ADs take the National Express when their lives' in a mess, it will make them smile

[BogRollBOGOF]

🎤On the National Express
There’s a jolly hostess
Giving porridge free
She’ll provide you with shots
amaretto or what
You like to seeeeee...

Going out was in style
Now we’re stuck in this aisle
Dream of being free
And it’s hard to get by
When your arse is the size
Of the furlough feeeeeee🎤

Bah ba ba la
Bah ba ba la

Tomorrow belongs to meee...

Welcome to the 17:38 to freedom, stopping at virtual hugs, critical discourse, and random tangents along the way. ETA unknown...

@110APiccadilly yup, that's. Grindlewald thing. I'm surprised more Harry Potter fans havent noticed that but to be honest the whole 'fandom' thing has kind of exploded in the feminism VS trans rights factions and the Johnny Depp lawsuits.

And sorry I can't remember who mentioned the 'just put the kids in base layers and have windows and doors open'. It makes me want to scream 'some kids don't have base layers, some parents can't afford them'. But that ends up in a 'shouldn't have spent the money of fags/alcohol/drugs' debate and apparently even if this is the case, children should be punished rather than helped if their parents have addictions.

I'm so sorry for all the people going through horrible times at the moment. I'm thinking of you all. It sounds really 'thoughts and prayers' but I really do hope you are making it through this as unscathed as possible.

Someone said, possibly 1 or 2 threads ago that we need to not accept the talk that lockdown will be extended or it will be. When Boris when back into hiding I thought FFS, just like before and then it rilumbles on until Boris can come back and save us all. I think there needs to be noise that we won't stand for it. So many businesses need the December trade. So many people need the sanity and hope. And not just because I have a flight booked the the UK a few days after lockdown will supposedly end!

I've just been over in the rona zone...
So far I've seen "I don't want hospitality to reopen as I work in hospitality and hate my job"
And accidentally clicked on another t
teacher thread and had an epiphany....
They are all posting about how stressful it is, pretty much right up until the school gates open, right after they shut and then waaaaay into the wee hours every night. No wonder they are all so bloody stressed, that amount of outrage must be hard to maintain especially when you're at it most of the night.
Maybe they need to at least step away from their screens for a few hours a night and try and get some rest.

Also just read an article where it talks about the huge surge in October of covid in the prison population.
Interesting, especially given they wouldn't have been going to the pub or flouting the rules at The Range.

@LivinLaVidaLoki

I've just been over in the rona zone... So far I've seen "I don't want hospitality to reopen as I work in hospitality and hate my job" And accidentally clicked on another t teacher thread and had an epiphany.... They are all posting about how stressful it is, pretty much right up until the school gates open, right after they shut and then waaaaay into the wee hours every night. No wonder they are all so bloody stressed, that amount of outrage must be hard to maintain especially when you're at it most of the night. Maybe they need to at least step away from their screens for a few hours a night and try and get some rest.

I had a similar realization about the comments on the online news here. There were constant demands to close the schools and eventually someone commented 'just don't send your kids' and the reply was 'I am the kid, I have no choice' and the penny dropped. Totally something I would have done as a teen. I would have loved home learning, got everything done by lunchtime and spent the rest of the day playing on the Sims and chatting to friends on MSN messenger!

I can see the same in hospitality especially with the Christmas rush that furlough would be far more enjoyable. I do wonder about the people who are off the books though. I remember being paid subminimum wage at uni just for the holidays so I doubt people like that would get furlough.

Can someone give me a kick up the backside please? I can't cope with work any more. More and more is being dumped on us and there are enough hours in the day but we are expected to find them somehow. I have a list of things to do, all as urgent as each other and I don't know where to start and I just want to cry.

I know I should be grateful to have a job and I really am but it's getting to the stage I'm crying in the shower most mornings. I've had cold sores, a dodgy eye, mouth ulcers and I've noticed my chronic cough gets worse the more stressed I am.

Sorry for the moan, I'll pull myself together in a bit

A huge proportion of teachers are always ready to walk at any given time. I went into it in 2003 knowing it wasn't 9-3:30, found the PGCE and first couple of years tough then got into my groove where it was managable. Start of 2014, I went to my last school and it was still managable p/t (with a BFing 10m old catching up during night feeds and a rather intense toddler) The school was in special measures although focus was not on my department. It was 2015 when the academy group changed and the workload went up with policies like double marking, and 2016 it exploded (I was f/t that year, DCs at school/ nursery, DH doing a lot of work abroad and often at short notice). Constantly on red alert from OFSTED, lots of pressure from the trust to be good, and trying to deal with post-Gove changes to the curriculum, levels changing ar KS3, reformed GCSEs being delayed for issues of specs, and no resourcing for things like textbooks so everything has to be created by teachers on minimal budget.
The main core of teaching is less than half the job. Teachers are a stressed bunch anyway. 5 hours per day performing to reluctant audiences. Unrealistic targets.

Of course many of these problems exist in other professions, especially through the public sector. But as a profession teachers were not a happy bunch even before they felt like they were the only profession having to carry on as normal, with normal densities in poor working spaces and no practical defences and plenty of faffy rukes for show to make life harder. I do get that. It's just that I don't know what else can be done in a sector already starved of money without severely compromising learning, especially for the most disadvantaged learners. I went into teaching to teach and pass on my love of my subject. I took advantage of a break in contracts and found myself not enthused to look for more roles, and it began to be more clear that DS1 was having difficulties and needed more of my time at home.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

Can someone give me a kick up the backside please? I can't cope with work any more. More and more is being dumped on us and there are enough hours in the day but we are expected to find them somehow. I have a list of things to do, all as urgent as each other and I don't know where to start and I just want to cry.

I know I should be grateful to have a job and I really am but it's getting to the stage I'm crying in the shower most mornings. I've had cold sores, a dodgy eye, mouth ulcers and I've noticed my chronic cough gets worse the more stressed I am.

Sorry for the moan, I'll pull myself together in a bit

When I felt like that, 5 minutes dumping it out of my head onto a piece of paper than linking it together and sorting out priorites and a couple of easy early wins helped.

My DS spotted the 'for the greater good' parallel earlier on and will say it with air quotes. He's a fan of both Harry Potter and Star Wars.

The French phrase 'tu me fait gonflé' must have a similar meaning to your Greek one @LivinLaVidaLoki . I've heard it for years, known its a bit rude but never really thought about it.

@NannyGythaOgg The stats programme More Or Less have this question they ask, "Is this a big number?" It's a very helpful question when presented with a number with no context.

On teachers, this may just be my impression, but is it a hard profession to leave if you've been in it a while and you want something with similar pay? Because being a qualified teacher presumably doesn't open many doors into jobs outside teaching. I can see that leading to a largish group of people who feel trapped in a job they don't enjoy, which is never going to be great for morale.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat I can empathise with you so much there. I find sometimes that just coming here to a safe space to rant often helps just get it out of my head.

Do you work in public sector? If so you may be able to access EAP. Sorry I can't offer anymore help but we are all here for you x

I’ve been in semi-lurk mode recently as I was waiting for blood test results to come back - IBS symptoms but a family history of ovarian cancer (in my mother’s case, she was fobbed off for two years being told she should take peppermint oil and when she was finally diagnosed it was too late) meant that my GP took it seriously. Results all clear which means it’s just stress-induced IBS ... I now have two stress-related conditions - great - I wonder what could be causing stress

In other news, my ASD ds2 has a girlfriend!! His first ever - he’s 21 - and it means he’s started showering unprompted . Quite a few of us on this thread have children on the spectrum so I thought you’d understand how momentous this is

Ah thanks, @LivinLaVidaLoki, that one’s pretty satisfying too!

@PinkSparklyPussyCat sorry you’re overwhelmed like that. It’s not you, it’s circumstances. I hope you can take even a mini break to clear your head.

I think that lots of us are hitting another wall at the moment when you consider how long we've been living under basically constant stress and with our support networks removed from us. Yes, this is, in the historic scheme of things, not a "war" or anything - but we are living with this constant uncertainty of what rules are going to be in place next, and under the 24 hour news and social media culture and with the nudge unit nudging the fuck out of us to an extent that has never happened before - and we've been living like this for the best part of a year. Taking the war analogy they love to use on here - they didn't get the utter information, misinformation and social media shaming badly made memes barrage that we do now.

It struck me yesterday how long we'd been under this shitfest when I was playing Animal Crossing - I started playing it on release at the start of lockdown - and we've now gone through the spring events, the summer events, the autumn events and we're looking at the winter event launch soon... so many months gone. No wonder people are burning out when everything that people have to look forward to gets pissed on and yanked away from us. (Pissing on done by the charmers in the crazy zone and yanking by the 3 press conferencers of the apocalypse)

Livin “ So far I've seen "I don't want hospitality to reopen as I work in hospitality and hate my job"

I was on that thread but ignored the comment.

BogRollBOGOFF
That's exactly how I've always imagined teaching. I have a close friend who's a teacher and I have no idea how she deals with it while still being totally committed.
One thing I haven't the courage to ask on the crazed teacher threads is whether they're all state sector?
We've had experience of state and private, and the private school has not missed a step during Covid. No 'burst bubbles' (or whatever ridiculous expression), very sensibly-toned emails, no one off through fear of virus-sodden children, going above and beyond on extra curricular. They must be working really really hard to make it so seamless. I wonder whether it's because it's a business and the expectations of staff have therefore had to be higher because complaining parents = risk of drop in fees = lost jobs? Or is it something else like it being less 'vocational' (because they're teaching the already-privileged?! ) and more 'careerist' (if that's even a word).
(sorry if that's a thread hijack. I'm just fascinated by MN v real life)

Re big numbers etc.
I heard something interesting on the radio yesterday. The mortality rate for smallpox was 30%. The mortality rate for covid is someting like 0.03%. That put it into perspective.
(If I've got those figures wrong I apologise- I was driving & my maths memory is shocking. But the contrast between the 2 numbers is still massive).

Wishing everyone at least an ok-ish day. I have no get up & go.

I think people who are furloughed can do other work as well as getting their furlough pay can't they? I know someone doing this who was air cabin crew, but working extra shifts in a supermarket.

That sounds right Orchidkiller. It's similar to the 1960s Asian flu. (covid rate) it seems

I used to teach also and did a PGCE as well. Yes left after having DC as tricky to combine, did tutoring for a while though. I saw stressed teachers, the one supervising my PGCE just did it to get some help but then was crying at the paperwork involved as she was so stressed. Then the deputy head was so stressed by Ofsted they were off for ages and only able to come back part time. Senior teachers, good ones too. It's so stressful even without this. In a 'nice' area as well.

@Orangeblossom7777
I've heard Martyn Lewis say furloughed staff can potentially get another job. I don't know if they get clobbered with paying more tax because they've got 2 jobs? DD considered it when she was briefly furloughed but local work in places like supermarkets got snapped up pretty quickly.

@HitchikersGuide my daughter goes to a private school. The teachers there are definitely not doing it for the money as they could earn more in state schools but I think the massive reduction in stress compensates. It has it’s faults but seems a lot happier and less stressful than state schools.

The mortality rate for the first smallpox vaccine was around 2%. (Source: Tim Harford's Cautionary Tales podcast, which I highly recommend.) It's only when you read older books that you really realise how many people used to die from illness. That bit in Pride and Prejudice which feels to us like a massive over-reaction to Jane getting flu? In an era with limited medical treatment, flu was pretty serious.

The thing is everyone is stressed at the moment, yes teachers have it hard but so does NHS and all those that are worried about losing their jobs in other sectors. All those that work in hospitality. Everyone is having a shit time.
That said the teachers at DC school have been amazing and very can do through out this . So I will be giving them xmas gifts! Have you seen the threads on that on the rest of the site, oh the drama!

Anyway here is my morning achievement. My first attempt at Christmas decorations.

Thank u Worldgonecrazy
I had fallen into the trap of making assumptions about stuff I know nothing about - interesting that the pay isn't better. But yes the stress levels must be (tho I still have no idea how teachers do it!)

Covid vaccine: Pfizer says it's '94% effective in over 65s'

Sound like good news.