serious musings.
I had a sick day today, which is a great rarity for me. I've been working in a position that allows sick leave for less than 3 years, and I have over 250 hours of sick leave stored up. No, seriously. However, due to the general brokeness of the school system, I couldn't call in sick by myself today and had to go into work, where I had to work UNPAID for an hour while they got a sub for me. When I got home, I slept for several very restful (albeit odd-dream-filled) hours asleep. When I woke up, I sat down at my dining room table and took out the grading I had brought home.
It dawned on me. EVERYONE at work KNEW I'd already worked an unpaid hour that day when I, queen of "I'm fine, I just need some tea," was admittedly ill enough for a sick day. (I'm not kidding about going to work almost dead. Usually Adam or one of my co-workers bullies me into a sick day) But here I am, at my dining room table, with grading. Doing more unpaid work on my sick day. My boss knew I was taking home work and no one stopped me. No one berated me for doing work I wasn't getting paid for. The admin secratary even praised me for it.
My job is always and will always be like this. It will always be so bad, so understaffed, so busy that if I am to keep up with my job, I will have to work unpaid until the wee hours of morning and drive my health flaming into the ground, but not take a day to heal because I have X, Y, and Z still to get done before the end of the week. I lie to myself and my loved ones constantly. I say "As soon as I get these September IEPS done" or "If I can get the kids to Winter Break it will get better" or "Everything goes crazy the week after Spring Break, it will die down" or "Summer is almost here, I just have to get this finished by June 22nd." But the IEPs are never done, it never gets better, it never dies down, and I have yet to finish the last day for teachers and actually be done with the school year's work. And I'm not the only person who does this to themselves. There is an entire fucking system of us, convinced by our bosses that if we aren't working ourselves to death, we aren't working for the kids, and that if we just give a little bit more of our soul to the job, we will see results with the students. Our government convinces us that it was worth it because they will pay for us to go to school, but then worm out of their end of the bargain because of a 1% difference.
I, for one, am finished. I will try to get to the end of this school year, but I am not coming back in the fall. There is a masters degree in something more sane than this, and that's my calling.
It dawned on me. EVERYONE at work KNEW I'd already worked an unpaid hour that day when I, queen of "I'm fine, I just need some tea," was admittedly ill enough for a sick day. (I'm not kidding about going to work almost dead. Usually Adam or one of my co-workers bullies me into a sick day) But here I am, at my dining room table, with grading. Doing more unpaid work on my sick day. My boss knew I was taking home work and no one stopped me. No one berated me for doing work I wasn't getting paid for. The admin secratary even praised me for it.
My job is always and will always be like this. It will always be so bad, so understaffed, so busy that if I am to keep up with my job, I will have to work unpaid until the wee hours of morning and drive my health flaming into the ground, but not take a day to heal because I have X, Y, and Z still to get done before the end of the week. I lie to myself and my loved ones constantly. I say "As soon as I get these September IEPS done" or "If I can get the kids to Winter Break it will get better" or "Everything goes crazy the week after Spring Break, it will die down" or "Summer is almost here, I just have to get this finished by June 22nd." But the IEPs are never done, it never gets better, it never dies down, and I have yet to finish the last day for teachers and actually be done with the school year's work. And I'm not the only person who does this to themselves. There is an entire fucking system of us, convinced by our bosses that if we aren't working ourselves to death, we aren't working for the kids, and that if we just give a little bit more of our soul to the job, we will see results with the students. Our government convinces us that it was worth it because they will pay for us to go to school, but then worm out of their end of the bargain because of a 1% difference.
I, for one, am finished. I will try to get to the end of this school year, but I am not coming back in the fall. There is a masters degree in something more sane than this, and that's my calling.