First Day From Hell

It’s my first day back on the job and I’ve already come home in tears. Where to begin…

Over the summer my maintenance guy promised me that he would install my spray booth. I know he’s a very busy and under-appreciated man, but he promised something and I thought he would come through. He didn’t and I’m back to the expensive paperweight/storage container on the counter bit. Great.

Last Friday I hauled Adrian (and all of my borrowed ceramic studio equipment) in to my classroom. The custodial staff enjoys tearing the room apart over the summer and NEVER puts my 300+ lb. tables back where they go. So I needed Adrian’s help to shove them back to their places. Not easy in itself but then you add on top of that the fact that my floor is sloped toward a drain in the center and that means that the feet on all of the tables have to be adjusted to level off the tops. An irritating way to begin my year.

Today was our first day of inservice. As a member of the art department I have come to acknowledge that many inservices are going to relate more to other folks than to me. The first two hours of our morning inservice were just that. But then I learned that the district has decided no teachers should have printers in their classrooms. WHAT? I went my entire first year without a printer in my classroom. I know what it’s like and let me tell you the amount of ridiculous-ness that decision has and will cause cannot be quantified. Instead we will have “printing stations” where everyone’s documents will print. In an art classroom students require the use of a printer almost daily. That’s a fact. And should I need to print something confidential (like a student’s grades? Accommodations??) Um, do you see the issue? When they’re talking about moving the “printing station” to the prep room (a mere QUARTER MILE from my classroom)… whaddya think the odds are of me running down there before someone beats me to it? I’m in fair shape, I work out… but that’s not gonna do much if you’re plowing through 2400 students on the way there. Not even Michael Phelps in all his super-human glory could achieve such a thing. Ok, so I’m really upset at the printer situation and it isn’t even 10 o’clock.

Lunch rolls around and I’m working through it. Administration doesn’t plan a whole heck of a lot of time to be working in our rooms this week so one must make use of every available moment. So while sucking down my pb & j in one dust covered hand and trying to sort through the disaster that the custodial staff left of my computer cords and clay dust bunnies (so much more fierce than your run of the mill dust bunnies) I discovered that while they were judiciously moving my crap to the most inconvenient places they destroyed one of the connectors of my BRAND NEW COMPUTER SPEAKERS. Destroyed, beyond repair, kaput, useless, done. So my anger is now set to flash boil. So I head to the faculty lounge to retrieve my beloved plant that I purchased in my pre-school year optimism last year. This plant was GORGEOUS, to say the least. I left it in the lounge as part of a program that allows teachers to do that at the beginning of summer with the promise that they will be well cared for. With my preoccupation with other things (call it scatterbrain, call it half-a-brain, whatever) I figured my dearest plant would probably be better cared for by someone whose job it is to regularly water the plants in a room full of beautiful sunlight. Let me put it this way, I dropped off Queen Latifah and picked up one of the Olsen twins. I was over the top with fury. Who knows if this emaciated excuse for a plant will EVER become a shadow of it’s former glory, and quite honestly, to even put it out is an embarrassment.

One thing after another piled on to my oppressive first day back. I made a quick detour for something to ease the pain on the way home, fuming over all the frustrations of my first day back. And I haven’t even seen a single student.

I decided this was a blogging type of day so I jump on my fancy little computer here and think about “blogging it out” as they say. Literally seconds after I open up the browser, my connection flickers off because I have a P.O.S internet provider, apparently. An issue that I’ve called multiple times about, had multiple technicians out to the house over and have yet to have fixed. In fact, since my latest service call just last week it’s gotten worse and now is connected to the internet less time than not. Anyone want to recommend a new service? PLEASE? Before I throw my modem through a window? Now I’ve got to try to post this in my next 30 seconds of service or--

Joy, here comes day two. I love my job I love my job I love my job…