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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Was My Colleague Totally U? I think She was..

464 replies

CaptainCrunch · 09/01/2016 15:59

Hi everyone,

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I am a Learning Assistant in a Primary School, we returned on Wednesday for an inservice day. There were 2 boxes of chocolates wrapped up on the staff room table with a card in a sealed envelope on top marked "To support staff".

We went off and did some training and came back for our break to see that the one of the boxes had been opened, almost completely finished and our card opened too, the envelope scrunched up beside it.

We were a bit annoyed as the teaching staff have form for horsing all the goodies before any support staff can get near it (they take their breaks before us).

With the agreement of my colleagues I wrote this note on the staff room whiteboard:

"Hi, just to say the chocs were specifically for support staff..we have no problem sharing them, but would have preferred to open the card and gift ourselves" and signed it from all the support staff.

The next day I walked into my class and a box of chocs was on my desk, turns out it was my class teacher who had opened them.

She was absolutely horrible to me and said "I'm really pissed off about that note, I've replaced the chocolates". This was in a very nasty, abrupt tone.

I said it wasn't about the chocolates it was because it was clearly marked to us and had been opened without our consent.

She then said "Well, I didn't read the envelope properly, I thought it said to ALL staff...there's a ridiculous divide between the support staff and teaching and shit like this doesn't help".

I was really stunned. We get on well together and I really admire her but I thought this was completely uncalled for.

She is correct in that there is a bit of a divide...mainly because a lot of the teaching staff treat us like second class citizens, some can barely bring themselves to say "good morning".

I'm not going to let it affect our professional relationship, but she's really gone down in my estimation and it's left a bad taste.

Am I being U to let this bug me so much?

OP posts:
KoalaDownUnder · 10/01/2016 14:26

Oh, get real, Goblin. Now you want to quibble about the precise definition of 'professional'? Hmm

Rude.

Original poster
CaptainCrunch · 10/01/2016 14:26

And none of us felt like opening chocolates at 8 in the morning, preferring to keep them for break where we would have left the rest for the teachers to have at second break, they left 3 in the box between 7 of us.

OP posts:
BackforGood · 10/01/2016 14:31

I'm referring to the fact you said "we have no problem sharing them, but would have preferred to open the card and gift ourselves"

You didn't have to eat them then, but you are saying it's not about eating the chocs, it's about opening the chocs

Original poster
CaptainCrunch · 10/01/2016 14:32

I did consider doing this as a reverse, it would have been interesting Smile

OP posts:
hollowlegs · 10/01/2016 14:33

Sounds like one of those schools where the management relies heavily on the hierarchical way of doing things.
'''m up here, you're somewhere in the,middle and you lot are the bottom feeders ", the 'subordinates' Hmm
It sounds like an awful place to work and you have to hope that the children aren't picking up on the 'know your place' way of treating people.

StealthPolarBear · 10/01/2016 14:36

Back for good, even a wrapped box?? Really - you go round unwrapping presents in case they contain consumables?

Original poster
CaptainCrunch · 10/01/2016 14:36

It's interesting hollowlegs, we've had incidents where older pupils have ignored our attempts to discipline them and gone to the principal teacher over our heads, so it is seeping through.

OP posts:
ThumbWitchesAbroad · 10/01/2016 14:39

Ha - under the circs, I think if the OP and her colleagues had opened the chocolates before their training then none of them would have been left anyway! So the problem would still have been there - the teachers felt entitled to eat nearly all the chocs, regardless of who they were meant for.

DatsunCherry · 10/01/2016 14:40

Headteachers should not be putting out presents for specific teams within the school, they should just lay out some things for everyone to take from. Bad leadership!

This!

The note, while reasonable IMO made the teacher feel really bad, after what I think was an honest mistake, hence her reaction.

The thing is, you are somewhat perpetuation the them and us divide by complaining.

Where I work, if a close colleague has an earlier break they save you a slice of cake/ a chocolate before they're all gone. But we are all considered equals, no matter what job we do and there would never be a treat just for support staff.

hollowlegs · 10/01/2016 14:40

If children pick up on certain groups of adults not being treated with respect, then it follows that they won't respect them either.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 10/01/2016 14:42

That's nice for you and your team, Datsun but the OP has stated that in her place of work the teachers have form for "horsing" all the good stuff before the support staff even get to their break, so that wouldn't work in her place.

KoalaDownUnder · 10/01/2016 14:46

Yes, I don't really understand the focus on 'separate treats for the support staff' being 'bad leadership'.

Obviously, the chocolates were specifically addressed to the support staff because of exactly this problem - that otherwise the teachers have their break first and hog everything!

StealthPolarBear · 10/01/2016 14:47

Can someone please explain how you accidentally unwrap a present that's not meant for you?

StealthPolarBear · 10/01/2016 14:49

Presumably until the wrapping paper wad off the teacher didn't know it wsd chocolates
or does she have x ray vision Hmm

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 10/01/2016 14:51

Pick 'em up and shake them? Usually a dead giveaway Grin

Original poster
CaptainCrunch · 10/01/2016 14:51

Yes stealth, I'm kinda wishing it was pickled herrings...or sex toys Grin

OP posts:
KoalaDownUnder · 10/01/2016 14:51

Yeah, nobody opens a card without reading the name on the envelope. That's just ridiculous.

(As someone else said, bet she wouldn't have opened it if it had been addressed to the Head.)

StealthPolarBear · 10/01/2016 14:53

Sex toy was my first thought :o

Natkingcole9 · 10/01/2016 14:53

Notes left in workplaces are so passive aggressive.

StealthPolarBear · 10/01/2016 14:54

It sounds like something ds would have said when he was tiny "I just picked it up to look at it and the wrapping paper fell off in my hands"

StealthPolarBear · 10/01/2016 15:12

I wish one of the "mistake" people would explain it!

emotionsecho · 10/01/2016 15:31

I'm wondering if all those saying that notes are passive aggressive are the same people who leave tea bags in the sink, empty milk bottles in the fridge, and general mess and chaos in their wake in shared kitchens.

The whiteboard in this instance is used a communication tool as the two sides of the 'Them and Us' divide don't have breaks together, so it was not unreasonable to use the accepted form of communication between the two groups.

The note left was polite and reasonable.

I imagine the note hit a nerve, particularly the point about sharing, and the reaction of the 'guilty' party was straight out of the "I know I'm in the wrong but I'm going to be defensive and rude because how dare you point out that I am in the wrong" textbook.

Arbitrarily opening things and helping yourself to them without ascertaining who the thing belongs to is breathtakingly rude.

BackforGood apart from being a bit Hmm at your anyone who needs sugar to dip into comment I'm guessing the items were already opened not wrapped up as a present with a card attached.

Original poster
CaptainCrunch · 10/01/2016 15:39

Thanks everyone. It seems the biggest crime you can commit on Mumsnet (well AIBU anyway) is being "passive aggressive". Never mind what precipitated the perceived "PA" behaviour, you're automatically a twat for raising an issue that is causing a problem.

I have worked with genuinely PA people and know full well that the definition is simply not understood and is used as an umbrella term for pretty much any communication that doesn't sit right with someone else.

My note wasn't PA, it said exactly what we wanted it to say. it was polite, it was factual.

However, on this thread I have been called a twat, a whinger, a moaner, petty and "not a professional".

Pot and kettle eh?

OP posts:
HowBadIsThisPlease · 10/01/2016 15:45

"It is kept alive mainly by the people who DON'T spend hours reading compositions each night. Priorities, you know."

This is one of the most ironically unselfaware posts I have ever read! I am willing to bet £6,000,000 that this person's pompous, snotty, teacher-martyr attitude has an awful lot to do with the teacher / support staff divide in that particular school.

You lot just don't see it, do you?

this goes back to my post above: you're all saying "oh yes we deplore the divide" when what you actually mean is "we deplore the fact that they don't seem to know their inferior place and accept it without complaining"

fastdaytears · 10/01/2016 15:46

not a professional to be fair the PP who said that was commenting on your job in a factual manner. I don't think it was anything to do with you.

twat I can quite see that you might take a bit personally.

I really think this comes down to different working cultures. I haven't worked anywhere where these sort of messages are tolerated and a lot of people can't see an issue at all. So there's no right answer.

There seems to be a lot wrong with this school though and you will struggle to work with this teacher for a bit for sure. From what people are saying, there are schools out there with much healthier cultures and I'd be finding one of those.