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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think my job is easier than DPs?

103 replies

theirdaughter · 17/10/2014 17:37

This is based on everyone telling me how hard I have it (head of English, secondary school.)

Teaching is tough but not THAT tough. DP works odd shifts at anti social times and they're split meaning if he finishes one at 11:30 the next doesn't start until 12 - meaning unpaid trapped time. Minimum wage.

Anyway we were strapped cash wise recently (car troubles) and I did some shifts to help out, my gosh I have NEVER. Worked so hard in my life for such little financial reward.

I've concluded a lot of teachers need to experience just how hard other jobs are.

OP posts:
Bathtimesoaker · 18/10/2014 14:06

YANBU, I see your point completely. We all have different skills and the fact that you don't find your job as difficult as you'd find your dp's doesn't mean you are coasting or not doing it well. I was brought up on 'find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life again'. I truly believe that.

My job is high pressured and needs me to be on top of my game, but I love it! I'm mentally challenged, supported and I want to be there. I've just started mat leave (now extremely overdue) and I've never been so miserable. I'm genuinely finding this extremely tough and my mental health has taken a huge nose dive.

Maybe it's a lesson to us all that the grass isn't always greener and sometimes the jobs we do are pretty damn great already. Hope you find Monday mornings much easier with your new knowledge OP.

gamescompendium · 18/10/2014 14:29

I think very few professional jobs are as hard as some jobs that involve manual labour. Is a teacher really harder than being a miner or working on an oil rig or being a labourer on the roads or railways? I doubt it.

I wouldn't consider teaching as a job that was particularly mentally demanding, nothing compared to science or engineering (both of which might have physical demands as well). I would assume it was emotionally demanding, but nursing or care work would be way above teaching there (and also have physical demands). Of course different people find different things challenging so yes, some people may find teaching incredibly difficult but others (my Mum) loved the kids and got a real buzz from it.

gamescompendium · 18/10/2014 14:36

I heard something similar when I was a teenager so it sounds like the kind of thing that has been doing the rounds for a while. Maybe men don't get any good in bed until their 30s and so that's why women start getting more interested in sex then. Or maybe our parent's generation all had kids in their 20s and so the 30s was when a woman finally wanted to have sex again after the baby years. Who knows? I think good sex depends on loving the person you are in bed with, nothing more.

gamescompendium · 18/10/2014 14:37

No idea what has happened there, I've just posted that on completely the wrong thread. Blush

Bulbasaur · 18/10/2014 17:16

I've done manual labor. It's easy in that it doesn't require much mental energy. But it does require alot of physical effort.

I would think both are challenging in different ways. One requires exceptional time management and organization skills. One requires you to be in shape, knowing how to lift, and having to eat right (Unless you like coming home sore).

I don't feel sympathy for teachers though. They trained 4 years for their job. They knew what they were getting into. If they wanted a job that made money and had clearer evaluation criteria they could have chosen almost any other job, even ones that don't require formal education. You become a teacher because you like working with children, which includes all the challenges, tears, and rewards that come with it. They're not going into this blind.

But most people that are teachers really enjoy their jobs and enjoy working with their students. I don't personally know any that martyr themselves about how hard they have it.

Philoslothy · 18/10/2014 17:20

Bulbasur I do think that people who became teachers 15 or 20 years ago odd not know wat they signed up for in the sense that teaching has changed an awful lot.

Bulbasaur · 18/10/2014 17:27

Fair enough, but all jobs in every industry have changed drastically from 15-20 years ago. Any professional worth their salt learns to adapt to the industry they are in. Teachers are not excluded from this.

My job had new information, advances in technology, and new ideas of what my job should entail. I have to keep up on top of it to succeed. Every worker does.

(And... bullshit was still rampant 15-20 years ago as far as school politics and teaching methods go. It's not a new thing.)

PrivateJourney · 18/10/2014 17:30

I worked in an industry known for punishing targets (like teaching Grin ?). My targets in my last year were the same per month, as they were for a whole year when I started. More is being asked of everyone.

Thurlow · 18/10/2014 17:35

The only argument I have with friends who teach is over their holidays. Ridiculous and unfair of me, probably, but the mere thought of having more than a fortnight in a row off is like some kind of fantasy to me Blush I know full well they all work in the holidays and work longer hours during the week than I do, but still... I suppose it's a trade off. Perk of teaching is longer holidays in a row.

Agggghast · 18/10/2014 17:43

OP, completely agree, same job, love it and think it is great! Have done other jobs and found them harder. Horses for courses perhaps!?!?

Philoslothy · 18/10/2014 19:05

They don't all work in their holidays, I never did other than coming in for results day.

Bulbusaur I didn't say that no other job has changed, why when you say something is the case for teachers do people feel the nene to jump in and say what about everyone else?

WftsC · 18/10/2014 20:32

Jeez, the OP is getting a bit of an unnecessary kicking here!

I thought she would applauded for saying 'teaching is hard, but shit! So are other jobs!'

I think we can all accept that 'hard' and 'easy' are relative concepts. And 'stressful' is completely subjective. I agree with the pp who said that waitressing was difficult. Genuinely my most stressful job! But not the most demanding, or the hardest, or whatever.

Mind you, I was a SHITE waitress Grin

noblegiraffe · 18/10/2014 20:35

The op didn't say that, she said that teachers need to experience how hard other jobs are.

Which is the same old teachers don't know how good they've got it, need to experience the real world shite that gets trotted out on a lot of teacher bashing threads.

Ohmypants · 18/10/2014 21:01

Hi OP i think you are and are number of other posters have made a good point. By the sounds of it your husband is a carer and so yes its a very hard job and very poorly paid. Carering is also emotionally and can be physically exhausting, and yet carers get a very raw deal from society and ii think it sad carers get such limited training/ limited recognition and often very poor working terms and conditions. So yes i suspect your husbands job is tougher than yours, thats not to say teaching doesnt have its stresses and strains. But then so do most jobs, i suspect the truth is very few jobs are actually stress free and fun....how i would love a job like that!!!

Original poster
theirdaughter · 18/10/2014 21:19

I do think that, noble.

I don't think teachers have it 'good', exactly: perhaps more accurately, I think the rights teachers have relating to for example sick pay, pension and so on need to be extended.

I can understand teachers feeling defensive, of course, but the problem is this has leaned in the opposite direction and comments like 'I get up at 6 and go to work and I never get home until gone 6 and then I work weekends too and the evening' are not unusual at all in teaching; I spent my first five years wondering what I was doing wrong because I wasn't permanently exhausted!

But that is by the by. I suppose what it think is that those of us lucky enough to have secure jobs that are well paid with some rights should recognise not everybody does.

Just some musing from me.

OP posts:
Philoslothy · 18/10/2014 21:23

I never really felt that I had it hard as a teacher, not sure why I would leave one of the top universities in the world and then choose a hard job for mediocre pay.

I don't want teachers it have it hard, I want their jobs to be packed with perks so the best and brightest apply.

noblegiraffe · 18/10/2014 21:36

So for teachers to be allowed to say how hard they work, or how tired they are, they have to preface it with a caveat?

"I know that nurses work for less pay in a more demanding job, but bloody hell I wish I didn't have to spend all my evenings marking in a variety of colours to please SLT"

"I'm glad I don't work down the sewers but I wish little Johnny hadn't told me to fuck off and thrown a chair at me"

"Could be worse, could work on a cancer ward, but trying to get kids who don't give a shit through their GCSEs is quite stressful"

Iggi999 · 18/10/2014 22:15

Noble I would Grin if it wasn't so Sad

Original poster
theirdaughter · 18/10/2014 23:51

Noble

Nowhere have I said or insinuated this.

However, there is an assumption often underlying many threads that teachers are above criticism, above questioning and above any sort of scrutiny because their job is so hard.

I still remember a thread where a teacher had hit a girl! and still posters were criticising the child, stating that her behaviour had provoked this reaction. Crazy!

Philosothy

I agree :)

OP posts:
WilburIsSomePig · 18/10/2014 23:59

Well we can all only go by our own experiences I guess but I started working in an upper school a few weeks ago and I was shocked by how much the teachers do. And how many nights they spend marking etc. Nothing on earth would make me want to be a teacher and I've done some really shit jobs.

noblegiraffe · 19/10/2014 00:19

So, OP, what did you mean then when you said I've concluded a lot of teachers need to experience just how hard other jobs are. if not that teachers don't know how hard other jobs are?

It is entirely possible to know that other jobs are hard, yet nonetheless still feel quite stressed by workload/poor behaviour/increased pension contributions/being a political football/unrealistic expectations/abusive parents or whatever.

There's always someone worse off than you. That doesn't mean you aren't allowed to feel bad. Teacher burnout is a real issue and people swanning in and saying 'well I think it's a piece of piss compared to working down the coal mines' isn't going to help.

maddy68 · 19/10/2014 00:28

I came into teaching late. I have done various careers , some high fighting some not previously. Teaching is the hardest job I have ever done.
Perhaps you are in a great school with fewer expectations? Or perhaps because you were a rooky you're not cut out for your partners job
Or more likely you are not a teacher at all and this is a wind up post.........
Either way your lucky to have an easy job :)

maddy68 · 19/10/2014 00:29

High flying!! Bloody I pad and wine

rollonthesummer · 19/10/2014 01:03

I still remember a thread where a teacher had hit a girl! and still posters were criticising the child, stating that her behaviour had provoked this reaction. Crazy!

Wasn't that the one where the teacher might have lobbed a book near a child but then the OP didn't clarify what had actually happened...

Original poster
theirdaughter · 19/10/2014 06:18

Roll no, in this case the teacher had actually given a girl (a posters daughter) a slap. I don't remember the book one.

Noble I have told you what I meant!

OP posts: