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?