Pet Peeve......

I'm not sure that title is correct for this post, because pet peeves are, by definition, petty, and I don't think this (particular) irritant is petty at all.

I sort of lost my mind for a couple of minutes the other day. Unfortunately, a couple of minutes is long enough to send a text message that has the potential to render you an indentured slave for the rest of your life.

Fortunately, that is not what happened to me the other day when I temporarily lost my mind.

A couple of my students are taking online courses with the school I used to teach with part-time. I logged on to check on their statuses, and I found myself sort of missing that other world. What is WRONG with me?

So I fired off a text message to my former department chair (because she usually doesn't pick up her cell phone and is spotty about returning emails - great leader, huh?), the one who told me she refused to acknowledge that I had resigned and instead was going to list me as "inactive."

I said in the text, "Hey, it's _____." (Another aside: I identified myself because it wasn't uncommon for her to respond to a text message with "Who's this?" Hurts my feelings when I'm not important enough to be in someone's address book.) "How are you? I have officially applied for retirement, so life is good. I don't know what your numbers are like, but if you get desperate..."

I didn't want it to sound like I was desperate to go back to that part-time job. I wasn't sure I even wanted it to sound like I would go back if they WERE desperate. But as I approach retirement (and I DID officially apply last week, and I haven't stopped smiling yet), it would be nice to have something to fall back on, a source of income in addition to my retirement.

And I distinctly remember writing a blog post about how relieved I was to give up that full-time-stress-for-part-time-pay job and asking my readers to help me remember that feeling.

WHERE WERE Y'ALL WHEN I SENT THAT TEXT MESSAGE?

Not to worry ... I am not in danger of becoming an indentured slave. Again.

Because I'm finally (much to your relief, I'm sure) getting around to the point of this post.

I got no response.

Even Hubby, who isn't the world's most prolific texter, will respond to a text with "K." It's one letter. Very few key strokes. Two, in fact. The letter "k" and the word "send." Two strokes.

And that's my pet (which isn't so petty, in my opinion) peeve: People who don't even respond to a text message or an email.

Let's just say, for argument's sake, that my former department chair wasn't as crazy about me as she pretended to be. Let's just say she was glad to be rid of me. Let's say she wouldn't hire me back if there were a semi-apocalypse and I was the last English teacher remaining on what's left of Earth.

She could at least acknowledge receipt of the text message.

"Thanks. I'll keep you in mind."

"Gosh, our numbers are way down. Sorry."

"You must be a glutton for punishment."

"Yay! I'm on it, girlfriend!"

Any of these would have been appropriate responses.

Instead I got deafening silence. Which, again, kind of hurts my feelings.

She had these tendencies when I worked for the online school, so it's not like I'm surprised or anything. When I was working for them, I would occasionally run into a situation for which I needed help. I know, I know, hard to believe, right? I would ONLY call my department chair if there happened to be something with the online platform that I couldn't figure out myself, or if it were something for which I thought I needed higher authority. Now keep in mind she worked full-time for the online world, which meant she was at home. All. the. time. On duty. All. the. time. And she never once picked up her cell phone when I called. I would leave a detailed message and ask her to call me back. Instead, I would get an almost instant email from her, in which she would try to solve my problem as she understood it to be.

And I would think to myself, "No, dumbass, that's NOT what the issue is. If you would pick up the DAMN PHONE, I could explain it to you."

My feelings aren't REALLY hurt. I know deep in my heart that I don't want to go back to that stressful environment. And I don't want to work for a bunch of cliquish folks who won't even bother to pick up the phone or return an email or respond to a text message.

I guess I just want them to want me.

Maybe it's pettier than I thought.

Psycho Parents....

Not my own psycho parents. That's for another blog day.

Just kidding. My mother definitely is NOT psycho. She has her issues, but she's not psycho.

Even in the virtual world, teachers have to deal with psycho parents on occasion.

We are three weeks into the fall semester in my virtual teaching job, and I had a parent call me tonight. I'm still not sure exactly what she called FOR.....

Her daughter got a late start in the class no one told her she was going to need books and where is she supposed to get them you can't even afford the library these days because who can afford late fees and why did her school just sign her up for this course and then not tell her anything she is at a real disadvantage here but she loves to read and she basically has to teach herself because teachers these days just don't care and the principal doesn't do anything about it he just says we have RESA people in observing but observing what not teaching no one does anything my daughter had to go to summer school and what are they going to teach her in summer school in eight weeks if they couldn't teach it all year last year when she was in ninth grade only one person in the whole class passed and that was only by one or two points and everybody else failed and she's always had a problem with math ever since sixth grade you would think there would have been one teacher in all that time who cared but no and I'm trying to get my daughter graduated from high school early in three years because I work down at Hartsfield-Jackson airport from nine thirty in the morning to seven o'clock at night but tonight I had a day off and I can't ever get in touch with anybody at her school to tell me what's going on but she's smart and she started late but she got caught up and I got this email telling me if she doesn't get the work turned in by Friday she won't get credit for it and she gets an assignment every week and she gets it done but it's just very unorganized how the people at her school do stuff and people are just trying to make ends meet and I took her to Sylvan Learning Center and she didn't have any trouble there, she doesn't have a problem learning, but who can afford sixty five dollars an hour never mind how much it costs just to get her there and she does her work thank you for listening to me bye.

Father in Heaven:

Please don't let this woman be an air traffic controller.

Amen

Unethical or Not.....

I have a dilemma that may not be unethical at all, which sort of takes all the fun out of it.

Or it could be that I'm creating a dilemma where none exists.

The father of one of my summer virtual school students called me this morning and left a voicemail because I was in my Zumba class. [Two weeks in a row!] He has called me NUMEROUS times this summer. When I heard his voice, I thought, "Dude, give it up. Summer session is OVER, and your kid passed with a 'B' although he is definitely smart enough to make an 'A'." He tends to ramble on the phone, both in person and on voicemail. In fact, the recording cut off the end of the message because he talked so long.

He had told me earlier that he worked for Disney World, and I casually (really, it WAS casual!) mentioned to him that my daughter lived in Florida and was one of his best customers. She would live at Disney if they would let her.

He was calling to say that he wanted my daughter and her family, if she had one, to be his guests at Disney.

I hesitated calling him back, because I was unsure about the ethics involved.

Would it be wrong, considering he offered them to my daughter?

Would it be wrong considering that I'm going down there next weekend, and I could wind up being the beneficiary of this gesture?

And what does it mean, being his "guest"? Tickets to the park(s)? Accommodations? A dinner date with Mickey? A behind-the-scenes tour of Cinderella's castle?

In his voicemail, he specifically mentioned the fact that his son was going to pass. Was he implying the offer would not have been forthcoming if his son had failed? I mean, he didn't word it like that. He didn't say, "Well, since Patrick is going to pass, I'd like your daughter to....." But he mentioned it.

He can't possibly know that I had not yet turned in final grades when his voicemail came.

Should I just quit worrying about it?