When 'the same' really isn't 'the same'

Our school has three cars for teachers to use for incompany classes. Every Monday, we have to sort out who will use which car and when due to the fact that four of us need cars early in the morning and none of us go to the same place. I usually take care of that even though it’s Young Secretary’s job. However, a while back YS put out a memo saying that teachers are to get permission from the office before taking a car, so every week I tell her what we are going to do (to make sure I’m following our official procedure) and she gets her knickers in a twist and says, ‘It's the same every week,’ (meaning that the car situation remains the same). I was a quite irritable yesterday, and told her off when she made that comment.

‘YS, the situation is not the same every week. Smileroid doesn’t need one tomorrow, but when he does either Whingebag or I wait for him to get back and run off with the car he brings back, depending on the need for a car Monday evenings, which also changes. If he doesn’t, I take a car in the evening to make sure it has enough petrol in it for me on Tuesdays. If he does, he puts petrol in it. It also changed when Clown got a new class a few weeks ago and we needed to sort this out again because the office didn't realise that four people cannot drive three cars at overlapping times. You many not realise this, but it’s NOT the same every week!’

She looked surprised that I would talk to her like that.

I felt better.