to be upset with my colleague?

[Meluzyna]

I'm a teacher in a Secondary shcool and I don't have my own room..... I move from classroom to classroom all day. Some of the other staff who teach my subject are allocated rooms in which they spend most of the day, but because i work part time I don't merit a room of my own.
These days we use overhead projectors with the computer at the teacher's desk as a matter of course;... and we use USB sticks for our documents.
Knowing that I am likely to forget to remove my USB stick and leave it in "someone else's" classroom all the ones I use at school are clearly labelled with my name.
On Monday I forgot a USB with all my schoolwork on it in someone else's classroom. The school was closed before I realised.
I don't go in on Tuesdays or Wednesdays - part time, as I said.
So today I went in expecting either to find the USB in my pigeonhole - this is what colleagues usualy do with it when they find one whose owner they can identify - or still in the computer where i'd left it.
It wasn't in either place and when I asked the colleague whose room it was she said "oh, yes, I took it out of the machine to put my USB stick in - and left it on the table there". Of course it is nowhere to be found. The pupils wouldn't help themselves to something that was attached to the computer, but anything else that's not glued or screwed down will "walk".
My POV is that she became responsible for the USB stick when she moved it - and should therefore have taken care of it until she could put it in my pigeonhole or give it back to me. I work on a "do as you would be done by" attitude - and regularly go out of my way to make sure that colleagues (and even pupils, on occasion) are reunited with their stuff if I happen upon it when I arrive in a classroom.
AIBU to think that she should either have left it exactly where she found it (i.e. in the computer, even if that meant putting it back there when she removed her own) or have taken care of it by putting it in her own pencil case until such time as she could return it to me?
There was a lot of stuff on that USB - of course I have a back up, but I don't like the thought of pupils going through it all - especially as it has my name on it!

YABU.

If one of your students said they'd lost their homework but it was their friend's fault for not handing it in, would you agree?

YABU. If you keep forgetting your USB stick then you need to come up with another way to take your work into the classrooms. No good blaming.

AnUtter

Maybe, on this occasion, she was busy.

Yabu

I don't think YABU. You would never win an argument about it with the person in question as you were the one who forgot the USB but leaving it on a desk in a school is just lazy and stupid. It would have been easy to either keep hold of it or put it in your pigeon hole.

Senior leader here - also teach in various rooms as a result of lower timetable.

It's absolutely your responsibility to look after your own stuff.

Try a hard-drive, over a pen. Larger, so easier to remember. Small enough to carry round.

Forget about whose fault it was (yours) - does this USB stick have confidential information on it? How bad are we talking if one of the pupils has it and investigates the content? Do you need to be talking to someone more senior at school about this?

So you forgot your USB and school work, didn't make an attempt to go in the next day or even contact the person or school....and it's her fault it's gone missing because she didn't look after it properly?

Even though you clearly don't look after it properly?

Yabu

You need Google Drive. We use it at school. Impossible to lose anything.

I'm a teacher too. We haven't used USBs for years and our LA bans their use anyway if they are not encrypted.

Even if it was just planning on there, does it identify children at all? Are SEND children named on your planning? Are there photos of children on there? You definitely should discuss this with your manager.

We have a shared drive which we can also access remotely. Much better.

YABU
Sorry but it's not her job to run around looking after your possessions. It's yours.

It would have been such a small thing for the colleague to put the stick somewhere safe. Really uncaring colleague

Right, so despite being careless and leaving the USB behind in the first place, it's your colleagues fault it is now lost?!

Sorry, you are being very unreasonable, your logic is ridiculous!

Take more care when leaving a classroom to make sure you have everything, and this shouldn't happen again.

Report any data loss to the head if it contains anything sensitive.

Spandex

Maybe.

What you can say with certainty is that it's a small thing for the OP to have ensured the whereabouts of her won property, given that the implications for her are more negative than they are for the other teacher

own proprerty

It would have been such a small thing for the colleague to put the stick somewhere safe. Really uncaring colleague

It would also have a been a small thing for the OP to remember her property or contact someone while she was off.

It may not be a big thing. But it's not like she did it on purpose. She took the ops out and put her own in. And forgot about the OPs memory stick....like the OP did.

Thing is Op, you seem to be quite shruggy shoulders about the fact USB sticks are easily forgotten and misplaced. You talk as if it's inevitable. You're cutting yourself a lot of slack there, why are you not cutting the same amount of slack for your colleague? She took it out and probably forgot all about it. As did you.

I would also argue that if remembering your USB stick is an acknowledged problem for you then simply labelling it and expecting everyone to return it to you isn't a great solution. You should have taken greater ownership of the problem and found a system where your property /documents weren't going to be forgotten in the first place.

Unencrypted USB with pupil info on it? Data protection breach in the making. Use school authorised Cloud storage.

Another teacher saying it's your own fault. I'm forever putting stuff down and forgetting to pick it up but that's nothing to do with anyone else but me!

Losing work/ a USB is a nightmare but your property is your responsibility. If I'd left my USB there, I'd have gone back to it despite not being in work on that day. The work of spent hours and hours on is too important to lose. Failing that, call the school and ask them to keep it at reception for you. You need a new system.

All those suggesting cloud / Google drive - sensitive data shouldn't be stored there.

Susceptible to hacking.

Not her responsibility I'm afraid but it would have been helfpul of her to put it in your dookit. She maybe thought you'd just come back for it.

I used to have to move about rooms. I got one of those brightly coloured stretchy coil keyrings and attached it to my usb. I never forgot it because you couldn't miss it when you glanced round the desk before leaving!