I Had Your Order All the Time!

As I said earlier, my staff loves me. Probably most of them, anyway...So, also before school even started, I got a message of Facebook from one of the teachers at my school. The message said, "Did you see the e-mail about the office staff whining about stuff being brought back to the workroom in a mess. I'm sure one of them went to Mr. Principal and complained and now we all get bitched at. If I whine about my job will he do a whole staff e-mail and tell people to be nice. Welcome back. I'm already depressed...." So, I went onto my school email account (which we were told later at our inservice that whenever we access school accounts on our home computer, our info becomes their knowledge? WTF?) to check the email in question. It did indeed border on a scolding, as if we were children and Mr. Principal was our father. Not outright, but borderline. Considering that last year we did receive several scolding emails, though, it was close enough to a scolding to tick teachers off. So I did a reply email: Wow! You mean our workroom is all stocked and ready to go? Good to know! Because I went into the workroom last week to find plain tagboard that I requested last June, and couldn't find any. But being the flexible person I am, I went on to Plan B to find other ways to cut out all letters of our traits to put up in the room as we are required to do. Unfortunately, Plan B meant that I couldn't do the beginning of the year activity with my kids that I usually do..." This email reply of course got me lots of positive replies from staff members, either to me directly, or to the whole staff complaining as well about the poorly stocked workroom. Mr. Prinicpal also replied to me directly, saying "The workroom isn't finished being stocked yet! Ms. Office Helper will finish Monday! =)" My reply to him: Well, good, but since school starts Thursday, Monday is really too late for me to wait for tag. I already cut out all eight traits and have put them up in my room." But here is the funniest part of this whole thing! Wednesday, the day before school started, was a teacher work day. A teacher could work in his or her room for 7.5 hours and get paid for it, or if they preferred the could come in anytime after August 15 to put in the 7.5 hours. Most teachers do both, thereby donating much of their time. I was not exception, particularly since I had totally packed up my class in June so had to completely unpack this year. I probably put in 20 hours in setting up my room. It took 4.5 hours alone just to unpack my personal collection of kid books and get them reorganized on shelves... So, there I was on Wednesday, the day before the first day of school, walking out of the staff workroom with chatting with another teacher (another old brunette...wish she had moved out to my wing...). Our office manager, who I believe was the one who I had put my plain tag order to back in June, came around the corner. "Oh, Ms. 5th Grade Teacher! I have the tag you ordered." I stared at her blankly for a minute, trying to comprehend what she was saying. "I didn't order any tag," I replied. "I ordered it for you, like you asked me," she said. "I have it for you in the office!" "Oh," I said. "Well, last week when I didn't see it in the workroom, I made a Plan B and used different tag." Mrs. Office Manager said, "I didn't put it in the workroom. It is in the office just for you! I always order it specially just for you!" Again, I thought, "WTF??" But I gave her a kiss on her lying head, because I believe she did not order it for me until she saw my reply about not finding it in the workroom. The fact that she thought that the DAY BEFORE THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL I could get all eight traights cut out and stapled up in my room, which involves much climbing up and down on a ladder, shows that she just has no clue. But I thanked her, knowing she ordered the tag at the last minute, and most likely it had just come in. "Put it in the workroom," I said. "Someone will want it." That lady will never admit to mistakes.