About last week.....

Saturday Colleague and I split a four-hour Saturday morning course, alternating weekends (she's a stay at home mom and can only work weekends). Last Monday, I emailed Bossman to remind him that he had to find someone else to teach the course, because both of us would be out of town on 27 March (not together) - I first told him about that on 15 March.

On Wednesday, he told Incompetent Colleague that he needed to do it, which IC wasn't happy about. He had no plans for the weekend, he just didn't like the idea of working on a Saturday. He said, 'I don't like the idea of being here six days every week,' (even though would have been the second Saturday he had worked this year, and you can count the number of Saturdays he worked last year on one hand). Even though IC was unhappy about it, everything was fine.

IC told me that if more people stood up to BM and refused to work on Saturdays, BM wouldn't schedule Saturday classes, which I countered by reminding him that we're teachers and have to teach when needed, and that BM pays our salary. He didn't like that comment and snapped back at me about our low pay. I reminded him that if we wanted to make €90,000/year, we wouldn't be teaching. Conversation over.

I came into work on Wednesday to find out that the Saturday course was going to be cancelled. I asked Young Secretary why, and she said that it was because I had said that the Saturday students didn't like IC. I was shocked, and asked her what I meant. She told me that it was in the email I had sent BM, and showed me the email. In the email, I had recommended that Bossman ask Tall Colleague, as I knew that the Saturday students liked him. I didn't mention IC at all. However, YS assumed that that implied that the Saturday students didn't like IC, and told him so (before I got to work on Wednesday). IC then decided that he wasn't going to teach it, and no matter how much YS told him he had to, he refused.

Later, BM came in (he was at an offsite appointment most of the day) and found out that IC refused to teach the Saturday class. He, in so many words, strongly recommended that it's be good for IC to reconsider his most recent position on this. IC stood by his decision, but so did BM. BM finally won, and once again, was scheduled to teach the Saturday course.

Later that day, IC cornered me and accused me of sending 'viscous emails' to BM and said a lot of words that weren't very polite. So, I got the email and showed him that I hadn't mentioned him at all in it. However, he took it like YS did, as did TC, and the three of them did their best to be degrading, condescending and extremely rude to me for the rest of the day. I had never been so glad to get out of there as I was on Thursday.

I walked in on Friday to chaos again, about the same situation. BM had called and Old Secretary gave me a message to call him (he and YS were at a trade fair). I did, and found out that he'd be teaching the Saturday course, as IC had called him and was extremely insistent that BM cancels the course. Being at a trade fair and not having time to deal with IC, he told IC that he'd teach the course for him.

When I got to work, I found out that all this had happened and felt cheated. BM had finally backed down. I was so devastated that I almost cried. This probably means that IC, the whiney, lazy louse, will never have to work another Saturday in his life, while I, the loyal, hardworking, reliable teacher, will continue to have to (seniority means nothing here). Of course, when I walked into the teachers' room, TC and IC started in at me again, and kept on (between classes) until I left work. I had never been so exhausted before, but was glad to be away from that building.