Yeah, mixed feelings on missing a weeks worth of schooling to recuperate.
We’re OK, just better to be in one place finally.
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Exhausted. Pre-term staff meeting today, which was a full eight hours of thirty-plus teachers and managers crammed into a room doing various discussion activities. I’m OK with meetings, but I don’t do so well with the incessant noise of everyone talking simultaneously for hours on end, lunch included, and only a couple of short breaks to get away from the racket. Came away with a nasty sore throat too (I drank a lot and got through a packet of cough sweets to little effect). I didn’t particularly enjoy a colleague coughing all over me every two minutes either (“I probably had COVID last week”). The actual day was fine, good to catch up with people and the meeting content was stuff I probably need to know.
I was expecting to peacefully decompress in an empty house as Spouse was meeting friends after work, but that got cancelled, so instead I went straight to pick her up from the station and carry bags home while she vented about a work thing, doing my best to make supportive comments despite my increasingly painful throat. She’s now in a Research Frenzy in the study, so instead of prepping Saturday’s game and quietly regenerating, I’m sort of sitting around awkwardly in the living room feeling vaguely grumpy at the world and vaguely guilty for the grumpiness!
(the gentle piano music at high volume that she finds perfect for concentration is extremely distracting for me, so while I can do things in the same room, it isn’t very relaxing)
Some colleagues obviously found the whole experience invigorating, and seemed if anything more energetic at the end of the day!
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Some people are energised by personal interaction; some are drained. The first sort tend to argue for longer and so get things set up to suit them.
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I know there were multiple points just today when I thought “I have something to contribute, but it isn’t particularly important and saying it will only take up more time and lead to more discussion.”
The managers, to their credit, were trying hard to keep discussions tight and get through everything efficiently, but you’re not going to get a whole gang of teachers to limit ourselves like that, we’re a talkative bunch.
It was very noticeable that the topics which really excited discussion were things like minor disagreements on exactly what students’ Neat Writing Books should be used for. Oh, the arguments…
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I have spent weeks fighting with the current foster kiddo’s caseworker trying to get before school care arranged. Tomorrow is the hard deadline when I absolutely have to have the care and it still isn’t approved and I have been massively stressed out. The caseworker disappeared last week and stopped replying to any of my messages, including ones about medical care, which only made the stress worse.
I suddenly got a message from the caseworker today. They are at court right now. The kiddo is going home. Today? So I don’t need before school care tomorrow? I don’t know. Seems like maybe? Kiddo is at school right now and the caseworker is supposed to get back to me soon on a transfer plan to return the kiddo home. Would have been nice to know this was a possibility!
Now I am stressed and overwhelmed in a whole new way. I don’t know if I should go pick her up from school to get her to bring all her stuff home, if I should start packing her stuff here, or if I should just wait in case it doesn’t happen. Right now I am going with just wait. If it doesn’t happen, I don’t want her to know any of this was a possibility.
Talk about sudden!
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And just like that, the child we have spent two months caring for is gone from our lives. Here’s hoping it does well back with her family.
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Wow, sounds brutal.
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The lack of any real warning from the caseworker is horrible! Hope things work out for the kid, and for the two of you.
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I’m inferring from all this that you don’t think this was the best outcome for the kiddo.
So sorry.
The emotional gymnastics that foster parents go through is incredible. God bless you.
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Had to go into the office on Tuesday to do pre-term prep, because the VPN hasn’t been working all summer. It was fairly productive and nice to catch up with colleagues.
I also found out that one of my scheduled classes no longer exists due to under-recruitment. That means I’m down to 10 hours a week of paid work, which is… insufficient. Spouse has also reduced her hours this year for various reasons, and is very stressed about my lack of hours.* So now I need to be seriously looking for a second job that I can do. I’m confident jobs exist where you can work only specific days of the week to fit around something else, but looking for them is a real pain. Lots of part-time jobs, but they want people who can be flexibly scheduled to suit the boss, or work a few hours every day, or else they’re things like Director of XYZ for which I am wholly unqualified. The situations I’ve known where people worked part weeks were all either reducing hours from an originally full-time role, or in-house recruitment where they negotiated informally beforehand, or managers who got to decide how to schedule their own hours.
I also don’t have any of the skills required for most of the jobs going around here, which are things like healthcare and construction. I haven’t even worked in catering.
*Spouse can’t deal with the feeling of financial responsibility, she needs to feel her job is optional and she could leave if she wanted. It’s a mental health thing, but yes, it does put a lot of pressure on me to have a steady job. That would be less of an issue if life had led me into something like accountancy instead of ESOL, which is both poorly-paid and irregular for the most part.
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Definitely don’t think this sudden of a change just as school is getting going was the best idea. Not sure the situation overall at her home will be the best for her but also not sure it rises to a level that justifies using the might of the state to keep her from her family. Tough all around.
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Just had a young colleague in the office refer to the Olden Times (meaning about 10 years after I finished Uni or something) and once my rage had abated I was able to tell a story I’ve shared online before.
At a previous office someone said “they go together like Fred and Ginger” and the tiny child in a suit who they apparently let out of the house said “What’s a Fred and Ginger?”
I got ready to do a “WELL YOUNG MAN, LET ME TELL YOU” when the infant next to him said airily
“Oh, they’re a pair of dancers from the… mid-1900s.”
I was not okay with “1900s” then and I’ll be honest, I’m not okay with it now. Or with “But I was born in 2002!” being an factual thing for a 24 year old to say.
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Or that people who saw Episode I when they were 4 years old, and didn’t know better, are now old enough to troll around the internet and tell us that we only like the OT because of nostalgia and the PT is actually really good.
Oh, children.
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I keep telling people that I am as old as Star Wars and I always have to remind them that I am not talking about Episode 1. The young ones reactions to that are so cute.
My elder colleague (53-ish I think?) however when I told him that Star Trek turned 60 this week was surprised “I thought that was something from my childhood, how can it be older than me.”
Time passes in weird ways.
When I asked my colleagues “What would be your super-power?” as check-in question for our Retrospective, one answered: “I would like to be able to stop time.” So whenever something weird happens we now go “Oh did he stop time again.”
I think this happens a lot.
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Yesterday I received my first actual fan letter.
Somebody named Zoe from the other side of Canada (Victoria, BC) took time out of her day to write me a letter. I’m sending her a signed copy of my newest book as a way to say thank you, because who writes letters these days!?
But it was really nice. Just… a tiny moment of “Huh, maybe writing isn’t all bad.” Like, a genuine win. Racked up a W. It feels weird, but it was unexpected and wonderful.
“Jenny kissed me when we met
Jumping from the seat she sat on
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets on your list, put that in.
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add
Jenny kissed me.”
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Tomorrow I go back to work after two weeks off during which Maryse and I saw two shows, visited the region where I grew up, had possibly my favourite restaurant experience EVER, saw family and friends, played games, had a couple of genuinely awesome, hand-of-god-type moments and just recharged generally.
I do NOT want to go back to work tomorrow. But I must.
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That’s brilliant!
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A “friend” of mine (they’re dead now and the body will never be found …) referred to a revival of the music of the late 1900’s and once I’d parsed it I said ‘you mean the 80’s?’
No court of GenXers in the land would convict me.
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Tired and overwhelmed.
My partner’s Arachnophobia is so debilitating that when he discovers a spider at night … while I am sleeping… even though he tried to deal with it… he ended up waking me from deep sleep. My fight-or-flight response kicked in, I eliminated the spider and couldn’t go back to sleep as my thoughts kept circling and the adrenaline pumping.
The cherry on top is we had a meeting at work yesterday that was so bad–3 parties present, we are only affected in the way that the contract we’re negotiating is not getting done and we may miss deadlines due to this. The other two parties got in such a “fight” that today mails have been written clarifying positions… I cannot quite believe this actually happens.
I do share the opinion of one of the involved parties but managed to keep us out of it I think.
For 3 hours tonight I lay awake thinking about that meeting and then when I finally fell asleep I had nightmares about that meeting.
For those of you who know, today is code freeze day for our next release, as this is only our second release, the process is still a bit flaky and needs my mental capacity… which is not present.
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