school office staff

[onceamai]

AIBU to think that the staff who answer the phones at the school office (secondary) could be a little more gracious and not sound, every time, as if they are doing me a favour. Conversations go a bit like this:

them: "blah blah school"
me: "hello, this is Mrs blah, please may I speak to ....., I am returning her call"
them: "she might be teaching"
me: "well she might not be so would you mind trying"
them: "there's no answer - you can try again later"
me: "I am returning her call, please give her a message and ask her to call me back"

No please, no thank you, no hello, no appreciation that they are there to provide a service and to represent the school's image. And this is a school that prides itself on the good manners and excellent behaviour of its pupils.

DD1 attended 2 primary schools; at the first one she went to the office lady was like the "Computer Says No" woman from Little Britain. Very rude and abrupt, and spoke to the parents like they were children too. Mind you, some of the teachers weren't much better. The school had a bit of an ego problem in general.

I moved her due to bullying and the school I moved her to (where DD2 now attends too) couldn't be more different. The receptionists are lovely and very friendly. Nothing is too much trouble. If you pop into the office for anything they always remember exactly who your child is and which class they're in.

I think that generally these things filter down from the head teacher. If the Head is a bit arsey and thinks the school is superior then that attitude tends to be reflected in some of the staff too.

I think it must be pretty widespread, this attitude problem, because theyre the same at DD's school too! Winds me up no end, so YADNBU!

YANBU, my DDs secondary school is the same! I've known her since DDs were at infant school. She is the most unsuitable person to be dealing with the general public. She is so awful there have been numerous complaints about her. She is a witch to the DC too.

She once phoned me, on the second day of DDs illness, to tell me I should have rang in the morning to tell her my DD was still ill. When I said I'd never had to do that before she said "well we need to decide if she is still ill enough to be absence". I told her that I would be the judge of that, and then asked her to send me written clarification of this new rule. I never got anything, surprise, surprise.

YANBU at all to be peeved at the rudeness but I would say that I try to encourage parents to e mail me wherever possible because I am almost always teaching when they ring and even if its break or lunch I am either eating / weeing / photocopying or seeing kids about something or other. No excuse for rudeness though

sorry about typos, am in a rush!!

I think it is a receptionist thing.

ie doctors dentists solicitors

they are very precious about the people they work for ha ha

YANBU

Try to get hold of email addresses and bypass the whole dragon-receptionists malarkey.

Unlike at the ds's school we aren't allowed emails for individual teachers. Braced to leave a message as soon as I have finished typing.

YANBU I feel your pain.

I was going to say that mrsg - obviously trained in the class for doctors' receptionists.

Everyone at my DSs school are fantastic, friendly, always helpful and available for a chat - the only exception is the receptionist!

She once rang the whole class full of parents to tell us off for not handing in dinner money on a monday morning when we'd alll given it to the teacher as usual and she just hadnt mamaged to pass it on to reception yet.

The receptionist also made me cry once by phoning me up and complaining about my DS. She did it off her own back as she didnt like the fact that DS refused to hold my hand on the way in and out of school (DS is autistic and hates being touched but receptionist prob doesnt know that). Even DSs teacher was gobsmacked that she'd rung me to say 'please take better control of your child'

onceamai - we're not given individual email addresses for teachers, but sending one to the school address with 'FAO Ms Bloggs - re Pterosaurette, year 8' works.

We have a good cop, bad cop system in place at DD's secondary school, but the bad cop was unexpectedly kind last week when DD was taken quite badly ill.

YANBU to ask them to take a message for you.