Quick background, I am a dinner lady at my son's school, a recent thing, I have been doing it for about 6 weeks. I really enjoy the job, the children are lovely, its a great insight into school life and whilst it doesn't pay much, it doesn't take up all my time, an hour and a half a day, and its tax free (under the tax threshold) so I thought I'd give it a go. So far so good.
I really like the children and the school is lovely. My boss is the head dinner lady, and she's been there a very long time. She's very nice and very conscientious, though she has a slight tendency to repeat herself and state the obvious, which is just her management style I guess. I always take on board everything she says.
Yesterday there was an incident in the playground. The rules are that there are no "touching games" but some boys were apparently playing bulldogs and someone got kicked in the cheek. It was dealt with by another dinner lady, who didn't witness the incident. I didn't witness the incident either, in fact, nobody did. There are 4 dinnerladies doing playground duty in a fairly large area, there is a football field and grassy area to patrol as well as 2 areas of concrete playground plus all the flushing children out of classrooms and making sure nothing dogey is happening round the side bits. Yesterday was eventful in terms of incidents, I had various first aid things to deal with from skipping rope mishaps and little ones falling over etc plus a banged head from a child who tripped over his shoelaces and bumped his head on a wooden table.
Once we'd finished packing up the dinnerhall, the head dinnerlady wanted to speak to me about "the incident that occured in the playground". I assumed she meant the banged head I dealt with, but it turns out she was talking about the bulldog/kicked cheek incident, which I hadn't heard of till that point.
Apparently one of my colleagues said that I was the closest one to the incident and I should have seen it. This has made me feel quite indignant, and I dealt with so many incidents yesterday that she didn't see, some of which she was "closest" to. In practice its not who is closest but who is facing that way as to who deals with the incident, or witnesses it. You can't always hear; the acoustic is that of hundreds of little noise streams echoing around plus yesterday was incredibly windy which made it harder to hear. I feel she was passing the buck a bit...she dealt with it, but didnt manage to find out exactly what happened, so just said to ask me as I should have seen it.
I don't stand still at any point during playground duty - the only time I stop walking and turning my head this way and that is if I stop to talk to a child or do first aid type things. Otherwise I am constantly pacing around and looking this way and that. Its not like I'm propped up against a tree picking my fingernails or yapping with teachers or anything.
To be perfectly honest, if I am going to be "at fault" or blamed for not seeing something simply because I am dealing with something else or looking in a different direction (I'm not psychic, after all) then its probably not the job for me...but do you think its reasonable to apportion blame in this way? As parents of school children (many of you) what are your views on this? I'm not actually sure where this will go but I have a feeling I'm going to get a lecture about pacing up and down and patrolling on Monday when I go in, and I don't really feel I can do much more than I am already doing. I find it frustrating that since I started, I get the same old stuff day in day out from my manager, all of which I am doing. In fact, I observe my manager and my colleagues in order to check my own "style" of patrol, and I am doing everything they are doing. I guess I feel like I cant' do anything right but its possible I'm being a bit paranoid.
AIBU?