First Day Without Pay

I woke up at 6.30am to get some emails sent to the various colleagues on various matters.

I realised it took me an hour just to do that - locate information, make references, decide on who to keep in the loop, what to type.

I guess when you are on the go all the time, as what we do when we are in school, we just do them in a flit without thinking much, not realising that even emailing takes up a substantial amount of time.

Now I know why people list 'reply to email' as part of their jobscope.

As teachers, 'reply to email' is not even considered a jobscope. It's just a peripheral to what we really do. Often, the emails we reply to entail jobs that take hours or days to complete, so replying emails is not considered part of the work.

You'd think I got no work to do already, right?

I have finished setting the paper my boss wanted me to set, but I haven't submitted it to him yet. I had wanted to yesterday, but suddenly, I was gripped by this fear that he might sit me down last evening to do a 'quick vetting' with me, so I decided to pass him the soft copy in a thumbdrive (nevermind that I can't find my thumbdrive now) via a colleague next week when the deadline for the paper was due.

Then I have another task to do: to set individual targets for 77 kids for Science before emailing it to the new teacher for her to key in 'because you know your kids better' (as quoted from you-know-who).

Well, I can only pray that there won't be more work after this.

I am finally going

My boss finally gave me the nod on my fourth visit to her office.

I said I was close to a breakdown, which was something that's true.

My leave will start some time next week.

Between my application for my no-pay leave, I made some serious boo-boos at work. They are things that I have done for many years as a teacher without any glitches. One of them was so serious it warranted an official advice from the boss. No matter what the reason was, I could never absolve myself from the mistake.

So yeah, I really gotta go.

I know my boss is one ruthless lady. Ever since her reign started last year, 5 colleagues have transferred out, at least 6 have resigned. And she did not make any attempt to stop any of those who had requested for the transfer from going ahead.

Out of the 6 who had resigned, she appeared to have tried to retain 1 or 2 senior colleagues. Other than that, the last I heard, she refused to allow a colleague to retract her resignation letter when the distraught colleague decided that her decision to resign was made in the pique of a moment just a day or two later.

I appreciate the fact that she tried to persuade me to stay, offered me part-time load and all, but I need a break badly. The guilt and stress of being unable to support Coco in her quest of doing reasonably well at the year-end exam was getting to me.

However, I am still tasked with the mission of setting a Foundation paper for SA1, after I had a stormy negotiation at the Science boss' cubicle.