To be mildly irritated by most tiring job ever?

[brasty]

A friend who is a teacher has been saying how exhausted she is, and that only other teachers would understand. She is not joking. AIBU to be mildly irritated by this? Yes teachers do a hard job, but there are other jobs that are also exhausting.

It's funny because on Facebook I'm friends with doctors, nurses, teachers, barristers, bankers & accountants, but the only ones that really moan about their job are teachers!! For days they moan about every ofsted or parents evening! Teachers always think they have the hardest job in the world, but I think the majority couldn't hack the real world.

I don't think I ever moaned about my job on Facebook when I was teaching, but funnily enough the nurses I knew moaned constantly... Almost like neither of us knew I representative sample!

This teacher could the "real worlds" of finance (before teaching) and self-employment (after teaching). Neither of those roles seemed as demanding as teaching, but what do I know - I spent a decade imagining that educating and pastoring the next generation was very much part of the real world, making a real impact on real lives, whereas you know better.

Graphista I wasn't suggesting my pfb was any kind of surgical speciality, just using it as a routine example of being a surgeon and how hard they work. Incidentally the nurses work harder imo

Sorry, autocorrect:
neither of us knew a representative sample.
This teacher could hack the real worlds

Seems this ex teacher can't hack iPad autocorrect tonight!

Ah fuck no need for a pissin contest.

I appreciate the REAL job of teachers. Thank fuck for them, god knows I couldn't teach my DCs.

And I appreciate parents of children with SN who care for them too - it's relentless, exhausting and lonely work.

No one wins in conversations like this.

DH is a teacher and it is an exhausting job. However I am a solicitor and my job is exhausting too. We don't compare, just agree that work is hard work.

I am the daughter and sister of a teacher, in fact most of my family teach and they certainly would have you believe that teaching is the hardest job i the world. Thats sort of what teachers do!

From your OP, it doesn't sound as though your friend was dismissing other jobs, merely saying that only teachers understand that kind of mental tiredness you get from being 100% alert and making a thousand tiny decisions a day against a backdrop of constant movement, noise and fidgeting.
The kids are exhausted too. Which means they are grumpy and teary. So every tiny interaction with each of them can become difficult.
Meanwhile you're still trying to deliver the actual curriculum to all of them, and show progress.

Blessyourcottonsocks
Don't really want to get into a game of one upmanship but I work far longer hours than you without the holiday entitlement
Guess most people are sick of the constant whingeing and entitlement from most teachers. We in the private sector have done a lot more for a lot less than you

Teaching is exhausting, yes.

But I've spent an awful lot of time on a geriatric ward recently watching nurses and other HCPs. That is the most exhausting work I can imagine

MommaGee I certainly didn't mean to imply that apologies if that's how I came across.

I just was meaning surgeries can go on for stupid amounts of time.

Jealousy of the holidays is never going to adhere teachers the general public... ever. But i do think I have friends and relatives who are tired/exhausted in all sorts of jobs. My nurse friend now works on a day clinic and lives it compared to a ward. She says its busy but no multi tasking, just one appointmeny after another. My DH and a numbet of his friends are in the building/quarrying/tradesman role and all say it can be lhysical hard graft but you can still have a laugh, chat, slow down when you want, speed up when you want. I, personally, don't moan or whinge or say anything about the holidays. But when non teachers start up about company cars, lunch hours, tax avoidance i do have to bite my tongue.

My job is not demanding at this time of year and I'm in admiration of HCcW in A. & E. Whi are working through the. Night and day in busy circumstances.

Op your friend is BU and should. Count her lucky stars she isn't doing night shift or shift work at all, or dangerous occupations, like police or. Paramedic, firepeoople

My brother is teacher.

He gets three months paid holiday per year. That's a quarter.

I don't know of any other profession that gets that.

Yes teaching is hard but so are loads of other jobs.

I too am sick of the martyrdom of teachers and the bragging as if they are doing the greatest job anyone ever did, ever.

Sorry graphista, overtired from recent hospital stay and 5 hr surgery. I watch Grey's Anatomy, those 24 hour surgeries are crazy! My bladder control would not be up to the job of being a surgeon

It wasn't one upmanship - it was the way you announced that teaching wasn't 'a real job'. As you can read perhaps you can thank a teacher for that. And presumably your education helped you in the magnificent amount you have done in the private sector. Though not with the hugely inflated salary that teachers get, obviously...

He gets three months paid holiday per year

Are we really going down the paid holidays route...?

You're....dexter....it's you're.

Education.

I would hate to be a teacher. I think it looks completely exhausting, especially when you have children yourself. No one likes a whinger though. But if she's just a friend having a rant, surely that's what friends are for? YABU

I can imagine anything on the frontline is stressful and exhausting- nursing, police, firemen - but there is something extra exhausting about the thought of controlling 30 children all day. Especially with all the extra crap they have to put up with now.

I know I couldn't do it - I was practically reaching for the valium after helping out for one day on a day-trip to a farm with the yr2's.

Well it's fine. All you people that cannot see how hard it is to be a teacher, I'm sure your children will all be fine in 5 years time when the current recruitment/retention crisis is 10 times worse than it is now, and your children are being 'taught' by unqualified staff, mostly by watching videos on tablets, or online questions/testing.
The situation in some schools is becoming ridiculous, and it's your children that will suffer.
If you do not value teachers and education, it will be destroyed.

Blessyourcotton......
And therein lies the truth.......

Have you ever given a presentation? Done any public speaking? Now, imagine doing that for several hours a day, 5 days a week, while being responsible for the educational progress and wellbeing of 30 children, filling in data, dealing with parents, keeping up with curriculum changes, exam changes, dealing with management who are often not educationalists, then going home to plan and mark. Then tell me you're not exhausted.

Teachers don't get paid holidays. Our pay is pro-rata across 12 months so we get an equal amount each month. That's why it is quite low compared to other professional roles.

Firefighters have lots and lots of paid time off. BIL is one and has 19 paid days off in a row after every shift block. He mustn't be exhausted as he has a second job as a self-employed gardener in his time off. I never read about people complaining about their time off on here.

DS1 is a soldier I used to think DH had an exhausting job being an aircraft mechanic in the RAF but it's nothing on DS1's. His regiment is so undermanned he works mega long hours and usually has a 24 hour duty once a week, too.

He's just done another exercise , sleeping outdoors in temperatures as low as -9, getting up every 2 hours through the night to guard the area. All for less than th minimum wage for hours worked.

Whinging? Entitlement? WTF!?

Having experienced a missed miscarriage at the start of the week and yet gone back in to work for the last two days before my surgical mangement op Monday, partly due to making sure my Year 11s get their mocks marked before their tracking reports go out next week and partly because it is difficult to get the time off.

Fuck off with your 'whinging' and 'entitlement'. Mumsnet is on fire tonight with the teacher bashing