The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I am having some issues with my substitute teaching job and trying to figure out what is the best way to take care of me. Any Experience, Strength and Hope would be appreciated.
Experience, Strength and Hope is writing what your experiences have been, what the outcome was, it is not giving advice. I hope I have expressed that correctly.
Positive things about the job
1) It is flexible, the hours I work my son goes to school. I can work in July when my son goes to stay with his dad for 30 days, so I don't stay home and get depressed. 2) I love the kids 3) I like the other teachers 4) It is close to home, I can ride my bike if I choose to.
Negative things about the job
1) Scheduling - The director of the school is very unorganized. She recently emailed me and asked me to work on a Tuesday and Thursday of the next week. Then the next time I talked to her she acted like she didn't send the email. Next Monday they want me to work with some older kids whose parents work at the school, the directer never asked me to work yet announced in a meeting and put it on a memo that I was working. The office manager asked me yesterday if my son was coming since it was a school holiday. I told her that the director did not ask me to work. I have emailed the director and asked for the details and she has not responded. I have some reservations about "babysitting" for older kids. 2) Poor Management - I have worked at this school for a year and they never did a background check. I have had background checks done with the Boy Scouts for the past two years, at the Catholic school where I work, my son's school for the past 7 years. Nothing has ever come up on my background check. The director called me into her office Tuesday a week ago. She showed me a piece of paper where she had written down, DWI, prostetution, theft, etc. etc. there were about 15 items. She told me they came up on my background check. She touched my arm and told me it was o.k. if I did those things I could tell her. I started laughing. I told her that was not me and there must be a mistake. She said she would check into it further. On Thursday she called me back into her office and asked me to go get fingerprinted to clear my record. I told her that I didn't want to because I felt it was a mistake. I have asked her for the report which she did not have. On Friday after I came home from criminal court Jury Duty (where they told me that I would not have been called for Jury Duty if I had a felony on my record or theft) I got online to the Texas Department of Public Safety site and paid and did a search for my criminal background. For my current name and my name in my first marriage nothing came up. For my maiden name I searched on bday and name. This woman came up, she is matching because she has my same bday and first name. My husband called the Texas Department of Public Safety and asked why this was happening. They asked for my social and did a search under social, bday and name and the woman did not come up on my record. I talked to a friend who works for a background search company and she told me that the school did not search under my ss#. What they did was a cheaper search and it was a bad background check. The woman at Texas dept said I could go get fingerprinted but if searches were done without my ss# this would not take this woman off the record. I emailed the director of the school with all this information and she has not answered me.
2) Taking care of children with problems - on Tuesdays and Thursday's I have been asked to "shadow" two children with behavior problems. It was hard but I did enjoy it. The director and the office manager interrupted me twice while I was shadowing to ask me to work on different days. The problem with that is that the child was unattended and went off and did the bad things he was not supposed to be doing because I was supposed to be working with him. That was another frustration for me.
So.... what I am trying to figure out is how to best take care of me. The school is asking me to do things that are outside of the scope of what I was hired for. I have a choice of saying yes or no. I have said yes to the "shadowing" but I am not sure about taking care of the youth on Monday. I can say no to that, right now with the information I have I don't feel comfortable doing that.
I can choose not to go back to the school. I work at the catholic school where I don't have these problems, I can apply at other schools. I don't have to work at all if I don't want to.
Just looking for some ways to take care of me.
Thanks for listening
Robin
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Robin: Wow if I had to deal with that background check stuff I would be on the ceiling. I admire your tenancity.
In most job descriptions they have a stipulation they can ask you to do other stuff. I think when you are shadowing a kid like you describe you have a valid reason to say that you need to postpone whatever it is that they ask you to do.
I find it very hard to deal with work stuff. What I have found in my own esh is not to over explain my position. I say little, try to document it and don't go overboard. I also don't try to be the best anymore. I try to do my job that's about it. Today the job I am doing is having a training they want us to go in to do this training. I left the manager a note to say call me if I need to go in. He has not called me. I am not going in. I left the ball in his park. He may be mad about it. I am taking care of me not him the whole department or trying to change the way he, the manager communicates. I had to take a day off sick a week ago that they read me the riot act about so I am taking care of me by going to get medications and resting.
I think for me when I get into a dysfunctional job my onus is to make it functional. These days I try to do my job, no more no less. I also have to process and deal with what comes up for me. That for me, means not saying too much at work. I do talk to my co workers about my frustrations but not much else. I talk to other people about what comes up for me a lot. And I don't take action until I am out of the emotion its brought up for me. I have been given some very bad advice before around jobs, to quit, to confront and more so I choose who I speak to carefully. I also try to work through what is up for me. If I need to go for a better job I start doing that...
I am a substitute teacher, too. I have chosen to sub for three different school districts. There are so many teachers that have been laid-off in Ohio - that have become substitute teachers - that I now find it hard to get scheduled at all!
I agree with all of the postives about the job - and I have noticed that there are different problems with all jobs (not just substitute teaching).
First of all - if it were me, I would go back to the person who did the wrong background check and "kindly" inform her to do the background check and use my SSN. I would also inform the person that working in a school - they would KNOW that more than one person shares the same name, but not SSN. (Sorry - the background check thing made me angry. I have a pet pieve when people don't do their job correctly - and this was a mistake that could have been prevented!)
As for working with special ed children. I am often called for those classes because I enjoy those classes best. In the schools I work for - they KNOW that these children cannot be left unattended - so I am surprised that the school even asked if you could work other days during the day while you were supervising these children (like right after school).
thanks for your ES&H, I appreciate it all. It is a beautiful day here in Houston, I am taking myself out for a nice lunch, do some errands and then go get my nails done.
Yes the background check thing made me really mad.
