Smacks Served Up: Work Edition

I really like this idea of ranting. Air out the dirty sheets in the sunshine, as it were. If it were up to me, I'd call it Smack You Upside The Head, er, Saturday. Yeah, I'm not so good at naming things. Bear with me, while I get a few things off of my chest here at the beginning of the school year.

A smack to parents who enroll their children in school without letting anyone know that they have special needs, "just to see if we'll notice". A special smack to those same parents who then pitch a fit when we aren't providing services for their child, because YOU DIDN'T TELL US. They did not cover mind reading in grad school, people! Not every special needs kid looks like they are special needs!

A smack to the person or persons who made over a hundred thousand copies of something on the xerox machine...using the special education copy code. You took money out of our budget that should have gone to the kids. That was pretty heinous. Now we have to fill out a piece of paper asking permission, and a secretary has to make copies for us. The cost of all that paper would have bought a whole lot of new supplies, maybe even a new wheelchair. If we catch you, you will lose a limb.

A double smack to the parent who put ELEVEN different wrong or disconnected phone numbers on the parent contact card for their special needs child when they registered for school. Even the freakin' school nurse didn't have any correct phone numbers! What the heck do you think we do--sell your personal information to bill collectors? (actually, that's not a bad--focus. Focus.) We want to talk about your CHILD, not YOU. I don't care if you're an axe murderer on parole, as long as you show up to the IEP meetings and provide the school with the CORRECT phone number.

A smack to the dozen or so people who only choose to talk to me when I am listening to something, like a tape recording of a student. They won't talk to me all day, not a word, but the SECOND that I put my headphones on or get on the phone, there you are, standing in front of my desk.

A smack to people who rush to my desk to ask me to do something, then stand there, waiting for me to do it. I could be buried under a mountain of paperwork, typing furiously, but they stand there and expect me to immediately drop everything that I am doing to meet their needs.

A smack to people who tell me a list of seven or eight things to do and expect me to remember all of them. I have repeatedly asked for anyone who wants me to remember something to put it in a email for a reason. I won't tell anyone this, but most days I don't even remember anyone's names.

Finally, a pox upon staff meetings. I hate sitting still for so long. I can't ever hear the person talking because there are fifteen different "whispered" conversations going on as well and my brain tries to hear them all. The woman next to me needs hearing aids and every five minutes or so she will say "WHAT?" very loudly and expect me to fill her in(while I am missing what is currently discussed). We will finish a topic and move onto the next one, and twenty minutes after that someone will bring up what we had discussed earlier. It is all just unbearable! And don't talk to me about the 'synergy' of meetings--this is education. We don't have the budget for freakin' 'synergy'! Everything worth mentioning at a meeting can be put into an email. That would be much easier on my sanity.

Okay, I feel better. Thanks for listening. Er, reading. You know what I mean.

Horoscopes

I opened the paper the other day, and my horoscope said "If you don't have to go to work today, stay home." That's pretty ominous, I think. That's pretty much telling you that you are going to have a crappy day, before you even turn on the coffee pot!

Yes, I am an intelligent person. Or at least that's what the IQ tests tell me. And I know that horoscopes don't 'predict' your future. And that horoscopes usually are obscure and vague enough that you can make whatever happens to you fit the 'prediction'. I know all this. And yet...

That's pretty darn clear language. Pretty specific: stay home, because you're going to have to go to a staff meeting which will suck so bad that it will open a hole in the Space-Time continuum and last FOUR HUNDRED YEARS!!!!!

Okay, it wasn't that long. But it was close. It did bring to mind a certain book I read once...

Rules for a Good Staff Meeting

It's been a busy week where I haven't had a moment to think, let alone get on here and write. I am hopeful that with my new phone I can at least start some blogs while I am sitting in staff meetings.  People think that I joke when I talk about our staff meetings, but I am unfortunately serious.  Think about a trip to the dentist's office for root canal and you have an idea.  So here are my rules for good staff meetings.  Feel free to add your own. 

1.  Staff meetings should not run longer than an hour.  People got things to do. 
2.  Any agenda item that can be stated in an email should be stated in an email and removed from the meeting agenda to save time.
3.  No item may be discussed longer than ten minutes.  If you can't get it all out in ten minutes, it's not that important.
4.  A timekeeper should be elected.  That person is never the boss, and the boss has to follow the timekeeper for the duration of the meeting. 
5.  Always serve food.  And chocolate. 

Anyone got anything else?