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

[CaptainCrunch]

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?

about the fact that there is something wrong with you for not liking your presents pinched! that's nice.
This problem is nothing to do with pinching chocolates!

I have to say CaptainCrunch that if someone opens a pack of biscuits in my office you can almost hear the thundering feet of the social workers haring it down the corridor to us And one of them brought in the booziest Christmas cake imaginable before Christmas, the fumes were enough to get you pissed :)

"So far as the teacher noticed, the card was addressed to all staff. Or are you calling her a liar?..."

But her not noticing is an issue in itself. It means she is presuming that stuff in the staff room is for the teachers, not the support staff. As I said upthread, people notice things which are important to them. So it seems a card specifically from the HT to the support staff is not important enough for her to bother to read it properly. Which says an awful lot about the problems in the school.

?Gabilan? A whole box plus seven chocolates were left. The teachers ate less than half of the chocolates. That does not indicate there was an assumption they were just for the teachers, it indicates an assumption it was a gift for the staff, which in a nicer school where everything was shared properly, it would have been. The headteacher, however, appears to want support staff and teachers to be kept apart and resenting each other at all costs!

"So far as the teacher noticed, the card was addressed to all staff. Or are you calling her a liar?..."

But the reference to support staff was clearly on the envelope and I suspect was repeated in the card. Assuming she isn't a liar, she's extremely arrogant if she opens envelopes without bothering to see who they're addressed to. For all she knew it could have been addressed to one particular named person.

derxa

"This problem is nothing to do with pinching chocolates!"

Really? What do you think it is about?
I think the problem is about pinching chocolates.
If you think it is about a note on a whiteboard, you are taking the status quo view that teachers can do what they like, and support staff can't complain (it is immaterial whether another way of communicating would be better as there is no other way. Whiteboard or suck it up. Anyone is who is anti-whiteboard is pro-suck it up; anyone who thinks the whiteboard is the problem thinks the appropriation of a gift is trivial)

Well since the head is failing to provide proper line management or to facilitate good workplace morale I look forward to an update when the OP has sought the advice of her union and escalated the matter to the governing body.

*If, however, you had casually mentioned that the treats were yours (in a non-combative tone), I would have replaced the chocolates and thought nothing of it

But how is OP supposed to do that, WickedTricksy? She didn't know who had taken the chocolates, and doesn't have the same breaks as the teaching staff. Was she supposed to go to every teacher with that "casual mention" till she found one who was prepared to admit opening the chocolates?*

Yes, it would be ridiculously petty for her to actually approach various teachers to ask who ate her chocolates, but not as petty and childish as posting that horrible message in the staff room.

It really IS just chocolates. I promise that the teacher didn't do it on purpose. The issue with support staff at my school is that they notice petty things and discuss/gossip about them endlessly among themselves, whereas the people they are gossiping about have a massive amount of work to do and truly do not notice or have time for issues such as chocolate thievery. There is no slight involved: did this happen before the break? Do you realize how busy teachers are in that time period?

It is fashionable to pretend that the teaching job and the support job are equally rigorous, but this is just not the case. Support staff don't plan lessons, and they don't spend hours of time marking compositions each night (though they do congregate to gossip about stolen sweets). Yes, support staff work hard, but it is a different kind of work, and they don't take their work home with them each evening. It rankles when I overhear support staff complaining that teachers "don't have to" do playground duty, etc. because they really do not understand how much more the teacher is actually doing. I am too busy at work to notice or care about something so trivial as a box of chocolates, and so are my colleagues in my department. If one of us had accidentally opened the chocolates, we would have replaced them, forgotten about them, and gone back to reading the mound of essays about Byron and the politics of disembodiment. If someone is stamping their feet in the corner during this time, fretting about accidentally eaten chocolates, their tantrum is going to be largely unnoticed by the people who are working. My supervisor and I would be highly irritated if this person wasted our time complaining about the stolen candy. Really.

Putting in writing the real grievances behind chocolate-gate would be a better use of written communication... if anyone dares!

I agree. As lots of posters have pointed out, the underlying issue here is the workplace culture. One group of colleagues (some of the teachers) thinks it's OK to behave disrespectfully to another group (all support staff) and the head fails to call them out and insist on proper respect. Over time, this has led to an unhelpful divide between support and teaching staff which affects everyone, which involves self-perpetuating practices such as no whole-staff meetings or other opportunities for communication, and creates a context in which anything left in the staffroom is seen (by teachers, perhaps without realising it) as teachers' property. As the head is part of the problem it's difficult to know how to tackle it, and indeed might be impossible without very serious unpleasantness, such as written complaints eventually escalating to the LA or whoever else it is in charge of headteachers. Most of us don't want unpleasantness of that sort in our working lives, we just want to get on with our jobs. So it goes unchallenged.

I still think a face-to-face conversation with the CT should be possible. You're both caught up in a culture not of your making or choice, and with goodwill on both sides it should be possible to sort out your own parts in the chocolate affair so that the actual matter of the chocolates doesn't go on rankling.

The wider issue of the school culture is beyond both of you, and you've already said you're looking for another job which sounds like the best long-term solution in the circumstances. It still leaves you needing to get along with the CT until you leave, which is why even though it's hard, I think you should talk to her. Or simply decide not to let it get to you.

Not too damn busy to open a gift and start munching chocolates are they? ? Just too busy to glance at an envelope.

Exactly who are you to promise wicked, your post is breathtakingly arrogant and presumptuous. People like you give teachers a bad name.

Maybe the teacher needs to work on her multi tasking. The ability to glance at something whilst picking it up would seem hugely helpful to her, save all that time for work

..and wicked you are having a laugh if you think teachers don't gossip or moan because they're "too busy", ime they do little else.

..and please explain what was "horrible" about my message, seriously you sound unhinged.

if you think teachers don't gossip or moan because they're "too busy", ime they do little else

Really? Do you really think that the teachers in your school spend the vast majority of their time gossiping and moaning?

...and if you're so busy with marking Byron how come you're writing essays on mumsnet

you sound unhinged

Isn't that a bit unpleasant?

If you have breaks at different times and don't have time to talk to them I don't see how you'd know how much gossiping and moaning they do.

Well it seems as though teachers can get away with huge errors of judgment because they're busy.

You've no interest in what I have to say betty, you're a sad little keyboard warrior determined to get the last pathetic goady post in, shame for you

I've worked there for 8 years with a variety of different classes, this is how I know they gossip and moan, it's not rocket science.

In that case I'm sure you'll be escalating your head teacher's leadership shortcomings to the correct quarters if there's no improvement. I'm surprised you haven't already done so.

Sooty this is all easier said than done.

Yes stealth. People seem to think reporting your boss is as easy as falling off a log with no consequences or reprisals for the person reporting, some people on here live in a world of their own.

Wicked you said I am too busy at work to notice or care about something so trivial as a box of chocolates too busy to eat them as well?

The teacher in this case had the time to open the card, scrunch up the envelope, stand the card by the chocolates, unwrap and open a box of chocolates, eat them and offer them to the other staff and in all that time hadn't the time or wit to read the envelope or card to ascertain who the actual gift was for?