevitable

In a teachers’ meeting last Tuesday, we gave assessments of our classes and students – looking for mismatches. A few were found, so one class was combined with another and a new class was created. The students involved in the changes were to be notified by Old Secretary.

That didn’t happen.

What ensued was complete chaos this evening. Students went to the wrong classrooms, other students were escorted (by the teachers of the classes they had been in) to the new class – not having a clue as to why they were being taken there – and other students that should have been in the new class didn’t show up most likely because they didn’t know they were supposed to.

It hadn't even been changed on our schedule! Secretary from Hell was on duty this evening and said to Pompous Ponce, 'I have a student that has turned up for a class that doesn't exist' three minutes before our evening classes started.

Nothing’s ever easy around here.

What not to do when you're taking a siccie:

Do not SMS a colleague and ask them if they want to meet for coffee. That colleague (Blonde Bloke) might be in the teachers' room and might tell everyone else there about it.

Needless to say that Pompous Ponce is livid about it.

I'd hate to be New Girl when she returns from being ill next week.

Sorry for the absence. Regular service has resumed.

Not quite sure what's happening

The bosses told Talkie not to come to work today and that her classes would be covered. However, it appears that she was expected in for one of her morning classes and didn't turn up, so New Girl was asked to teach it.

Next week could be interesting.

Way overdone

Talkie was given her written warning on Thursday, which not unexpectedly led to her shedding many tears in the teachers’ room and quite lengthy talks on her part.

The common consensus is that the bosses must have been out to get her. A usual written warning is for one specific incident – this one was not. It was for everything that they could think of that Talkie has done, or is thought to have done.

The most absurd thing that they included was the fact that she sometimes bypasses the office when coming into work and uses the back door to the teachers’ room. She does this because our office can be quite draughty at times and the secretaries complain about that, so she made a conscious decision to avoid that situation and the whinging involved with it. The warning said that could be perceived as being insulting to the office because of the fact that she’s avoiding it, hence being unfriendly to colleagues!

I am surprised that they didn’t write her up for breathing.

Talkie is being written up

for her performance on Monday. Most of the reason is because she stood up to Young Secretary and called her arrogant (which she can be at times). Bossman tried to have a chat with her yesterday but it turns out all he was able to do was listen to her for twenty minutes and nothing got accomplished. YS wasn't happy, so she called Bosswoman and explained the situation to her - and BW made BM write Talkie up.

The only person at work that doesn't know about Talkie being written up is Talkie (she'll find out next week).

Smart plan

I rarely use my mobile phone and usually keep it off at weekends (unless I'm expecting a call/sms to make plans) and while I'm asleep. It's a good thing I did yesterday evening, as Young Secretary attempted to call me twice this morning to see if I could work.

What had happened was that the schedule was changed late on Friday and emailed to the teachers with a request that Talkie be notified in person because she doesn't have a mobile or email (actually, I'm the only teacher that has the internet (hence email) at home so emailing it to all of us was fruitless). Not unexpectedly (because none of us socialise with Talkie at weekends), she didn't show up for a class she didn't know she had to teach, which led to various problems/arguments/etc today (that luckily I was not involved in).

New Guy 2

New Guy 2 started this week and I’ve already come up with a nickname for him: Blonde Bloke. He seems to be a friendly lad in his mid-twenties and it is thought by all that he’ll work out well here.

Note: He's Daftee's replacement, not Useless'.

New Guy is named

New Guy is now called Useless, because frankly he is. Remember Incompentent Colleague? Useless makes IC look like a genius. He can’t explain grammar and frankly has no clue about it at all. Bosswoman figured that he wouldn’t work out from the beginning, but Bossman was unconvinced. He had Pompous Ponce attempt to teach Useless grammar (!) but he just can’t seem to catch on.

BM has already started looking for a replacement for him.

New Guy’s next problem

Upon entering the teachers’ room, I greeted Two-Face (that’s the nicest nickname I could think of for her, so perhaps I’ll have to make a Name the **** post) and she started a conversation with me:

TF: ‘Some guy just came in here and stole my markers for the whiteboard.’
MrT: ‘Some random bloke?’
TF: ‘Yes.’
MrT: ‘What did he look like?’
TF: ‘He was good looking and about my age.’
MrT: ‘That’s New Guy.’
TF: ‘Oh?’
MrT: ‘Yes, he’s a new English teacher here.’
TF: ‘Do you think I’ll get my markers back?’
MrT: ‘Perhaps.’

More from the record setting day.

I was told that I wouldn’t be teaching my normal class that day because they had scheduled me to teach Student X again.

MrTeacher: ‘Why?’
Young Secretary: ‘Because Pompous Ponce normally has one hour of translation with them and I don’t think they want to do that right before school ends.’
*I didn’t even begin to look for logic in that ‘explanation’*
MrT: ‘Right, then you need to call the student that will be giving an oral presentation that day and tell her she has to do it tomorrow. I need that time!’
YS: ‘Go ask PP if you can have it.’

At this point I was bewildered. Why should I have to ask the teacher that will be taking over a class for me that I didn’t want them to take over for permission to take back a class that was rightfully mine, just because the secretary didn’t have the brains to think things through?

*I find PP*

MrT: ‘PP, I need that class you’re supposed to be taking over for me because a student has to give a presentation that day.’
PP: ‘That’s fine. You can have the last 1/3 of it. I’m going to watch a movie with them.’
*I was puzzled but didn’t say anything to him about that*

So, I went back to the office and had the schedule changed to reflect the new ‘change’.

I still don’t understand the logic of it. Many teachers watch movies with their students the last couple of weeks of school (after exams have finished), but I keep mine working by having them do presentations and things like that to keep them learning.