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?

[schokolade]

Well I think YANBU op. And the note was polite. Even if it wasn't, I'd expect a twatty note if I'd acted like a twat.

[FruStefanOla]

Well, if a teacher can't read the difference between the wording 'To Support Staff' and 'To All Staff' maybe she needs to go back to school ...........?!

"Fight over chocolates.... like you are damn poor not to get yourself more...". Don't be daft, peppielillyan, this isn't about the damn chocolates.

[derxa]

Thank God I don't have to work as a teacher in schools like yours OP.
The problem is poor communication and lack of respect. The whiteboard note was guaranteed to put people's backs up. Do you not have TA meetings with the head?

[ohtheholidays]

She was in the wrong and she knew it,didn't see who they were for I call Bullshit.

She's just had a go because she didn't want to be pulled up on her crappy behaviour and taking things from other people's pigeon holes without consent is theft!

I've worked in a few different schools and Nurserys and I never saw that kind of behaviour,it must make for an uncomfortable work environment.Is the Head aware of what's been going on OP?

[noblegiraffe]

Someone left a note on my car once asking me to park elsewhere as I was causing an issue for their disabled father.

I was so cross when I read the note. I couldn't believe how cross I felt, it was really irrational. I hadn't meant to cause any issues, I had to park somewhere because there wasn't enough parking at my workplace, I really resented being told off by note. I wanted to deliberately continue parking in an annoying fashion just to piss them off and show them that they couldn't order me around. How dare they leave me a note, how passive-aggressive.

Thankfully, I managed to get a grip, and have avoided parking there since. I have thought about it and decided that I was mortified to have caused problems for somone, and because I felt bad I was cross at the person who had made me feel bad as a defence mechanism.

The teacher is being irrational, but I understand her behaviour!

[clam]

At least the chocolates made it to the staffroom. We saw several boxes of posh chocolate biscuits piled up in the office during the last week of term, labelled "To the Staff" from various appreciative parents.

We've never seen them yet, despite muggins someone being sent in to ask if we could please have one.

[fastdaytears]

God this would have annoyed me so much. Notes on the whiteboard? Really? There must have been an opportunity to actually talk about this like adults?

I've never worked anywhere where it is considered ok to leave PA notes. I've also never worked anywhere where chocolates aren't fair game though.

The relationship with your class teacher will take a lot of fixing by the sounds of it.

[Chewbecca]

Is it normal for chocolates in a shared area to be for only some of the people using the area?

All the chocs in my office are for anyone passing, it would be weird to be for one group only and I wouldn't expect to find any notes on them limiting them to one group only.

And I'd be really shocked to be 'told off' for not reading a label on a box of sweets I'd grabbed one from.

Having said that, the way the teacher responded was not very nice, however, I suspect she was rather peeved at the telling off.

You played a big part in widening the divide and continuing the pettiness in the staff room, sorry.

[fastdaytears]

So I don't work in a school and I think it would drive me crazy by the sounds of it. I assume the OP is a TA of some description? Is the class teacher her supervisor or are TA's line managed by a head of department or something?

[HowBadIsThisPlease]

I think that one of the things here is that the chocolates were not just chocolate, but a message. It was a gesture of appreciation to a particular group and the group should have received it intact. It's not just the chocolate that was defiled, but the message "HT respects and appreciates you and wishes you a happy christmas" or whatever.

I have been in situations at work where there is a "divide" that supposedly everyone deplores but when it comes down to it, it is not a symmetrical situation. Group A is expecting subservience from Group B; Group B is expecting basic respect from Group A. This means that there will always be miscommunication because Group B will always be felt to be in the wrong by Group A unless they lie down and lick their boots.

This is usually handled wrongly by management who address the whole group together in general terms about "getting on and communicating a bit better" when really, they either need to take Group A aside and take them down a peg or two; or, take Group B aside and tell them their role is actually to suck up whatever crap group A dishes out. When you address group a and group b together in general terms about being "friendly and reasonable" you get nowhere, because they both already think they are.

I don't think the note on the board is the problem. I think you have a situation here where every attempt to communicate about gestures of disrespect will be useless: EITHER because they are so gentle they can safely be ignored ("hey guys it would have been nice to open these ourselves, but never mind now" - tumbleweed - completely unheard - no one gives a shit) OR because it will be considered outrageous, uppity, a sledgehammer to crack a nut, how very dare they, etc (like the very clear and unmissable note on the board)

Move schools.

[clam]

On Cake Friday, my TA is on duty and has her break after everyone else. I always save her something and put it to one side.

A TA/Teacher divide is not always the case.

[HowBadIsThisPlease]

"I am a teacher.
Half the time I don't even manage a break. My head is so full of 'the next lesson' that I can see quite easily how the teacher missed the note. "

Yep I am pretty sure there is an element of teacher-martyrdom in this dynamic. I know teachers work hard but for gods sake don't they make sure we all know it. It doesn't excuse pinching people's stuff. It's not like no one else works hard. Seriously no one works so hard that they don't have time to read an envelope with two or three words on it. If you don't have time for that, you don't have time to open it. It's basic courtesy; it's appalling that people are defending this grabby or sloppy attitude to other people's presents. Not just stuff - presents - with all the emotional freight involved.


"Myself and my support assistant joke about this. Our communication is great"
I'm glad about this and I'm sure that you and she have both made a real effort to achieve this situation

If OP or a support-staff-colleague had opened their own present, they would then have been in a positino to offer them around. That would have been a nice thing to do and could have resulted in some nice feeling, and bonding, however momentary. The damage caused by cracking into them goes deeper than just taking the chocolate - it also disempowers them from the position of having leadership and agency to change the actual relationship. It's just all round shit.

[BlackeyedShepherdsbringsheep]

a group of people got their stuff stolen (again) by someone so they wrote a note.

problem is with the people nicking the stuff not the note writers who are understandably pissed off. the people taking all the best stuff before the other group can get a look in. the people taking the personal stuff of other people.

[jollygoose]

you have my sympathy op both for your siuation and for the way some other posters have responded. I should imagine that the teacher in question is of the kind that does not enjoy being pulled up on any wrong doings and has decided that attack is the best form of defence.

[emotionsecho]

LalaLyra I can well believe your post the way some people behave around 'free' food makes me cringe you'd think they'd never been fed, all about them and their wants and sod anyone else.

[BalloonSlayer]

Schools are often like this. In one where I worked, the teachers all sat in one area in the staff room, the TAs in another, the cover supervisors in yet another. There was nothing unfriendly about this, no one would have minded if someone sat somewhere else but you generally sat with your team because break and lunch were the only time you had to discuss issues or certain students.

Treats would be put on the table in each area but you wouldn't take any from the table in another area without invitation. If you said "ooh those look nice," they'd be handed to you but you just wouldn't come over and dig in without being invited to. It would be rude.

However it seemed that this unwritten protocol went out of the window outside of break and lunch. Treats that had been were left out on "our" table - and believe you me EVERYONE knew it was "our" table - often disappeared between break and lunch or after school. I once brought in some chocolates as it was my birthday and they didn't all get eaten. I didn't bother to bring in a snack the next day as I knew there were plenty of chocolates left . . . next morning they had all bloody well gone! Cheek! In the end we got a locker and would stick them in there.

I worked in an FE college too where the same thing happened, we were in the admin office and would come in to find all our chocolates eaten.

[HowBadIsThisPlease]

Yep Blackeyed. I think it's a teacher thing.

Teachers need to do leadership, they need to control people day in, day out - this requires a certain sort of personality. They are also overworked and really busy. they are also committed to a job that is bigger than themselves and I'm guessing that when it's shit they have to hang onto that sort of ethical vocational feeling and that can very easily start to rub dangerously close to a sense of superiority.

Also - they work in schools. Schools are places that specifically have to take active steps to stop tribal shit developing. Schools are horrific for tribal shit unless everyone is shit hot focused on nipping it in the bud 25 hours a day. We've all been to school; we all know this.

Put all this together - high pressure, prone to bossiness, prone to feeling superior, the shitty tribal nature of schools - and then, put a lot of them all together - and you are in danger of a dynamic where they are honestly sincerely outraged that they can ever be criticised, however gently and reasonably, especially by "civilians" (any sloppy fool who isn't a teacher).

Teachers. you've got to watch them. School management should know this.

[Narp]

My school is nothing like this, but I know what some of you say is true and I am thankful that I have a different experience. School is stressful enough without this shit.

[StealthPolarBear]

Chewbecca I assume they were wrapped with the card (taped?) To them. Agree if they were just a box of chocs with maybe a posy it note then that's different. That said they were on a chair. We have set areas in our workplace where we leave stuff to share. If we leave stuff anywhere else and we want others to use it (milk in fridge eg) we leave a note.

[ToadsforJustice]

The HT left 2 boxes of chocolates and a card quite clearly marked for the Support Staff.

A teacher, probably with exceptional reading and "attention to detail" skills decided to open, share and eat the chocolates, even though they were not her property and then get arsey when confronted with the evidence.

OP - YANBU.

[Narp]

HowBad

Please can you provide an analysis of Teabag In Sink Syndrome. Grown adults, messy as teenagers

[StealthPolarBear]

Although I think the chances of someone who works in a school having access to a post it note are slim. ..

[HowBadIsThisPlease]

Narp I would love to provide an analysis of teabag in sink syndrome. I have sinusitis and it's making me miserable and that's just the sort of thing I'm looking for to take my mind off it! I assume you are being sarcastic but if not, I need more information ;)

[Johnny5isAlive]

fastdaytears but the note was not PA in any way. It was direct and to the point

[decisionsdecisions123]

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!